Did a midday float today and it was nice. Gusty NE winds, but that direction has been good to me this summer. Didn’t set the world on fire but managed 8 keepers and probably a half dozen dinkers(they made a comeback!) overall less fish kicked out, but they could be around the next bend. Size wasn’t bad, but no big fish. Believe I had an 18-18.5” for big fish, but mostly thickening 15-16” with maybe a 17 in there. Small baits were best with 4” senkos and 1/8oz bitsy bugs being best. I also caught a fish on a Texas-rigged roboworm. Jigs were cold until I changed from a finesse trailer to a 3”ish stick worm trailer which had action. I always enjoy when your experience and intuition detect a bite before your brain believes it lol

 

I was off last week.  Didn’t fish nearly as much as I thought I would, I’m finding that fishing every other day is good for me.  Partly because I’m slowing down, partly because the fishing was mediocre last week.  Tuesday was an absolute pike fest - we couldn’t avoid them.  Only caught a few 1.5-2.5# bass, but probably 30+ pike on a back lake, most 2-4#, one about 7-8#.  I missed a couple days, then was out on Lake Ontario with a buddy Friday.  It was slow, I caught a few and had a few followers.  Later in the day we saw a few nice ones in 3-4ft of water (visibility is 10-12ft.) but they wouldn’t bite anything.  Just a slow day, but a couple pretty ones.

1 hour ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

 

Why are you done for 2025, Bird?

Misses Swamp,

I burn a lot of wood and have to devote quite a bit of time cutting and I'm an avid deer hunter so there goes the entire month of November.

I'll still be on here to see if you reach your goal. 👍

Bird, I wish you were my neighbor. I have so many massive oak trees on my property on the ground. I'd love to have you use them.

 

To reach my goal, I really need to fish a bog, but my anemia makes that hard as bog fishing requires energy. I am planning to fish my pal's pond tomorrow afternoon and it can produce good numbers...and good-sized bass.

 

Jon, it's good to see photos of where you fish. I almost took a couple pics of my pond the other morning because she's strutting her colors right now, but I've taken and posted so many pretty pics over the years. 

I'm at 1,312 bass in 2025 after fishing my pond for 80 minutes just now.  The wind was 13 mph from the north and the high temp today was 59 degrees. Given the conditions, I would have been happy with one or two bass, but I caught five bass. The first:

 

 

The biggest:

 

 

I put the biggest on the bump board so you could see her thickness. Lots of muscle and she used it all in our fight, taking line like a big pike:

 

 

I'm fishing my pal's pond tomorrow afternoon and hope to catch at least 20 with one or more 19-inchers.

2 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

I'm at 1,312 bass in 2025 after fishing my pond for 80 minutes just now.  The wind was 13 mph from the north and the high temp today was 59 degrees. I would have been happy with one or two bass, but I caught five bass. The first:

 

 

The biggest:

 

 

I put the biggest on the bump board so you could see her thickness. Lots of muscle and she used it all in our fight, taking line like a big pike:

 

 

I'm fishing my pal's pond tomorrow afternoon and hope to catch at least 20 with one or more 19-inchers.

 

Here are two of the pics after editing them, making my pond look like the Caribbean and my bump board look like a daffodil:

 

I decided to make a last minute kayak run and it was a good idea. For some reason, I was feeling it before I even launched. I looked at the river and thought “feel like they’re gonna go today” and they did pretty well. Didn’t pound town, but 10 keepers and 2 dinks was accepted gladly. Size was very good today and some fish are REALLY starting to pork out. Trying to bass fish while I can; not sure how long I’ve got. I’m gonna keep at them until they’re gone
 

Before the warmup, there had been movement of perch and sucker minnows (perfect 3-4” size) but it had petered out with the warm weather. Today I noticed schools of perch filtering through here and there, and those largemouth took full notice. Senkos were best, 4” texas-rigged/weightless. I finally had a day where the twitch was what they wanted. Likely a bite day and the presence of prey caused this, but I love doing a smooth pop-pop…fall, pop-pop…fall, pop-pop…thunk and the line starts running! Took the spinning rods today in case the wind was difficult 

 

Decided to go deeper into the AEP this morning.  Took a bit of risk trying to fish new water this late in the year, not to mention trying to find a pond I’ve never been to in the dark.  
 

Fortunately I scouted out an old service road that took me right to the waters edge.  I went back for my canoe and then a third time to grab my gear.  

 

All that work was for very little pay off as all I could catch were a bunch of dinks this size.  

Since it was light out now I pushed further into the woods to another pond I had spotted on Google earth.  That one was a little bit better as I caught two slightly larger fish but still plenty o’dinks.  

 
I lost what felt like two decent fish as well both my fault, broke my leader knot on the first and was waaaay late on the hookset on the other.

 

Didn't need a clicker today.  I ain't the sharpest stick in the bunch but I can count to 6 without help!

All came on dynamite in Sexy Shad.

Just kiddin'...

On 9/30/2025 at 9:07 AM, Swamp Girl said:

I caught 19 this morning at my pond. The thing about fall mornings is that I'm fishing two hours less than I did in June because the Sun is rising that much later. I got off to a great start because these were my first five, all 17" to 18.25":

 

 

Then the bass shrimpified on me and my next 14 were this size:

 

 

I'm at 1,307 for the year, leaving me 193 short of my target 1,500 in 2025. Al(exander the Great) would call catching 193 bass "my Iowa weekend."

 

They were nearly all relating to the floppy grass and I caught all but two on a T-Rigged Rapala crawdad. 

Ain't nobody catches as many bass as Katie!

 

"Al(exander the Great) would call catching 193 bass "my Iowa weekend."  Thank you, Katie.  You make me blush.

