2 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Sounds like maybe you had it hooked in the joint of the jaw or maybe right behind jawbone. I've had that happen a few times and it can be pretty tough to get out. You got to get a little rough sometimes, give it a little jerk with some force to try to pop it out. You can get cheap wire cutters for $2 at Harbor Freight that will cut any hook out there if you want to have them in the future. 

Might be. The hooks were barbless but I just couldn't get it out for a while for some reason. I found some wire cutters yesterday so I've got them in my tackle box now.

5 hours ago, The Bassman said:

I think you're trying to be too surgical.  You have to tear a little skin.  It heals.  Better to get the fish back in the water quick than worry about a hole.  I catch bass with fully disjointed jaw hinges sometimes. It's the nature of the sport.  They don't hurt like we do.

I started out like that but I started trying to tear it out pretty hard once I realized that it wasn't coming out. It was just a hard one to unhook I think.

If you can't beat the Floridians, join them. Usually can't post the first fish of the year until sometime in late April around these parts. Had to plan a winter trip to Florida to make sure that didn't happen this year.

 

First Bass of 2019 for me. Orlando Florida vacation. My son and I were able to steal away a few hours during the week to do some fishing. Caught this Bass on a Berkley Warpig lipless crankbait.

 

 

The resort we stayed at had a resident Otter. We had fun catching Bluegill and feeding it to him.

 

 

 

Good grief! Every time i look at this thread there is a new page, its going to kill me because i still have some time before i can hit the water?, but keep up the beautiful pictures. ?

Megabsss vision 110+2 fish today on lake Okeechobie.

4 hours ago, NYWayfarer said:

 

 

The resort we stayed at had a resident Otter. We had fun catching Bluegill and feeding it to him.

 

 

 

Worth the price of what ever you paid to stay there. 

12 hours ago, Gundog said:

Worth the price of what ever you paid to stay there. 

It sure was.

 

He kept us company while we fished. The three Bluegill I fed him helped keep him around. I asked the resort staff if it was alright to feed him and they said yes. They don't want guest feeding him people food, but freshly caught fish is Ok.

 

17 hours ago, Dwight Hottle said:

Megabsss vision 110+2 fish today on lake Okeechobie.

Nice one , Dwight !

Had some good action this afternoon with these two being the best.  I know all my pics look the same but it's the only way I know to get them with my flip phone and no one else around. Usually by now I'm chomping at the bit for spring (still anxious to move on to other techniques) but this winter has been a fishing season in itself.  Lots of memories.

Went out to bank fish at a nearby golf course tonight with my friend Mike, whom I've been mentoring in the art of bass fishing most every Wednesday evening. I try to introduce a new bait or technique each time. Tonight was a lesson on the big ribbon tail worm, which I honestly don't throw that often. But with the rainy, dark and windless conditions, murky water, and the fish loitering in calm shallows, I thought Gambler's 13" ribbon tail in black or green would be the ticket, Texas rigged, inched slowly along the bottom. And it was!  We nailed a couple of 5 pounders, and at least a dozen 2-3s in an hour or so of fishing. 

 

 

 

Nothing very large for me lately. I went out yesterday, weather was warmer, and I caught a couple very quickly, then stopped to chat with a neighbor sitting on his boathouse deck across the cove from me. I might have had 5 or so but lost too much time.

 

Today? The weather here on Lake Athens, Texas took a turn toward colder weather so instead of dropping my canoe in the lake, I just made casts off my boathouse deck. 20 casts with a jig head and Keitech plastic, moving the lure along slowly? No bass love shown to me, not a nibble. 

 

So, before I left, I thought about making a cast and letting it sink to the bottom and I then nudged it back sort of like working a T-Rigged worm . . . and on about the 3rd twitch of my rod, one jumped on it.

 

No, not very large, but I'll go to sleep with a smile on my face!

 

Brad

 

 

I had about 90 minutes of free time to fish today and got blanked at one of my favorite lagoons so I headed to one that I've fished maybe a handful of times before. This one has about a 5 foot shallow shelf ringing most of the basin and lots of aquatic vegetation that extends just beyond the shelf. The HOA cut the vegetation in the fall so it was all sub surface now.

 

There's a corner on the bank I like to fish because it allows me to easily cast parallel to the shoreline. I tossed a Teckel Sprinker frog along the edge of the weedline and got my only bite of the day but it was a good one. Big blow up and an easy hook set. There happened to be 3 or 4 golf carts passing by at that moment and they all stopped when they heard me say, "Whoa!" I said that because as I was fighting it I could see it was a big largemouth. I'm thinking I'm about to land my personal best.

 

But as luck would have it pre-spawn activity has just started here and she was skinny and not carrying eggs yet. I didn't get the length, but it was l-o-n-g (I'm actually short arming it in the photo below) but it did weigh in at 5.8 pounds so I'll take that. In three weeks I bet she's a tank. I'll definitely hit that lagoon again.

 

 

HEavy rain again so I left the boat in the carport, but thanks to @Bluebasser86’s bladed jig I got a fish right away. I set out two catfish rods and then picked up the bladed jig and threw it under the neighbors dock, caught a little pale largemouth on the first throw! (Note the water color in the picture below my elbow) It was raining awfully hard so I quit casting and took advantage of soft ground and did some unprofessional drainage work with a shovel around the foundation. No success on the catfish lines, they were out for probably 4 hours 

3 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

HEavy rain again so I left the boat in the carport, but thanks to @Bluebasser86’s bladed jig I got a fish right away. I set out two catfish rods and then picked up the bladed jig and threw it under the neighbors dock, caught a little pale largemouth on the first throw! (Note the water color in the picture below my elbow) It was raining awfully hard so I quit casting and took advantage of soft ground and did some unprofessional drainage work with a shovel around the foundation. No success on the catfish lines, they were out for probably 4 hours 

Nice fish. I've set catfish lines out a lot of times and still never got a bite. I know they're in the pond I fish because I've seen other people catch them, and some 5+ pound floating ones.

