What a weird night tonight. Went out with the kid for a couple hours before dark. We could do nothing right it seemed. Lost two 3lb smallies on a drop shot, several more the same size on a wacky rig, and too many to count on topwater. Finally, we each caught a couple little fellas on a popper,  it was just one of those nights where the hook would not stay in them, and I don’t normally have that happen too often. Oh well, still a nice couple hours outside.  

I always forget about this thread. Or I should say, what forum it's under. Love seeing everyone's catches, big and small!

 

Here's a few of the nicer ones I've caught over the past few weeks or so.

 

Got this one on a bluegill colored spinnerbait in about a foot of water.

 

Punchin' with an Okeechobee Craw-colored Pit Boss.

 

Caught this one pitching a Christie Craw in some brush. 

 

 Caught both of these on a 6th Sense Cloud in about 13 feet of water. Jungle Rose color (one of my favorites!)

 

I had a fun experience this evening, we ran into a school of smallmouth under a floating dock in extreme current. Just to give an idea of the current, I have a friend who grew up in this neighborhood and she says her parents used to tie an inner tube to their dock and the kids would sit in it and pretend they were getting towed by a boat. There’s also a lot of wooden docks that are piles of splinters now , a couple pretty much brand new.    The black and blue rage tail menace accounted for all 6 fish, seemed a heavy bullet weight was the key. I saw the entire school of fish (or the entire amount of fish we caught) when I reeled in the first one, they were mobbing it trying to steal the lure. We Kept motoring back up to make another drift if you could get the menace under the dock you could get bit . It wasn’t easy though, you had to throw about 40 feet upriver of the school to get in the target zone. Not bad for launching at 6 pm and wasting 30+ minutes on a dead spot near the ramp, then making a long run 

High pressure, blue skies, and a north breeze...perfect conditions for finesse fishing. Put a nice limit of bass in the boat in under 3 hours at a community reservoir this afternoon after having a great multispecies day with a buddy. I'll post those pics in the "other fish" forum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snuck out this morning for a few hours by myself. Smaller local lake that isn’t known for a lot of monsters, but there’s some good ones in there. Managed a handful of decent smallmouth and largemouth on a squarebill, as well as a couple pike, and got a few more largemouth pitching a Berkley powerbait thief  around shallow vegetation. 

On 8/2/2019 at 2:27 PM, StretcherJockey said:

New PB from Saturday the 27th. 9.42lbs. Caught on a chart/black 6xd off a stump row in 10-12ft of water. Was sure I’d snagged a catfish in the back or something for at least 30 seconds or so. Even better I got to share this awesome experience with my dad. Was released to be caught again one day. 

 

 

Wowza!!

Got one decent fish on a watermelon red trick worm the last hour of daylight...caught it at the first deep hole down the lake..

Had a good day at a pressured tough lake. I guess the HAB warnings for the past month kept the lake roaches, and wake rats away, and settled the lake. Even though the the pea soup was at 3" inches of visibility, I took a tip from an old MLF episode and went shallow and in this case shallow being around 2 to 4 feet. The magic bait was a Neko Rig with a bk/bl flake Senko with a 1/16 oz nail weight thrown and skipped under docks and shady breaklines. These fish were pretty healthy the biggest one being 3lbs and the others in the 2 1/4-2 1/2 lb range. My son even caught a giant pickeral on a homemade swim jig even before we got on the boat.

Breaking in my new FeelFree Lure 11.5 this morning...

 

The top two pics were both 20.5” 3.75 lb smallmouth . We think they might have been the same one 

After the lakes being over 20' high for a lot of the summer, it's finally be dry long enough that they've managed to get them back down to a reasonable level. Unfortunately, a major rainstorm made the Corps shut the releasing back down for a week or so, but with the lake at 6' high and stable for a period of time, my wife and I took a rare trip together Sunday to see how the lake was doing. It's mainly a smallmouth lake, which is her favorite fish to catch, so that's what we were hoping for. Lake was packed with a walleye tournament and pleasure boaters everywhere since it's one of the only reservoirs in the state that is open again. Water looked great, fingerling bass were everywhere we looked thanks to the floods not happening until after the fish had spawned and their eggs had hatched, it should really be great in the upcoming years. We only had a few hours to fish, I mainly wanted to check the lake out, but we caught a bunch of little guys of all 3 species of bass, along with some much nicer ones, several sunfish, and a good crappie apiece.

