Wes and I got out with a buddy of mine, to a very popular lake that we’ve never really done well on but my friend grew up fishing.  We got to see areas we’d never been, and learned a lot about the lake and how it’s fished over the years (it ain’t what is used to be, apparently, now that’s it’s a heavily pressured tournament lake).   We spent over an hour working pads and slop with a frog and a weightless fluke, with not even a sniff.  So we switched gears and went to a weedy rock point that slopes off sharply to 15ft. of water where the weeds taper off.  We were on fish immediately, catching probably 20 in less than an hour.  Nothing big, all about 1.5-2.5# but I was catching smallmouth off one side of the boat, Wes and my buddy catching largemouth off the other - very cool.  Wes caught a couple on a bladed jig, then he and my buddy caught several on a 10” Power Worm, but I did some real damage on a drop shot with a black Berkley max scent worm.  We held four for a photo opp, then released them in the same spot.  A good afternoon, and a great start to Wes’ plan… that we’re fishing all weekend. 🙂

1 hour ago, The Baron said:

Wes and I got out with a buddy of mine, to a very popular lake that we’ve never really done well on but my friend grew up fishing.  We got to see areas we’d never been, and learned a lot about the lake and how it’s fished over the years (it ain’t what is used to be, apparently, not that’s it’s a heavily pressured tournament lake).   We spent over an hour working pads and slop with a frog and a weightless fluke, with not even a sniff.  So we switched gears and went to a weedy rock point that slopes off sharply to 15ft. of water where the weeds taper off.  We were on fish immediately, catching probably 20 in less than an hour.  Nothing big, all about 1.5-2.5# but I was catching smallmouth off one side of the boat, Wes and my buddy catching largemouth off the other - very cool.  Wes caught a couple on a bladed jig, then he and my buddy caught several on a 10” Power Worm, but I did some real damage on a drop shot with a black Berkley max scent worm.  We held four for a photo opp, then released them in the same spot.  A good afternoon, and a great start to Wes’ plan… that we’re fishing all weekend. 🙂

I've spent most of my life fishing,

the rest I just wasted.

Got a few at the church pond. These were the best ones…

Looks like I am gonna have to start going to church with ya!

 

And LottaBass, I love your quote! "I've spent most of my life fishing, the rest I just wasted."

Way to angle, Al, Mike, and Andrew. How cool for you to locate lots of bass after starting with a skunk, @The Baron!

46 minutes ago, FloridaFishinFool said:

Looks like I am gonna have to start going to church with ya!

 

And LottaBass, I love your quote! "I've spent most of my life fishing, the rest I just wasted."

Thank you!

A friend asked me, "How old are you?"

I replied, "75".

He asked, "Have you been fishing all your life?"

i said, "Not yet".

 

I just returned from Canada where I spent the week fishing the McGregor Bay Area of Lake Huron with my dad and younger brother.

 

We had a pretty good trip, especially my brother who is brand new to bass fishing.  
Beginner's luck or maybe he just hasn’t developed any bad habits yet.  

 

Last year it was very much a finesse game, as Tubes, Neds, and Drop Shot account for the vast majority of my fish.  This time it was the opposite, most of my fish were caught with the vibrating jig or cranking depending on the cover.  I did manage to pick off a few fish with finesse jigs but that ended up being a tiny percentage of my fish overall.  My brother caught most of his on a tube, while my dad threw the Spinnerbait and nothing but the spinner bait.

 

Anyways, here are some of the highlights.

Dad and my brother with their respective best fish.  A 5+ LMB for Pops and a 4lb Smallie for lil’ Bro.

 

 

Obligatory Pike pics

early morning fish were digging the 2.5 mayor today

Multi species top water fun

"best" of 5 from a quick walk down the bank with the mayor

Solid one to wrap up the morning

@bp_fowler: Gosh, I miss Canada. At least you and your clan were there!

Day two of Wes’ plan to make his old man fish three days in a row.🤪

 

We took a buddy of his out on Lake Ontario, looking for big smallies.  We don’t know this huge lake, and being a near flat calm morning we had an overwhelming choice of guesses.  First spot wasn’t what I thought, we weren’t there long before I picked an area of 8-12ft. deep shoal to try.  I had a follower on my first cast with an underspin, then we landed three in probably 1/2 hour - 2.2, 2.4 and 3.1-ish with the boys both using a black 6th Sense Party Minnow on a dropshot, mine (the 3#) came on a 1/6oz. XZone tungsten Ned head and ZMan TRD in goby colour.  Wes lost probably a 4# after a great fight, then that was it… crickets.  We saw a few others but they wouldn’t bite - seemed like they shutoff.   We went looking for more spots to try, and it seemed there was a bass boat on every shoal, hump or flat that I saw on the map. I was told the Lake O. monsters are getting heavily pressured, which I didn’t think was possible but seems it is.  Most boats had a guy or two at the front, staring at a screen. 😕

 

So, a great start and a long drag between that and the bunch of 1-1.5# we caught at our reliable small fish spot… which the scopers either don’t know about, or they just have higher standards. 😝

 

Last note, Wes’ buddy didn’t own a spinning setup and asked for advice on a drop shot/ned setup.  I took him to our favourite shop and we set him up with a Diawa Legalis 2500 and Diawa Procyon 7’3” ML rod.  In his budget, and he was very happy with his first few fish on it - I do believe the Diawa reels, especially, offer great value at the lower-mid price range.