27 minutes ago, EGbassing said:

Nice fish. I've set catfish lines out a lot of times and still never got a bite. I know they're in the pond I fish because I've seen other people catch them, and some 5+ pound floating ones.

They are trickier than they should be 

On 2/26/2019 at 12:39 PM, N Florida Mike said:

Nice one , Dwight !

good looking fat girl!

On 3/4/2019 at 10:28 AM, EGbassing said:

Nice fish. I've set catfish lines out a lot of times and still never got a bite. I know they're in the pond I fish because I've seen other people catch them, and some 5+ pound floating ones.

 

On 3/4/2019 at 10:56 AM, TnRiver46 said:

They are trickier than they should be 

I think a lot of folks fish too deep/far off the bank for them. Catfish will cruise right up against the bank and weedlines even during the day. Also pays to be very quiet and still fishing ponds for them. 

9 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

 

I think a lot of folks fish too deep/far off the bank for them. Catfish will cruise right up against the bank and weedlines even during the day. Also pays to be very quiet and still fishing ponds for them. 

I probably am guilty of that a lot. I always get taps on the line but I assume it's bluegill because they never get hooked.

Well, I finally got out on the the water today with a break in the weather. After last week when the Mrs and I enjoyed some togetherness at home with the flu causing the last minute cancellation of our trip to Spring Training which we had been planning for over four months....

 

Sorry for drifting, anyway air and water temperature were around 52 degrees when I dropped in this morning on a outgoing tide. Made a short run and eventually ended up with a spinnerbait rod in my hand. Missed one strike, and a few casts later this big girl smoked my blades for my first bass of 2019! She pulled hard and after a short, but spirited battle I got her in the boat. That’s when I saw I had hooked her with the trailer hook!  I caught a few more in the 2-3.5lb range and called it a day as the rain moved in. But what a way to start 2019!

2 hours ago, J._Bricker said:

Well, I finally got out on the the water today with a break in the weather. After last week when the Mrs and I enjoyed some togetherness at home with the flu causing the last minute cancellation of our trip to Spring Training which we had been planning for over four months....

 

Sorry for drifting, anyway air and water temperature were around 52 degrees when I dropped in this morning on a outgoing tide. Made a short run and eventually ended up with a spinnerbait rod in my hand. Missed one strike, and a few casts later this big girl smoked my blades for my first bass of 2019! She pulled hard and after a short, but spirited battle I got her in the boat. That’s when I saw I had hooked her with the trailer hook!  I caught a few more in the 2-3.5lb range and called it a day as the rain moved in. But what a way to start 2019!

That’s a great first bass of the new season. 

13 hours ago, Dwight Hottle said:

That’s a great first bass of the new season. 

Thanks @Dwight Hottle! After seeing all the exceptional fish all of you Florida guys were posting, I was happy to contribute. The guys afflicted by hard water are going to unleash the arsenal they’ve been stockpiling, so looking forward to seeing some more really nice fish on this thread! 

high of 45 today and the local lakes are still frozen.

haven't fished for a couple weeks , so I decided to take a trip to the local power plant lake.

I wasn't the only one with that idea.

there were 22 trailers in the boat ramp parking lot when I got there.

decided to give it a shot anyway. Once on the lake all of my favorite spots had multiple boats on them.

decided to venture out and find new water. I found a couple shallow flats just upstream from the hot water outlet that were loaded with shad.

I caught 8 bass on jerkbaits and spinnerbaits. No giants but at least I caught fish. Also had a couple large white bass hammer the jerkbait. 

when I talked to a few other anglers, all they caught were a few white bass, so I was pretty happy to catch a few.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, Russ E said:

high of 45 today and the local lakes are still frozen.

haven't fished for a couple weeks , so I decided to take a trip to the local power plant lake.

I wasn't the only one with that idea.

there were 22 trailers in the boat ramp parking lot when I got there.

decided to give it a shot anyway. Once on the lake all of my favorite spots had multiple boats on them.

decided to venture out and find new water. I found a couple shallow flats just upstream from the hot water outlet that were loaded with shad.

I caught 8 bass on jerkbaits and spinnerbaits. No giants but at least I caught fish. Also had a couple large white bass hammer the jerkbait. 

when I talked to a few other anglers, all they caught were a few white bass, so I was pretty happy to catch a few.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those are the areas I've been catching most of mine and all the popular spots have been pretty empty. 

17 hours ago, J._Bricker said:

Thanks @Dwight Hottle! After seeing all the exceptional fish all of you Florida guys were posting, I was happy to contribute. The guys afflicted by hard water are going to unleash the arsenal they’ve been stockpiling, so looking forward to seeing some more really nice fish on this thread! 

I do miss the Delta...was a great place.  Nice fish

Fishing Lake O and didn’t see a gator all day until this *#!&& ate my megabass 110 mag half way back to the boat. 

 

 

 

38 minutes ago, Dwight Hottle said:

Fishing Lake O and didn’t see a gator all day until this *#!&& ate my megabass 110 mag half way back to the boat. 

 

 

 

Don't mean to laugh but I have to. Rapala's new slogan should be.. "If that was a Rapala you would have only lost $7."