My Nephew came for a visit this weekend. I took him and my son for a fishing trip to a local spot for some Smallmouth action. Everyone caught fish. It was a good trip. We got them on Ploppers, Dingers, Berkley Atomic Tubes and Ned Rig TRD's

 

Larry decided to eat my Ned Rig at the dam today. 

 

I got you all beat. Last Sunday landed this, no wonder they call these things "smallies" ?

 

In all fairness, I did land a PB smallie estimated 3-4 lb later in the day. No photo as I deep hooked her and had to focus on hook-free recovery/release ASAP. Thank you, through-the-gills method and @jbmaine for the tip on where to find her

 

Not quite what I was hoping for, but apparently Tiny Swimbait doesn't discriminate.

 

 

Caught this one on a jika rig, and life was good.

 

 

Had to sit out a couple thunderstorms, but still got rained on. Rain stopped, I stuck another decent one, and called it a day.

 

 

Fish on a rat.....doesn't get numbers, but better than average size

On 8/6/2018 at 8:10 PM, Glaucus said:

Biggest Smallmouth ever on this particular river. Throwing the Ned Rig off the dam. It doesn't just catch dinks! I was shaking for awhile. My buddy gets credit for it too because he climbed down the wall and lipped it for me and raised it up to me so I didn't have to horse it up the wall and risk breaking it off. 

 

And then we waded down to some islands and this behemoth ate his Ned Rig. 

My buddy down the wall doing me a solid. 

Followed that beast up with this one today. Another Ned Rig masterpiece. 

 

 

Didn't have time to get a horizontal photo of this one. She was of the same quality, however. Not sure which was bigger. She was missing half of her top lip, if you look closely. Don't believe I did that to her. 

 

Earlier in the day I caught another quality Smallie at the smaller dam. I thought she was going to be my star of the day until that one on top happened later on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the camaraderie of the bass fishing community. My friend helped me land the first big girl the other day, and then today there was a teenager there fishing with his dad and the teen saw me fighting her and without hesitation grabbed his net and netted her for me. Once again over the wall and I'd have possibly broke off. I'm going to have to start standing in the water below the wall.

Got out  Tues. And thurs. For about 5 hrs. Each day. Looking for frog bite but could only get a few to swipe or swat at them. Fell back on pitching again and got 1 decent one each day. 4-3 and 4-2 or vise versa can't remember.

Warm summer evenings and biting bass - a good combination in my book...

 

8 hours ago, Team9nine said:

Warm summer evenings and biting bass - a good combination in my book...

 

 

I'm finding myself accidentally walking right up on bass hanging out under the bank in muskrat holes.  Do you have a lot of that?  One can almost step through as the pond edge is really compromised.

2 hours ago, The Bassman said:

 

I'm finding myself accidentally walking right up on bass hanging out under the bank in muskrat holes.  Do you have a lot of that?  One can almost step through as the pond edge is really compromised.

I've got a couple ponds where they go nose to the shoreline in those depressions. Figured out many of those fish are catchable even after I spook them off the bank ?

Weird bite today, but the fish played nice, including some good ones. Topwater at daybreak produced nothing, but around 11 a.m. a very quick window opened up when they started hitting on top. Picked up 4 in a span of 10 minutes on the Pop Max before the topwater bite shut down again. 

 

Texas rigs also produced some good fish, a couple around laydowns and a few more in the thickest weeds I could find. 

10” Culprit ribbon-tail: 

 

it was nice and cool before the sun came up, but just like the bite, it got quite hot in a big hurry. caught close to 30 (mostly those “hammer handle” spots) but my big fish was this 20”+ largemouth. threw them a curve ball with this yellow bullet/june bug lizard deal too. crazy man.

*pics loaded out of sequence 

First Smallie this morning ~ on her way home.

She smashed a popper.

5-14.

A-Jay

The southern Maine smallies really made me work for it today. 6 hours in the yak with not even a nibble, and in the 7th hour three of them finally connected after a change in lure and technique. Apologies to the one I deep hooked. Got everything removed but she swam off slow   I'm starting to really love this feisty species.

