Some from today

Finally made a river smallie trip and it was tough, grinding put 9 fish. Started with back to back footballs on a 1/4oz jig/craw that looked like twins, then it was slow for awhile until I went up near the dam and fished the open flood gate whitewash.

I had a fun flurry pop n' drop fishing paddle tails. No big fish, but as we all know...you don't need a big one to get bent with smallmouth! Felt great getting some HARD pulling brown bass again, and hopefully it gets better in future trips.

Got 3 and lost 2 all in the same spot last night kayaking near the dock

Hot, clear, and calm. Perfect day to bang some wood with a squarebill. Yo Zuri, Bagleys, and SK 4.0 worked well. Most were in 2 fow.

Works every time...bring an inexperienced woman or a kid and they'll get the biggest bass just because that's how fishing is! Checked out a new lake and dink city. Helped a couple kids at the launch by spooling up one of their empty reels with some 8lb hybrid I had on hand for leader, untangling the others mangled reel and giving them some worm hooks and senkos in a few good colors. After throwing off the dock to get the fresh line wet and manageable, I hooked a dink that I let the one kid reel in. I then tossed out the others twisted up rig not as far, handed it to him and seconds later "hey, I got one" and an 18-18.5" bass was brought to hand...never fails lol. Needless to say, those kids were wading out and firing around with vigor after that. The extra 30 min to load up was well worth it; good job guys.

Hot here in Iowa and waters up to 84 degrees on the bigger body’s of water where I’m at. Top water has been really good to me this summer though. The frog and buzzbait early or late in the day have been doing most of the work.

Went gar fishing with a buddy today, had a few hookups but not for long. Caught some bass to keep myself entertained, even got two and lost a couple more with spinnerbait. Paddled a long way up the creek our dock is in, fun exploring. Hadn’t been back there in a few years. Got caught in a couple downpours, thick pine trees saved me once

I went fishing yesterday. I landed around 20 bass. Most of them were tiny, but I did manage 3 keepers. One around 4 pounds, one 5 pounds, and this one that went, 6.4 pounds 23 inches.

Best lure was a spinnerbait, but the biggest was on a T rig Ole Monster. Lost a hawg on the spinnerbait, then proceeded to lose that bait, as well as the only other one like it that I had with me. I have over 100 spinnerbaits at home, but they didn't do me any good at home.

The wind blew 25 mph. I snagged a brand new crankbait, and tried to save it with a plug knocker. I was trying to get over the top of the lure, but the wind made it difficult. I tried to anchor in place, and lost my anchor. After a real circus, I did manage to get my lure back. I then decided to try and snag my anchor line with the crankbait, in order to save my anchor. I didn't save the anchor, but managed to loose the crankbait. I'm sure glad I don't buy expensive crankbaits. If that had been a Megabass crankbait, I'm sure I would have lost the plug knocker, broke the rod, flipped the kayak, and still lost the bait, and my anchor. Because it was a dt 16 I gave up and broke the line, before I became a drowning statistic.

After this fiasco, I tied on a spinnerbait, and began to catch bass. This trip cost me more in gear than all of my trips combined this year, but I buy the baits to use, and I didn't get skunked.

I launched this evening hoping to catch 13 to give me 1,200 bass for the year, but I caught 17 and so my count is at 1,204. I'm thinking I have a chance to surpass 2,000 again, as I did in 2024. I'm feeling more and more dialed into my pond. I've learned where to catch them month-by-month. My problem this evening was wind. It was 4 m.p.h. when I launched, which just allowed me to see the openings in the Pond Weed beds, but after an hour, it increased to 7 m.p.h. and I could no longer see the openings. I caught a dozen in the first hour, went fishless when the wind picked up, and caught the final five in the third and final hour when I started picking some up on the southern and western shores. I caught every fish but one on a seven-inch Deps Sakamata. I even caught three smallmouth, which is rare for my pond I put my first bass on the bump board so you can see how thick the bass grow in my pond. Not as thick as Clayton's bass, but still impressive for mid-July. Some of my bass:

This bass was my biggest and strongest, pulling my canoe like it was a musky:

More solid fish:

This was my biggest smallie:

Back to bigmouths:

This one was caught on my final cast:

