6 minutes ago, Fishingintheweeds said:

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!

I’ve seen some 5s at a small pond/reservoir that my grandma lives near, and I’ve caught some 4-4 1/2 pounders in the watershed!

16 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

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

Yep keep it up man it will happen. I live in Northwest Iowa a place by all accounts...if you listen to guys who don't know how to fish...has no decent size bass. Had a guy tell me last year that our area has no big bass. Said he has fished here for years and years...never caught one over 5lbs. Didn't have the heart to tell him that last year alone I caught 3 6s and a 7. Now thats not the norm but I've had years like that in the past. This year my biggest is just shy of 4.5 but that's nothing to sneeze at either. All I can say is big is relative...every state is different. One thing I know is once you get over that hump...5lbs being your benchmark..It will likely start happening more often.

Took a few casts before work today managed to get this 3-7 on a choppo 120

11 minutes ago, DitchPanda said:

One thing I know is once you get over that hump...5lbs being your benchmark..It will likely start happening more often.

That’s what happened to me: my benchmark was 4, and this year I’ve caught 3 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 pounders.

5 minutes ago, TheBasslayer said:

That’s what happened to me: my benchmark was 4, and this year I’ve caught 3 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 pounders.

Exactly my point. Finding out big fish baits and patterns for your bodies of water is important...once you figure it out it seems almost easy after that. My local pond is dirty enough that you can almost never see spawning fish. I found a shallow spawning area one year where the females were grouped up prespawn and figured out they would eat a bluegill colored bladed jig. Caught probably half a dozen in a two week period between 5&6lbs. Also have another pond that's fairly weedy all spring and summer..catch some nice fish on frogs and senkos. When fall comes around however the big girls will crush a buzz bait fished along the receding weed edges. One time in particular I went out on a rainy October day and smashed em. Don't think I caught a fish under 3 or 4lbs. My best 5 went somewhere between 26 and 27lbs. That's huge for here.

Let me get on that new PB train! 

Didn't have my scale with me, cause it ate an entire pack of batteries, so I couldn't get exact measurements.  This fish was way bigger than anything I've ever caught.  I'm going with 5+.  First cast of the day.  DOINK DOINK, 10 inch worm in the face!  Biggest fish I've caught out of this lake ever too!

 

Well, I am stuck in a rut. 11 bass yesterday and 11 bass today. Biggest yesterday was over 2 lb. Biggest two today 2.06 & 2.12. My 11th fish yesterday was a 6” dink; my 11th fish today?  Also a 6”….Blue gill who ate my TR worm. 
 

14 minutes ago, HaydenS said:

Let me get on that new PB train! 

Didn't have my scale with me, cause it ate an entire pack of batteries, so I couldn't get exact measurements.  This fish was way bigger than anything I've ever caught.  I'm going with 5+.  First cast of the day.  DOINK DOINK, 10 inch worm in the face!  Biggest fish I've caught out of this lake ever too!

 

Nice fish!  Congratulations!

1 minute ago, Biglittle8 said:

Nice fish!  Congratulations!

Thanks!

First decent fish in a month. 

1 hour ago, HaydenS said:

Let me get on that new PB train! 

Didn't have my scale with me, cause it ate an entire pack of batteries, so I couldn't get exact measurements.  This fish was way bigger than anything I've ever caught.  I'm going with 5+.  First cast of the day.  DOINK DOINK, 10 inch worm in the face!  Biggest fish I've caught out of this lake ever too!

 

Congrats ??

2 hours ago, HaydenS said:

Let me get on that new PB train! 

????

4 hours ago, N Florida Mike said:

First decent fish in a month. 

all healed up, i see ?

3 hours ago, GaryH said:

Congrats ??

 

3 hours ago, PhishLI said:

????

Thanks guys!

First Lake Michigan fish ever, and it’s a smallmouth!

Went on a late day pond hop today, I worked a shade pocket for about a half an hour and pulled out a bunch of fish. About 7pm I put on the 90 bone plopper... First cast as soon as it hit the water...fish. I milked it for about 1 hr. Chatterbaits in shade pockets accounted for a bunch of fish... Plopper... Runner up.

Bass drum……. See what I did there? 

The rains were expected to hit hard Friday night, so I gobbled down my supper and made it up there while it was still light out. I went through my normal weedless bait progressions in this weed choked spot, but nothing was happening. About the only treble bait I could sort of throw here was a floater like a Gantarel Jr, so I tied one on. This meant laboriously picking off weeds after every throw, but I had to change things up. Just like that it got slammed by a hard fighting Pickerel. My 20lb Big Game line looked fine afterward, but thank god I gave it a good pull to check it out, because it snapped like nothing, and because the next fish I caught was a chunk.