 

Had a cool, foggy, drizzly morning. Was hoping for top water but had to go deep. My wife hooked a good one ( I'm holding it for her) then a couple minutes later it was my turn. Notice her rod and reel on the first pic. Nobody will ever convince me a Zebco isn't up to the task.

3 minutes ago, jbmaine said:

My wife hooked a good one ( I'm holding it for her) then a couple minutes later it was my turn. Notice her rod and reel on the first pic. Nobody will ever convince me a Zebco isn't up to the task.

Nicely done, both of you.

 

Third Thursday night win in a row for me last week, plus big bass. We had a 5 fish limit, every other boat blanked. 

 

 

I was on the river today trying out my new Whopper Plopper 75. I arrived just after the top water window closed but I tried anyway. Around 9:30 am I switched to a split shot rig, weedless hook and a Z-man Hula Stickz in green pumpkin on my Lew’s Mach II size 100 spinning reel/St Croix Premier med light rod, Suffix Elite 8lb line. Got a dink Smallmouth right away. Kept throwing the same bait for the next half hour, dragging and deadsticking. Around 10am “THUNK” I set the hook and my rod bent over. This was a big fish! Fought like a demon trying to keep her away from rocks and a fallen log. I was praying she stayed on as I was able to drag her ashore on the sandy beach. 

 

She weighed in at 3.33 pounds. My new PB Smallmouth Bass from the Hudson River.

 

Took a 6-hour float on a river stretch I haven't fished before. This particular river is small, but loaded with fish and absolutely teems with life all summer.  Most of the bass are small, but solid keepers are fairly frequent, with an occasional beast.  What I discovered on this stretch was a lot of skinny water in the 1-2 foot range (in some places, less, making it as much a wet hike as a float), interrupted by a deeper pool here and there. As it's late summer, I figured the fish would be concentrated in such pools if I could find them, and they were...although the productive spots seemed fewer and farther between than is other stretches I've fished on this river. 

 

I caught around 30 smallies, a couple of largemouth, and a few rock bass.  All came on a tiny torpedo and 4" senkos and ochos. About 10 were in the 14-16 inch range; these two are representative:

 

 

 

...and then near the end, I broke off a beast that looked to be  4+ lb, and would almost certainly have been a pb smallmouth for me.  It came up, got a look of my hand a foot away, and took one last hard dive... snap! 

 

Of course, the last time had I retied was 10 fish ago. 

 

 

I've been fishing since the end of May, so I am still VERY new to this, and to be honest, due to my inexperience I have allowed myself to focus on topwater, as it was how I caught my first ever fish, so it became my confidence technique and all I ever use.  Well I decided to challenge myself, since the topwater bite at my local pond is horrible lately.  So I tied on a Texas Rig setup and told myself I couldn't throw anything else until I caught a fish on the T-Rig.  Well I wasn't having any luck whatsoever, and I started paying attention to my bait.  And I soon realized that I wasn't penetrating the grass in my local pond at all, and my 1/32nd ounce bullet weight wasn't cutting it.  So I grabbed some 1/4th ounce bullet weights and a pack of Zoom Brush Hogs in green pumpkin and tried again yesterday, after my full time job and before my part time job, and sure enough, this guy hit my Texas Rig so hard, the brush hog was nowhere to be found!  Felt good to finally scrape the bottom and come up with a fish!

Yep, that's how you do it!

my grandson starts back to school tomorrow so we took the Javelin out..........just one more time  

where is that , Lake Norman ?

Surprise catch of the day a smallmouth a rarity in this lake! 16" 2 pounds used Keitech salty core tube, 16# sniper fc, Tat SV reel, Quantum Smoke 7' M/F rod.

 

 

This 20" 4 pounder used 16# sniper fc, Chronarch CI4 reel, Okuma Helios 7' M/F rod.

2 hours ago, N Florida Mike said:

where is that , Lake Norman ?

yes