Decided to try a lake I haven't fished in almost 5 years Thursday. Use to be one of my favorites, but flooding and heavy pressure caused it to nose dive hard several years ago and a lake that regularly kicked out 20lb bags became tough to get bit on at all. Last years floods were timed right, and all our big lakes have reaped the benefits in the form of plentiful forage and lots of healthy, although smaller, bass that survived after hatching.

 

I've been tracking my numbers of bass caught this year with a small clicker/counter. I started the day with 304 bass on the year, I'll let you guys do the math. Only fish I caught other than a bass all day was a sauger on a swinging football head and a Rage Bug. Wish it hadn't been so cold, my wife and boys would have had a blast but I doubt I'd have been the only guy out there after them then. Big fish of the day was a 4.08 smallie, 2 weeks in a row with a smallmouth over 4, not a common thing to accomplish in Kansas. It was 40 degrees with 15mph east winds and raining by noon. My hands were so cold when I stopped at 3 I couldn't even re-rig my rage bug, so when a fish bit my legs off I just had to fish something else.

 

I've been pond hopping with 2 of my sons, a grandson, & his best friend but today one of my granddaughters wanted to tag along.

 

Lissie Rose's first bass, she saw it, & made a perfect pitch with a Snoopy rod. 

 

Pawpaw will be up grading her rod-n-reel!

14 minutes ago, Catt said:

I've been pond hopping with 2 of my sons, a grandson, & his best friend but today one of my granddaughters wanted to tag along.

 

Lissie Rose's first bass, she saw it, & made a perfect pitch with a Snoopy rod. 

 

Pawpaw will be up grading her rod-n-reel!

The pride in the smile young Lissie Rose is displaying is mirrored on the face of the person wielding the camera! Congratulations @Catt on a family of accomplished anglers sir

Been stroking em across East Tennessee. Fishing is great right now 

This past week's cold front made it feel at times like February instead of April. Last weekend kicked off with huge wind gusts. The remainder of the week wasn't as bad, but periods of wind and 30s at night shocked the nicely stained water back to very winter-like crystal clarity. Lakes in my area average 4-6 feet deep with random deep holes and trenches. Cold winds chill them remarkably quickly. I didn't see a panfish in the shallows at all during the week. We finally had some steady rain with temps in the mid 40's, so I was hopeful for a turn around.

 

I told myself that bagging a crappie on a Whopper Plopper early on was a good omen, but it wasn't. 5 hours later I was bassless, soaked, and about to quit. It was 2 a.m. and I'd already loaded 3 of my five rods in the truck when I found a spark and decided to try a different spot one last time. I made my way down to a cove that hasn't been good to me in the past with the hope that they might be pushing bait shallow, then waded in. I was right for the first time this night and nailed 3 one right after the other, one on the Miyagi, and two on a Black/Blue chatterbait. No bigs. The best was just 3 1/4, and the rain killed my scale, but that's how it goes. I wasn't even mad. Totally worth it.

 

 

Big fish, little fish.

A few from the last couple days, all caught on Spinnerbaits.

 

Finally got some good weather and was able to get out and catch a few, including this years big one. 7 lb 3 oz on a 7 M Crucial with a Stradic 3000 spooled up with 20 lb 832. She bit a baby brush hog in green pumpkin red flake on a 3/16 oz swinging jig head. Wish I would have caught her a couple weeks ago, but I'm happy. Here's a couple pics. My buddy gives me a hard time saying I try to make them look bigger lol

Nope, you can't make that fish look bigger, big fish. 

@jbsoonerfan your buddy sounds an awful lot like my buddies

Cold 39* to start, windy, blue bird skies. 

White tandem willow spinnerbaits and Rage craws.

In case some of y'all don't make it to the "everything else" forum very often, @Oregon Native and his buddy had a day that included an 11! 

Got out for a few hours today with 5 more coming on Spinnerbaits.

Three of the better ones.

 

I was able to get back on the water today after a wild weather day yesterday kept me inside most of the day. It didn't take long to beat the seasons best. I caught the 7-3 on Monday and beat it today with a 7-8. This one took a baby brush hog in green pumpkin with blue flake on a 3/16 oz lifted jigs ned head about 9:30 this morning. Caught quiet a few but nothing over 3 aside from her.

@jbsoonerfan, heck of a spring! I bet you keep a baby brush hog at the ready for the rest of your life

1 minute ago, TnRiver46 said:

@jbsoonerfan, heck of a spring! I bet you keep a baby brush hog at the ready for the rest of your life

That is a fact!

5 hours ago, long island basser said:

Got out for a few hours today with 5 more coming on Spinnerbaits.

Three of the better ones.

 

nice Long Island chunks 

9 hours ago, basser27 said:

nice Long Island chunks 

Actually they are upstate chunks. 

I moved to greene county last year....so I guess I’ll have to change my user name to upstate basser haha.

58 minutes ago, long island basser said:

Actually they are upstate chunks. 

I moved to greene county last year....so I guess I’ll have to change my user name to upstate basser haha.

Awesome. Enjoy! Much better fishing up there  

The small ones were active today, these are the 2 biggest. 3-01 and 5-05

Me and my fishing buddy hit the river this afternoon when I got home from work. I hooked them she reeled them in.

Took my little fishing buddy to the same lake I was at last week. Fishing by myself last week, I caught 109 bass and 1 sauger in 8 hours. A ton of them were 6-10 inches long, but a 6 year old doesn't care. I was just hoping they'd be biting like that still, and they were. I tried hard to get a bigger bite, all I ended up doing was catching a lot fewer small ones (still ended up catching over 50 by myself on the day). My biggest fish of the day might have gone 2lbs, and I got another sauger on the same bait as last week. Lake liked the sauger because it had teeth ? He caught 13 and lost several more by the end of the day, all of them completely by himself.