 

I retied, waded out as far as my chest waders would allow, then threw the bait down a weedline where I lost a monster last week. I kept the bait from diving by keeping the rod tip high, and felt it ticking grass as it slowly pulsed. I ran it into a clump, then it got slammed. I felt her weight immediately. I jacked it hard to my left to keep her from running into the weed bed, and it worked. She went airborne, my heart stopped, but the stretchy line kept her pinned. I kept pressure on, and got her in. The trebles popped right out of her bottom lip without the use of pliers. Close call. About 5-15

 

Followed up with 2 more 2 1/2 pounders on the Gantarel, but then we got hammered by rain. Dryed out in the truck until it passed, then went back and got one more on a Livingston Bullnose. I needed a sesh like that.

10 hours ago, lo n slo said:

all healed up, i see ?

Not all the way. It’s better though. I only fished for around 30 minutes. Im probably going to try again tomorrow and see how it goes.

Some more Lake Michigan smallmouth Bass! They are fat!

It's been awhile since this happened but it still makes me scratch my head. 

 

More bass drum 

They lowered the water in my favorite lake about 2-2 1/2 feet. Not cool. Now the fish will be further away. I saw a few big fish, but they were very transient and always popped up as I was packing up to move to a different spot, thereby causing me to not move on to the next spot. Also tried to bait the legendary carp, which has to be 35-45 lbs. Did not see him. But I did see another about 10-12 pounder looking for my home made legendary carp bait 5 minutes after i reeled up the rod to move.

The fish continue to shrink in the heat.

 

 

 

30 minutes ago, CrankFate said:

The fish continue to shrink in the heat.

It was that kind of day. Maybe we should start a support group??

 

Made a long drive Saturday to a lake I've only been to once in my life and it was about a decade ago. Got a tournament coming up though and wanted to at least have some kind of idea what I was getting into. I was less than 10 cast into the morning when I had a big boil under a buzzbait. Couple cast with a wacky rig didn't produce the results I expected (first time in quite awhile I caught nothing on a wacky rig despite trying it quite a bit). Picked up the Popping Pad Crasher, sort of whipped it out there, had to clean a bunch of cotton off my line from the previous trip so the cast wasn't exactly accurate. I was actually past where I thought the bite would come when I got a pop and toilet bowl flush. Starting out the morning with a 20.75" frog fish always feels good.

I knew this lake had a few smallmouth in it, but didn't really expect to catch any, so I was pretty surprised when after missing another buzzbait bite, my follow up cast with a Ned found a scrappy brown fish.

Back up the spot I was on, switch to a different bait and made 2 or 3 cast, hard "tick", not far from my kayak. Wasn't really sure what to think at this point, maybe 20 minutes into the morning and my second fish over 20".

5 minutes later, I finally caught a "normal", sized largemouth that was about 15" on a beaver. Had a lot of the same looking stuff around, really thought I was going to wear some fish out. So about 2 hours later I was looking for my next bite. Got to the back of a small pocket and found a little mix of grass and some stumps. Put the Popping Pad Crasher in a gap and barely move it when it got rocked. Missed the hookset but I learned from the first couple missed topwater fish to just throw the same bait back and they'd come back. This fish was no different and it sure didn't miss this time.

I fished so much good looking cover, but bites were coming about a hour apart and they were small compared to my other fish, 1 15" largemouth was the biggest of them. No idea why I picked up my Ned rig, maybe I just wanted to make a couple cast where I could zone out, but I really didn't get the chance. I was zoned out enough that I was fishing the bait with my line wrapped around the rod at about the 3rd guide down. When the fish hit my Ned, it was a solid enough thump, that I felt something wasn't right about where it pulled on my rod and I was able to quickly fix the issue before setting the hook. The fish stayed down and stayed down, pulled drag all over (I would have been backreeling if I'd known what I had but I was sure it was a catfish or drum and didn't care if I lost it), it made hard charges for laydown, grass, the kayak, I never did manage to see it until it may a fast dart across the surface and I saw a bronze colored back but it registered as a big drum in my head. It wasn't until the dang thing was finally jumping probably close to a full minute into the fight that I realized it was actually a very solid smallmouth, which was in the net seconds after I discovered what it was.

That left my small fish as a 15" largemouth, and I'm pretty sure I caught one bigger in the morning that I didn't measure, for a total of 94.5" which is my new PB 5 fish bag from the kayak. Needed that 1 more big bite and it could have really been a special day. I wish I could say I learned something for the tournament day, but I really figured out was if I made enough cast, eventually I ran into a fish.