 

1,323 bass for 2025 after catching another 11 at my pal's pond. The solunar app said the fishing today would be poor and it was tough, but I caught a big one. I'd been working a 4.25" walking bait all afternoon without success. I was casting into shallow water at the back of a bay when suddenly a score of shad leapt out of the water and then the girl below crushed my Duo Realis Pencil. She immediately plunged into dying weeds and I spent a half minute clearing weeds from her in my net. I wish my pond grew bass as big as the ones in my pal's pond:

 

 

Here she is on the bump board:

 

 

I caught this bass too with the same lure in the shallow back of the bay:

 

 

And this bass hit the same lure!

 

 

Here are four others I caught:

 

 

177 bass from my goal.

Great trip @Swamp Girl! You know me, I like to see the smallie mixed in 

Just now, TnRiver46 said:

Great trip @Swamp Girl! You know me, I like to see the smallie mixed in 

 

Thanks! The smallies are so beautiful. I caught another one the same size as the one I photographed. The smallies at my pond have always been thick, but not the ones at my pal's pond before this year. The forage base must have increased to account for their greater girth.

 

I'm going to fish hard Saturday through Tuesday as the solunar calendar says that the fishing will be hot. We'll see if the calendar tells the truth!

No pics as I had ran and left my phone at home, but the bass bite was wild this morning. Basically had a bite on every cast for the first 45 minutes or so. Quite a few dinks, 4 keeping size bass, and 1 spit the hook that was probably a 4+ lber. Had a plethora of blow ups besides that. Was fishing off a little island with weed beds to each side and straight ahead was the main lake body. Bass were hitting on every side I could cast to.

Was working near home today around lunchtime, so I stopped by and cast for a few minutes!

watermelon seed speed worm again!

1,325. I scooted to my pond to fish the final hour. My pond runs north/south and I launch from the north shore, so I was at the windy end. The waves made it hard to see cover, but I still managed two and one was chunky.

Made it out tonite for about 1.5 hours. Caught a few good sized fish on a chopo. Snagged a bush on a back cast and blew my reel up lol. So new mono in order for that one. Caught a super dink on a jig. Hooked a good one. Honestly don’t know what it was didn’t act like a bass. Made a real hard run fast parallel to the bank but came off. Interesting for sure. No pics of the outing but was nice to get out! 

Joe, what was it that was ailing for you a bit back? And how's it doing?

21 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

Joe, what was it that was ailing for you a bit back? And how's it doing?

Was my left elbow. Doctor says I have tennis and golf elbow. The rest has definitely helped it a ton. I don’t have to take anti inflammatory every day anymore. And it only hurts if I really strain it instead of constantly lol. Thank you so much for asking 

Haven't been able to do much fishing since September, and thus haven't been on the forums much. But it sure has been a joy scrolling through and seeing all y'all's awesome fish. There's some really beautiful bass in this thread. Thanks everyone for sharing. 

Got this 21 incher in the church pond…

That's a beauty, Mike! I catch an occasional 21-incher, but they're rare this far north.

 

I was going to fish my pond, but decided to fish my pal's pond this morning to have a chance to land a bigger bass or two. Well, success! Here's the first:

 

 

Quite a head, huh?

 

And here's the second football-y one, not quite as big, but still fine:

 

 

After I caught my ninth bass, I stalled for more than an hour. I was determined to catch ten. Here's my tenth:

 

 

I was about to take out, but then I saw a bass feeding down the shore. I wasn't going to paddle down to it, but I knew I was in water similar to what was down the shore, so I cast and...

 

 

I finished with 11, bringing my 2025 total to 1,336, with 164 left to land. 

 

The lures that caught bass: spinnerbait, underspin, walking bait, and Whopper Plopper.

 

The lures that didn't catch bass: T-rigged crawdad, jerkbait, and T-rigged Senko.

 

Two pretty pics!

 

 

I hooked a giant pickerel. It completely inhaled my 4.25" walking bait.

 

"Uh-oh, I'm in trouble," I thought.

 

And I was, as it cut the line.

4 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

I hooked a giant pickerel. It completely inhaled my 4.25" walking bait.

 

"Uh-oh, I'm in trouble," I thought.

 

And I was, as it cut the line.

It’s only funny when it happens to someone else. 

7 hours ago, N Florida Mike said:

Got this 21 incher in the church pond…

Nice

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

 

Started off with a white frog on top. Had two strikes but missed the fish. Still good as I rarely get bit on a frog. 
 

Switched to an A-Jay Special. Caught one nice bass and a pounder. Switched to a bladed jig then a spinnerbait with no bites. 
 

Switched to a TR with a Yamamoto 5.5” Slinko. Caught two decent bass but OMG, they wear out faster than a Senko. 
 

Switched back to the A-Jay. Went to retie and somehow the hook slipped out of my hand and stuck in my right cheek (popped right out). That’s the bad. 
 

Went back to the bladed jig. I was bringing it from close to shore out to deep water when it stopped dead. A snag. Then the rod completely bent. No snag! A bass! And what a bass. It jumped and my heart almost stopped. It was a tank. Easily 7-8 lbs. It dove and jumped again. I got it 6’ from the boat when it jumped the third time and my bladed jig went north and the bass went south. All I could muster was a “No No No No No No!!!!” Definitely would have been my PB. That’s the ugly. 
 

Eventually caught two on the bladed jig and one more on the A-Jay Special. But I lost two more on the bladed jig. I think my rod (Daiwa Aird-X MF) is not up to the task. May have to make a change. Good think is that the big gal is unhurt and still there. Still plenty of good fishing weather ahead.