First trip out using the Zman TRD BugZ, and it turned out well. Only had an hour, but managed a bass on my first cast, as well as one decent fish topping the 20" mark (about 9 total). Calling it a success, and looking forward to playing with this little bait some more in the coming days. Forgot to add, used the same bait the entire trip for all the fish, and it's still in great shape.

 

3 hours ago, PhishLI said:

He's hard headed, slow to change, and was strictly a finesse fisherman forever.

Don't let him read this....

I didn't take my FIL as mentioned in the above threads, but I did help him move some furniture before I went fishing. Maybe it helped. haha

 

I caught a few dinks, and one decent one. This one hit a green pumpkin trick worm.

Fished today 7-2 under a brutal sun with worse humidity. Boated 9 bass ,1 on a choppo 2 each on a buzz and spinnerbait and four punching a double wide beaver with a 3-9 on the spinnerbait and a 3- 8 on the beaver tthe hw best of the day. 

Man, it has been tough lately. Fished 2-1/2 hours this evening and only got one soft strike and hooked one. I have caught nothing of any size lately. Both the miss and the catch were on a Mann’s Jelly Worm TR. Nothing on a spinnerbait with Rage Craw trailer, a Zara Spook, or Fat IKA and Neko Macho TR’s. Nothing on a WR either. The bite is off. 
 

 

A few hours in the late afternoon heat yielded only a few dinks. Dejected, I was driving home, when on a whim, I decided to take a detour and swing by another reservoir, one that I haven't fished in a year.

 

Left everything in the car, including my glasses and the scale, to make a few casts with a popper that was already tied on.

 

Glad I didn't stick a really big one, so won't have used the scale anyway, lol.

 

20.5 incher on a Deps Pulsecod.

 

 

I caught my first big Smallmouth Bass, which is also my PB, today at Lake Maxincuckee! I caught him on the Perch color deep diving Shadow Rap. I caught the largemouth on a Ned rig.

 We had record breaking heat here yesterday, and the winds had subsided by go time, so I knew the repellent resistant mutant mosquitoes we get here would be on the wing again. My buddy drove all the way out here, but was foolish enough to leave his heavy sweat jacket at home. I wore mine, plus a heavy wool skull cap, so while I was soaked in sweat in the end, I felt no pain. He wore only a thin sweater, no helmet, and got eaten alive, and skunked out! I found 3 bass in total. One on the Nories, one on a Gantarel Jr, and a 1/4 of a fish on the G2. It was nice to recapture a smidge of my mojo after the spanking I took this past Sunday.

 

 

Had a AMAZING weekend of fishing, 15 bass caught total and I participated and WON the yearly tournament on My lake this past sunday! 1st place in the 18 and older bracket with a 6lb total weight!! During the weekend I caught a bunch of bass practicing and also a catfish on a chatterbait and a huge pickerel! 

Good night of pond fishing. Caught 8 total in a little less than 2 hours. Brought 3 rods and caught on all of them. Finally got shipment from BPS with some new baits and a Tatula 100 so had to give them a try. Caught 4 with the new reel on a burst bug with a cane thumper trailer, 3 on a Yum Houdini shad, and the biggest of the night on a willow vibe with a swimming dinger. This one was the only one picture worthy but none were true dinks. 

Got out today 7-12 caught 12,  2 on a spinnerbait,3 on a popper, 2 on a punch rig, 1 on a frog and 4 on a toad with the best a 3-15 toad fish.

Finished up a torturous project sprint at work yesterday afternoon, so I gave myself the morning off to run a couple errands, and somehow a couple rods ended up in the car, too.

 

So of course I had to go fishing for a minute, too. Ran out to a little park on the south side of Melton Hill that is usually pretty dead, and I had the whole place to myself.

 

This bass charged out and took a swipe at the tiny little grub I was swimming through this huge patch of coontail and  for bluegill, so I pitched a choppo out past his hidey-hole and worked it over top, giving it the tiniest of twitches until he couldn't stand it anymore.

 

 

And bluegill are suckers for curl-tail grubs.

 

 

 

Had a better day today than I have lately. Caught 10 total. Two were superdinks and the rest were 1-2 lb’ers. Caught two on a Googan jerkbait, four on a Zoom Trick Texas rig and the rest on a #196 Senko. I got squat on a Megabass PopMax or a jig and craw, as well as a Bio-Gill weedless soft swimbait. But I had a nice one on Mann’s Jelly Worm (I’d say 3 to 3.5 lbs). Halfway to the boat, it jumped. Over a log. That’s when the hook popped out. 
 

 

That hat kept the sun off my neck, but it’s hideous! 

Well no pictures again tonight I was wading a lake, definitely not keeping my phone in my pocket for pics lol. I feel good finally got around to catching some on a fat ika probably 10 fish mostly dinks. Caught my last fish of the day he put up a good fight, hooked up and the next thing you see is him jumping straight out of the water about 18 inches, lowered my rod tip kept tension fought him right next to me went to grab him fish acrobatics again this time he threw the hook ?never got to hold him but he was right next to me, probably 16 inches or so. I thought about it was probably time to retie my hook when he threw it it snapped off lol. All in all it was a good night and the bonus was I only used one soft plastic for 1.5 hours.

The last few days have been rough for bigger fish, but I've caught plenty of dinks! The new Siebert spinnerbaits are working great. Neds and chatterbaits continue to be effective. Here's a couple of the bigger ones. 

Went out for a couple hrs. Between downpours, picked up a couple on chatterbaits. 

Got out for a few hours. Caught 11. Most were in the 1 lb range. Best of the day was caught on a TR worm and was around 2 lbs.  The saddest of the day was  caught on a jerk bait and was about 1” longer that the bait. ?

 

4 hours ago, Biglittle8 said:

Went out for a couple hrs. Between downpours, picked up a couple on chatterbaits. 

Man, you can put a crushing on those golf course fish… Well done!

Finally got my first 6 in a good while. I've been doing real well with a Z-Man chatterbait mini lately. Got a chance to try out my new luggage scale that I bought on the recommendation of @Bluebasser86 from another thread. 

3 minutes ago, The Bassman said:

Finally got my first 6 in a good while.

Nice fish man - meanwhile I'm still searching for my first 5'er.

1 minute ago, MN Fisher said:

Nice fish man - meanwhile I'm still searching for my first 5'er.

Thanks. Now I just have to learn how to take pics. Bright sun, a flip phone, and a fish that I need to keep still don't mix well for me.

13 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

Nice fish man - meanwhile I'm still searching for my first 5'er.

Same. The closest I’ve gotten is maybe a high 4

2 hours ago, TheBasslayer said:

Same. The closest I’ve gotten is maybe a high 4

Ha, ha, don't give up! I'm in Michigan too and I used to think that there was nothing big in the north and all we had was the state record bass, a couple of 5's, a handful of others that people said were 10 ( but were probably 4-5) and then a bunch of 1-2's. Well, then I started getting into some bigger ones and in the last few years have caught fish that were all bigger than anything I ever thought I'd see up here. And then I'd catch one just a little bit bigger the next year at a different lake. 

 

Ha, I stopped believing people when they tried to tell me there were no fish in a place or that there was nothing of any size in a particular lake. Keep fishing!