12 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

Al does it again! Al, I fished with the Kid this afternoon and he caught ten bass with one of your lures, a little paddle tail that comes with a hook tucked neatly inside it. Tomorrow morning, he's going to fish with a frog you gave him. I caught nine, giving me 1,106 for 2026.

You two did great! I love hearing about you and the kid!

Took my boys to a little creek this weekend to avoid the crowds and get out of the house. The creeks have been high all year with all the rain we've had but some of them are finally getting down enough to fish again. The upside to the high water is fresh fish in the creek. We caught quite the mixed bag and saw some fish we don't normally see in this one.

Pretty deep and all rock bottom too. We all ended up in the water by the end but my youngest loves playing in the water and it only took him about 20 minutes before he was in there.

@Bluebasser86 You are a good Dad!

@Bluebasser86, what @Lottabass said! Peak memories being created for those boys.

The Kid, his dad, and I fished my pond this morning and caught 64. Look at the size of this one. It clearly could have swallowed the Kid, his dad, and my red canoe! See how the canoe with my two friends could be dropped into its mouth? This is an accurate side-by-side comparison:

Some more solid ones:

Here's one the Kid caught on one of Al's lures:

Fun morning, but now I have to nap!

2 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

The Kid, his dad, and I fished my pond this morning and caught 64. Look at the size of this one. It clearly could have swallowed Hal, his dad, and my red canoe! See how the canoe with my two friends could be dropped into its mouth?

Some more solid ones:

Here's one the Kid caught on one of Al's lures:

Fun morning, but now I have to nap!

No offence but do you ever work? You're on here a lot. lol

After quitting for 2 months the itch to get back out increased to a point it was impossible to ignore, bought a rig set up similar to one of the ones I sold and brought with me a Daiwa from the 90s my dad bought me as a kid-- I always technically considered that his even though he said it was mine to use whenever I desired so that one was spared from being sold. So I went out a couple days last week and had some luck. Even managed to get an 18 incher on an ultralight rigged for bluegill with a size 8 wire cricket hook-- that was probably the funnest one or them all. And I was able to find a new spot on the lake as well. Plucked one directly out of the weeds, pitched in a slight break and was hammered right away. Probably would have passed that spot up if I was using anything besides my Shimano 7'0 Convergence/SLX Combo(part 2).

It was great to watch and feel the line go tight again after so long. I think if you truly love something, there is no such thing as actually quitting it, sometimes you just take a break. The water was calling and I am glad I answered. The spark has been reignited.

Welcome back, Mr. Tightlines!

Fished for a few hours this morning per usual on Monday and it was tough. Kind of flat, then a little ENE ripple, then flat etc. Sunny out and warm, but not hot. I jig fished today for a break from the t rigging. Landed 3 keepers in the 15-16" range and two dinks. I lost a real good fish and man did she pull hard. She actually mowed standing weeds that floated to the top. I tried to keep her head down with a low rod, but she got up and out enough for the dreaded shake and slack line it was. Probably a 19-20" class fish.

I started with black/blue bitsy with paca slim trailer in okee craw, but it got tore up and that fish coughed up a brown/bright orange craw, so I switched it up to a green craw bitsy and sungill paca chunk which took the rest of my bites. On the more productive shoreline, every fish had a bulging belly; crawdads for sure. Fished for around 3 hrs and had to get scootin', so an is what it be morning.

Good trip report, Jon. Sorry you lost the big girl. I'm not hooking many big girls right now. I'm in the summer doldrums. Nice belly on that bass!

2 trips 1 post and Birthday fish post.

Today is my birthday and the first one I’ve had offf from work in a long time. Wife worked from home today which, freed myself up for a quick fishing on the Sagin aw River 30 mi minutes from my house.

With the dams up stream getting rebuilt on the Tittabawassee and all the rain we have had the Saginaw is up 2 ft from the same time last year.

1st fish was a large mouth that I caught on the Saginaw River on a 6th sense 7 inch neko worm..

I than headed up the Shiawassee River and made a left on an off shoot of the flint river. I have not been able to fish that area in almost 3 years. Picked up a nice sized river smallie hiding under a log right near the bank on the same Neko worm.

I caught 3 more small mouth on a black and blue spine craw. All three were fiesty and jumped 3-4 ft in the air. They fought well for their size.

I used to pound the small mouth before the dam failures in 2020. Since 2020 it’s been all large mouth and the bass fishing has been progressively getting worse. I think the dam failures in 2020 wiped out a lot of the adult small mouth that year and I’m fairly positive that we lost the 2020 year YOY class of fish. The floods and dam failures happened May 11 2020. Which, should have smack dab in the middle of the spawn.

Last 4 photo on July 2nd I drove to Wiggins lake 1.5 hrs away from my house. Fishing was not good. Apparently, every one on the lake took a 4 day weekend. A lot of traffic on the lake even at 8 am. I managed to catch 2 bass on a spinner bait that I painted, built, and came up with my own skirt pattern. So I at least had that going for me.