 

It was so good that I went back Monday to try and really dial them in. I think I did a pretty good job of it, especially considering the second day in a row of flat, calm conditions making the bite tougher than it would have been with a little wind.

 

 

Almost too big to fit in the picture lol. Definitely the biggest I've caught this year, probably the biggest in the last few years.

 

Barely got the fish in the kayak and the frog flew out of her mouth. That was close. Maybe I should get a net.

 

 

Caught a few more, and then a small panda to round out the day.

 

 

 

Got out today 8-2. Got 9, 1dink punching the rest on a buzzbait with the 5 best going 3-10,3-14,4-6,4-7and.4-8 for a total of 20lbs.13oz.l ://i.postimg.cc/RFhf72Kr/20190808-080244.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/BnCMM9Lt/20190808-082347.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/pXfZLbBk/20190808-084414.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/Kz37XdzP/20190808-095923.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/wTQRkkf2/20190808-133525.jpg tried to post pics but i just cant figure this resizing stuff out oh well.

Edited August 9, 20196 yr by keagbassr
I cant post pics

10 hours ago, keagbassr said:

tried to post pics but i just cant figure this resizing stuff out oh well. 

Use the second line on PostImages, called Direct Link.  Just paste in the box here.  Works every time.  Nice fish!

Went out last week and was able to put this 3.2lb green fish in the boat. I’ve got to admit it’s pretty satisfying to know you did everything right when you see your “bladed jig” inhaled like this....

 

 

Caught this smallmouth  on a berkley drift walker, first thing this morning. My largest smallmouth of 2019.

 the topwater explosion was phenomenal when it hit.

it was 19.5 inches long, but only weighed 3lb. 10 oz.

this was the only smallmouth today.

pretty good day overall.  caught several largemouth on topwater in the morning. Switched over to a power worm after the sun came up and caught several more largemouth in the weed beds.

I really like that Drift Walker when it's calm out like it was this morning. I don't get to fish it often because it's rarely calm enough to use it but it's been a great bait when I get the chance to throw it.

 

Went to a little mudpuddle of a lake that I haven't been to in a couple years yesterday. It has some big ones but it just gets beat to death by the bucket brigade thanks to nearly complete shoreline access. I was greeted by good weed growth that has never been there that I'm sure are making the bank anglers pull their hair out, but the bass seem to be loving it. I caught right at 20 with a 4.22 being the biggest.

 

 

 

Caught a new PB today, at a lake that's always been slow for me (numbers wise). I know the lake has big fish, but with so many deep stumps you really need electronics or luck. I guess I had luck today, maybe it was the pants.

 

4lbs 12 oz via Rebel Pop-R

Out chasing crappie today, which we quickly figured out were hanging around shad schools now roaming much of the lake. Spotted several larger arches under some of the schools and was able to drop Ned down on them when I did and score some green.

 

 

 

 

Pictures are deceiving, the middle two pictures are of the same fish (19” And the top fish was probably 19+ but we didn’t measure

Monday was my 30th birthday.

 

For my birthday I asked my wife to come along on the boat for a couple hours. She begrudgingly supports my fishing habit and she’s never been along with me or even caught a bass.

 

I wanted to see if I could get her on some fish. 

 

Low and behold she caught one within the first minute of fishing! After netting the fish, her immediate response was “I can see how this could be addicting.” 

 

 

We went to a lake that is chalk full of 3-4 lbers and I had her setup on a medium light spinning rod really hoping she would hook into one and it would feel like Moby dick. Unfortunately, our little outing ended shortly after the first fish due to the steering cable on my Ultrex breaking (what a great birthday gift from the fishing gods), and we didn’t get to catch any more fish. Neither of us plan for her to go again (I wouldn’t want her out fishing me), but nonetheless, both of us had a good time! 

happy birthday man!