 

EDIT:  Day three is cancelled due to rain and high winds forecast as a cold front moves in.  We desperately need the rain.

 

Caught this little guy today and then right after caught the spiny soft shell turtle. I am

so bummed about the turtle. I didn’t know what to do. I’m pretty sure he will be dead by the morning. 

Went fishing for a while this morning, caught some smallies and a flathead catfish 

 

Got a few on Roosevelt this morning, pretty tough bite today - very sluggish short strikes with a storm coming in. Picked up a 3 lb on a Choppo, then switched to plastics as the sun came up. 
 

The kid keeps fishing (without me) and keeps catching. He caught two over four pounds this morning. Here they are:

 

 

Go, kid, go!

You have quite the protégé there, Good for him, and good on you.

3 minutes ago, Kirtley Howe said:

You have quite the protégé there, Good for him, and good on you.

 

He's a natural, aided by the fearlessness of youth. I'll see him try the oddest things because he's not encumbered by what he's supposed to do. He can be creative in ways that we old farts can't...anymore. 

 

 

4 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

He's a natural, aided by the fearlessness of youth. I'll see him try the oddest things because he's not encumbered by what he's supposed to do. He can be creative in ways that we old farts can't...anymore. 

Sometimes ignorance is bliss....or at least the source for creativity.  And that is not a bad thing.

Meet the skunkbeater. I boated one bass. One. Did hook another but it threw the hook at the boat. Both on a green pumpkin lizard TR. 

 

Had a hellacious thunderstorm yesterday. Raised the water level about 3”. Might have washed a lot of easy pickin’s into the water and they were full. Very slow. Hot as Hades, too. 

 

FWIW, the kid and I fished last Tuesday morning and caught five bass like the ones pictured above. Since then, he's caught another three with his dad. All eight of these bass over four pounds were caught at drop-offs where the bottom dropped from 2-3 feet to eight feet. So, when I return to the water, guess where I'll be fishing? There's a sudden drop-off on the shoreline above, but we also had luck fishing a drop-off that plunged quite a ways from the shoreline. I found the off-shore drop-off by continually jabbing my paddle into the water until I couldn't feel the bottom anymore. This might be a little too high-tech for most of you guys.

 

All were caught in low light conditions, i.e. morning or evening. I'm guessing the bass were staging preparing to go shallow to feed (evening) or returning from nighttime, shallow water feeding before the dinosaurs could attack.

 

I share because this Maine pattern might work for you too.

7 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

The kid keeps fishing (without me) and keeps catching. He caught two over four pounds this morning. Here they are:

 

 

Go, kid, go!

I love that you show the kid, but do not put his face out there. I try and do the same with my grandbaby…

 

that bottom fish sure is a bucket mouth!!

6 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

. I found the off-shore drop-off by continually jabbing my paddle into the water until I couldn't feel the bottom anymore. This might be a little too high-tech for most of you guys

 

 

(don't tell anyone, but I do that sometimes too!)

7 hours ago, MIbassyaker said:

 

(don't tell anyone, but I do that sometimes too!)

@Swamp GirlI found the off-shore drop-off by continually jabbing my paddle into the water until I couldn't feel the bottom anymore. This might be a little too high-tech for most of you guys.

 

These are signs of a great angler. Many people see only the top of the water, a good angler sees what is under the water.  A good analogy is from my Dad, who was a good mechanic.  He would raise the hood of a truck and ask me what I see.  I described the outside of the engine.  Although not visible, he could "see" the inside of the engine because he knew what was there and how it worked.

 

9 hours ago, MIbassyaker said:

(don't tell anyone, but I do that sometimes too!)

 

It's our secret. 

 

1 hour ago, Lottabass said:

These are signs of a great angler.

 

I once fished muskies with a great angler. The week we fished, he caught THREE that were over 50". My biggest was only 48", which in the world of muskies, is about a mile shorter than a 50-incher. In the world of bass, that's equivalent to three DDs in a week...without FFS. One evening, we circled an underwater hump and he kept describing how the hump was changing. He was like your father, looking inside the engine.

 

If I'm fishing mid-day, I spend a lot of time looking at the bottom. The ponds I fish are shallow enough (only ten feet at their deepest) and clear enough to allow me to see the bottom. So, I'm always looking and filing what I see. I try to be like that musky master. I don't have his brilliant fish-catching, detail-remembering brain, but I try.