51 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

I launched this evening hoping to catch 13 to give me 1,200 bass for the year, but I caught 17 and so my count is at 1,204. I'm thinking I have a chance to surpass 2,000 again, as I did in 2024. I'm feeling more and more dialed into my pond. I've learned where to catch them month-by-month. My problem this evening was wind. It was 4 m.p.h. when I launched, which just allowed me to see the openings in the Pond Weed beds, but after an hour, it increased to 7 m.p.h. and I could no longer see the openings. I caught a dozen in the first hour, went fishless when the wind picked up, and caught the final five in the third and final hour when I started picking some up on the southern and western shores. I caught every fish but one on a seven-inch Deps Sakamata. I even caught three smallmouth, which is rare for my pond I put my first bass on the bump board so you can see how thick the bass grow in my pond. Not as thick as Clayton's bass, but still impressive for mid-July. Some of my bass:

This was my biggest smallie:

Back to bigmouths:

This one was caught on my final cast:

I'm curious what kinds of forage are prevelant in your pond?

7 hours ago, Tackleholic said:

I'm curious what kinds of forage are prevelant in your pond?

Golden shiners, yellow perch, white suckers, and pumpkinseeds.

Why do you ask?

1 hour ago, Swamp Girl said:

Golden shiners, yellow perch, white suckers, and pumpkinseeds.

Why do you ask?

The brown bass seem to be more aggressive foragers than your green bass since they always have fat bellies while the largies often have flat bellies from your ponds. Smallmouth typically are more active in feeding anyways as they swim after food over sitting in ambush. Largemouth will certainly chase though, if it's worth it. Smallies are just meaner overall lol

Saturday was stop number 4 for our kayak fishing circuit at El Dorado lake in south central Kansas. The water was higher than it has been there in a long time from the constant rain this year, but it was just 4" above conservation pool and actually 1.5' lower than it had been the week before because they had been releasing so much water. I still can't take any time off because of FIFA being in town, so I got to the lake after work on Friday with 2 hours to prefish before cutoff. I had 2 different game plans, my number 1 option was to fish the creek I normally fish and target largemouth only. The much lesser option was to launch in the marina and try to catch some fish there before going out on the main lake in search of big smallmouth, something I'd never had the option of doing because the wind is always a huge factor on that lake but it wasn't supposed to be terrible on tournament day. I decided to prefish the creek since it would be the fastest option in drive time and way less water to explore. The water was all the way up to 92*, small shad flicked everywhere, and other than the occasional carp rolling on the surface, it just seemed dead. In the 2 hours I had, I caught 5 small bass, the biggest just over 14" and none doing what I wanted to do. I was afraid the dropping water would make the creek bite difficult, and it was pretty obvious it had, so I knew I was probably better going in blind to the main lake/marina bite as much as I wanted to be a river rat.

The day actually went pretty decent in terms of catching fish. Eldo has a reputation for being a tough lake to even get a bite on, but I caught 31 bass on tournament day. The problem was, the biggest one was only a 16.50" smallmouth. I had a couple fish eat a tube that felt bigger, but one just shook off and the other wrapped me up on a small stick and came off. My plan really worked perfectly though, I caught a quick limit in the morning off the floating break water docks on a bladed jig and urchin, then went out on the lake and slowly culled up on a tube and whopper plopper, I just never got the real kicker that I needed.

About 20 minutes before lines out, I was scanning around outside the marina on an area I knew there was some big concrete blocks that I'd caught several smallmouth off of the last time we were on the lake. They had been above water then, they were submerged completely now. I found one and saw a big fish disappear behind it. Pitched my tube and just a couple hops got it thumped. It was heavy and felt right, but in the end, I was disappointed.

I didn't think much of my day, knew I didn't win because I hadn't ever caught up to the guy in first but I did get to second at one point, but there was several zeros on the board that I knew weren't zeros. I was hoping maybe I'd hold onto a top 5 finish. I was really shocked when they said I'd gotten third, and even more shocked when they read my total inches and I was pretty sure I didn't have that much? But maybe I did my math wrong.

Well when I got home, I looked at my fish and it didn't take long to realize, there had been a mistake. Anyone who has tried to measure a smallmouth knows how difficult they can be. Well my 16.50" smallie wouldn't cooperate, and I had one picture of it at 16.50 and one at 16.25. The first time I submitted it, I submitted the wrong picture when it was 16.25 but put that it was 16.50. The guy that was checking submissions messaged me and asked if I had a picture of it going 16.50, so I submitted the right picture. The issue was, he never deleted the first submission, so I had the same fish on my score twice, which gave me 2 extra inches on my total, bumping me from the 76" I thought I had, up to 78", jumping the guy ahead of me (who ironically enough, was the brother of the guy scoring fish that made the mistake). So I messaged both of them that there was a mistake in the scoring that I should have been in 4th and Tony should have got 3rd. Still got into the last money spot, no plaque for 4th unfortunately, but I'm not taking something from someone when I didn't earn it.

