Headed to PA to hit Lake Wallenpaupack for the first time ever on Sunday. Heard it was a tough place to fish. Bizarre lake pretty much flat bottom but stone all along the shore. Didn't see any cover I'm used to fishing so I threw a square bill the whole time along  rip rap and rock wall out croppings,  and broke my 4 year smallmouth skunk with this @A-Jay size football...

 

Caught two more of these giants and lost a nice largemouth when it threw the square bill. The shore you see behind me is pretty much what the whole lake looks like. .

 

 

Just short of 5 lbs by about 70 ounces!

Been down sick for nearly 3 weeks, but finally started getting out again over the holiday weekend. Have managed 32 bass in three short bank trips, finally crossing the 1900 fish threshold (1,916), and closing in on 2,000 as the new target. Related to the finesse jig rod thread, this last trip fishing 3/16 Bitsy Bug on 12# fluoro with a Loomis MBR 783c paired with an old green Curado 200BSF reel, my favorite finesse jig rod. Previous two trips were Finesse TRDs worked through chara patches...a really fun bite when bass eat the jig off the veggies in mid water

 

First time out in a few weeks, 3 hours during the first spare morning I've had in a while. We've been semi-steadily cooling over that time. Rained the last few days; air temp this morning in the low 50s, overcast.

 

Had 6 swimjig-eaters show up (biggest was top left, 3.04lb):

 

 

 

....and now I need to get back to work.

Finesse jig bite continues (Bitsy Bug) with this fish hovering around the 5 pound mark 

 

 

 

got a meanmouth last night 

The smoke has been pretty ridiculous around here, but since it seemed to be hovering like a marine layer instead of on the ground we made the call to head out anyway. Smoke layer slowly settled down towards ground level as the morning progressed, but it was still great getting out there while we could. 

 

 

 

Like @NorcalBassin said..the smoke up here in NorCal has been pretty awful But decided to head to lake after work for a few hours. 4-11 on the crankdown

 

 

Two nice ones from a few weeks back! Got them both within 5 minutes of each other.  Didn't have a scale unfortunately as the batteries died in it. 

Only managed one good one this morning. Lost a big one that broke my heart and caught this one 30 min later. This one went 4-8

Had fun the past week, only got skunked once and it was last night due to heavy rain the day before and sudden drop in temps, but I got on a bunch during a feeding frenzy over the span of three days including a couple night time fish. Nothing big but a good sign that the fall bing in these fish will start to kick up. 

 

Hopefully I'll start to get on some quality fish soon. 

Took the kid out for some salmon on Georgian Bay this morning, but the wind speed and direction was way worse than predicted ( big surprise there ?), so we went in behind the islands for some smallmouth. It was still pretty windy in there, and my usual drop shot areas didn’t produce many fish, so we started tossing big spinnerbaits in the shallows to see if we could irritate a few cruisers. We managed a few fat ones that hammered the spinnerbait burned shallow, such a great hit when they crush that type bait. 
Right beside the ramp, I decided to try one last piece of shoreline with the spinnerbait and almost had my rod ripped out of my hands. The way it ripped out drag I figured it was a muskie, but it turned out to be a nice 8lb rainbow, so we managed to get a nice fish for dinner after all. 

1 minute ago, Way north bass guy said:

Took the kid out for some salmon on Georgian Bay this morning, but the wind speed and direction was way worse than predicted ( big surprise there ?), so we went in behind the islands for some smallmouth. It was still pretty windy in there, and my usual drop shot areas didn’t produce many fish, so we started tossing big spinnerbaits in the shallows to see if we could irritate a few cruisers. We managed a few fat ones that hammered the spinnerbait burned shallow, such a great hit when they crush that type bait. 
Right beside the ramp, I decided to try one last piece of shoreline with the spinnerbait and almost had my rod ripped out of my hands. The way it ripped out drag I figured it was a muskie, but it turned out to be a nice 8lb rainbow, so we managed to get a nice fish for dinner after all. 

That's pretty sweet.  

On both accounts.

Congrats 

A-Jay 

I went to Tepic Lake yesterday.  I hadn't been there for three weeks.  The rainy season had been less than normal, but made up for it this week.  The water was up 8 feet and the visibility went from 2.5 feet to under six inches. Water temp. dropped from 84 to 76 degrees.  I changed plans from fishing for suspended fish in tees, to fishing the flooded grass on the shore line.  Started off with a buzz bait and got one right away.  No bites the rest of the day.  Only one bite but the fish was 9.4 pounds, so I have no complaints.  A horrible picture, but that's life trying to take a selfie with a camera in a kayak.

40 minutes ago, roadwarrior said:

Dammit Jim! I’m a doctor, not a photographer!

Went out with @TnRiver46 and another buddy on Saturday. Caught a mess of tiny fish – all new species for me: smallmouth, a spot, and a rock bass.

 

It was rad, even though we had to watch for tigers the whole day.

 

ETA: I could have left everything at home except my spinning rod, a pack of stick baits and some 1/16oz jig heads. They weren't touching anything else.

 

 

 

@galyonj is the wacky rig master. Had some river buddies even deliver a new fishing shirt and two goose breasts out on the water. Eventful day 

 

@TnRiver46 those mean little babies on Saturday taught me more about fishing a wacky rig and a ned rig than I think I've learned the entire time I've been trying to fish them.

 

I wish I had just started with that instead of all the other junk I threw. lol

 

I also wish we'd been able to hook up on that gar you and I kept chasing.

bunch of fish over the last month or so. So glad we're out of august and fishing is starting to pick back up!

4 minutes ago, Jermination said:

So glad we're out of august and fishing is starting to pick back up!

It has been BRUTAL.