Best (plus the two smallest) of 30 this weekend. No big fish but it was fun to catch some green ones again.

Saturday from the boat.

Sunday off the bike.

53 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

I'm not taking something from someone when I didn't earn it.

Great angler and a good, good man!

1 hour ago, JonB2 said:

the largies often have flat bellies from your ponds

I don't see that. The bass from my pond are deep-bodied and bulge with muscle:

Sure, they might not have the little bulges in their bellies from a recent meal, but the bowing in their backs and humped sides comes from years of successful predation.

I would target the local smallies if they grew bigger, but the lmb outgrow them.

Over the years, I've been told that I catch "very short" bass. And skinny bass. And that I only catch a lot of bass because of where I fish. Yikes, huh?!?

Got out Sunday and the bass were biting early. I only caught eight (3 keepers) on the day but probably caught 30+ green sunfish, sometimes two at a time.

Best one of the day.

3 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

Golden shiners, yellow perch, white suckers, and pumpkinseeds.

Why do you ask?

I've never been to Maine and I'm always interested in forage vs lure selections.

3 minutes ago, Tackleholic said:

I've never been to Maine and I'm always interested in forage vs lure selections.

I've been seeing shiners in the Pond Weed beds. I don't actually see them in the water, but I see them when a bass sends them to the surface en masse. So, that's why I guessing the flukes are working and I'll keep pitching them until they stop working, but I'm excited to try some other slowly falling lures too, which I will tomorrow morning.

13 hours ago, king fisher said:

I went fishing yesterday. I landed around 20 bass. Most of them were tiny, but I did manage 3 keepers. One around 4 pounds, one 5 pounds, and this one that went, 6.4 pounds 23 inches.

Best lure was a spinnerbait, but the biggest was on a T rig Ole Monster. Lost a hawg on the spinnerbait, then proceeded to lose that bait, as well as the only other one like it that I had with me. I have over 100 spinnerbaits at home, but they didn't do me any good at home.

The wind blew 25 mph. I snagged a brand new crankbait, and tried to save it with a plug knocker. I was trying to get over the top of the lure, but the wind made it difficult. I tried to anchor in place, and lost my anchor. After a real circus, I did manage to get my lure back. I then decided to try and snag my anchor line with the crankbait, in order to save my anchor. I didn't save the anchor, but managed to loose the crankbait. I'm sure glad I don't buy expensive crankbaits. If that had been a Megabass crankbait, I'm sure I would have lost the plug knocker, broke the rod, flipped the kayak, and still lost the bait, and my anchor. Because it was a dt 16 I gave up and broke the line, before I became a drowning statistic.

After this fiasco, I tied on a spinnerbait, and began to catch bass. This trip cost me more in gear than all of my trips combined this year, but I buy the baits to use, and I didn't get skunked.

I've been in that situation many times. Maybe one day I will get smart enough to use only cheap lures and shallow runners in windy conditions.

2 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

I've been seeing shiners in the Pond Weed beds. I don't actually see them in the water, but I see them when a bass sends them to the surface en masse. So, that's why I guessing the flukes are working and I'll keep pitching them until they stop working, but I'm excited to try some other slowly falling lures too, which I will tomorrow morning.

An unweighted Fluke on a red 4/0 or 5/0 wide gap hook is a long time favorite of mine.

1 hour ago, Swamp Girl said:

I don't see that. The bass from my pond are deep-bodied and bulge with muscle:

Sure, they might not have the little bulges in their bellies from a recent meal, but the bowing in their backs and humped sides comes from years of successful predation.

I would target the local smallies if they grew bigger, but the lmb outgrow them.

Over the years, I've been told that I catch "very short" bass. And skinny bass. And that I only catch a lot of bass because of where I fish. Yikes, huh?!?

What I was saying is, your largemouth have shoulders, but flat bellies; boxy shaped. Look at the smallmouth you catch, football shaped. That's all, there isn't anything wrong with that one bit.

Slow bite last night but I managed one decent bass and a handful of dinks.