9 minutes ago, throttleplate said:

Wife and i for the first time in 4 weeks stepped away from the river fishing for walleye and brownies which we were succeessful at but the dam has been releasing lots of water the past week due to more rain.

The dam at the river we fish is releasing 2000 gps of water and it has flooded out our fishing spots.

It is not a giant dam or river but the effect it has is major.

When they release a bit more now and then the rolling waves of the surges are like being at a swimming parks wave pool. Pic of the dam.

 

 

So we went to our favorite lake and fished for crappie and blugill. Caught lots more bluegill than crappie as gills are spawning now.

I was messing around with bass before the blugill and after throwing a spinner bait 1 cast and then a chatter bait 2 casts i put them away and just wanted to fish lazilly.

I was burnt out from casting jerkbaits, crankbaits the past month at the river pulling them upstream against the current.

Do you ever get to that point where you are just tired of casting a thousand casts and want to chill out?

So i pulled out the red 8" berkley kingtail t-rigged and cast it out and sat on a rock and slowly dragged it in. I caught a hand full of bass, nothing big 2-3 lbs but enjoyed just dragging away.

Good eatin! 

On 6/7/2022 at 7:29 PM, HaydenS said:

Had our state tourney this week at Norton County Lake, two day event, but prefished a couple days.

 

First day of prefishing we had 17 pounds, caught fish on almost every cast.  We left good spots alone, and didn't fish them until tourney day.

 

Big baits you threw, smaller fish you caught.

 

First few cast:

Swim Jig fish:

Day two bag:

@Bluebasser86 flipping jig prefishing:

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Prefishing: 64.09 kB · 0 downloads

Culling day two:

Day one was tough for us, only weighed 10 pounds.  Might have culled once.

Day two was much better,  weighed 13. 59, culled at least 5 times. 

 

Should've done better based on prefishing, but we were happy with an 8th place finish, during state, on a lake we'd never heard of.

Just awesome. Congrats on a great finish!

 

I gotta ask, are those flannel jammies that your partner always seems to rock? That man’s a legend 

2 hours ago, Will Wetline said:

Found a number of post spawn smallmouth at depths of 15', give or take, in locations not far from where they had spawned.  They were receptive to Z-Man's small stuff, the Finesse TRD and TicklerZ fished on a 1/16 oz. or 3/32 oz. mushroom head .

 

 

 

 

 

I love me some smallies. Beautiful fish. 

Doing some evening deep cranking…

Caught a 5 this morning at a pond on a frog . 

17 hours ago, throttleplate said:

The  hat has character .

9 minutes ago, scaleface said:

The  hat has character .

Better that way

I am having fun with my new BFS setup. Granted the Baby Pop-x is 1/4oz, it's not something I would probably throw on regular topwater gear.

 

4 hours ago, FishTank said:

I am having fun with my new BFS setup. Granted the Baby Pop-x is 1/4oz, it's not something I would probably throw on regular topwater gear.

 

Shoulda saved the first catch as food for the second! I wonder… if you tried to hand feed a bass a bluegill out of water, would it eat it? 
 

Great pics

3 hours ago, LrgmouthShad said:

Shoulda saved the first catch as food for the second! I wonder… if you tried to hand feed a bass a bluegill out of water, would it eat it? 
 

Great pics

 

May be the perspective of the pictures but that bluegill was too big to fit in that bass's mouth. It was about 9in long and at least 1lb. The bass was about 15in. It might have been a good meal for 6lb. Still waiting to hook into a big one on the BFS setup.

1 hour ago, FishTank said:

Still waiting to hook into a big one on the BFS setup.

Doesn't work. I'm going to sell mine. BFS is designed to make

little fish feel bigger.

 

 

                                                  

First fish over 3lbs in weeks. She had a short tail that was bleeding pretty good, have to wonder what happened there. Inhaled my chatterbait hard, no chance she was coming loose. For being injured she sure was fat. Only one I got today in about 5 hours of throwing all over the lake. It's a heat index of 104 right now and I'm in my car cooling off, the rockpile was getting to be a bit much. Been a rough few weeks, this always brings a smile to my face.

Still havent found any larger fish yet but these will help with my tourney, both are 13.25".

Caught about 40 post spawners today and about half of them over 15 inches . Brush piles , flats and points . This is probably the largest of the day . Dont know the weight because my scales fell apart . Caught main lake point , 5 foot deep on a Gitzit .

     I fished Presa Trigomil for the past two and a half days.  The lake was down another 15  feet from when I was last there in April.  The water was very clear, between 8 and 10 feet of vis.  Thermocline at 20 feet, and surface temp. 79 degrees.

      I marked lots of fish on offshore humps and points, at 15 to 20 feet, and was planning on a good crankbait bite.  First point  I stopped at I  caught a 5 pounder second cast on a crankbait, and a couple of three's on a Carolina rig.  spent the rest of day fishing offshore for a big zero.  I snagged many 2 pound Tilapia so I assumed that Tilapia were what all the marks were.  I should have noticed there wasn't any marks of bait around all the nice size marks I was getting on my Garmin.  I'm guessing bait size Tilapia don't hang out with the adults, and since there are no shad or other schooling bait fish, the bass are not in the deep water regardless of how clear and warm it is.  I need to find out more about the habits of Tilapia, but only get recipes when I try and google the popular fish.  

     There were thousands of bait size Tilapia along almost every foot of shoreline in 6 inches of water or less, but I never saw any bass chasing the bait, right next to the shore.   

     I decided to change tactics the next day and fish the shore line with Jigs, a T rigged magnum Rage Bug in Okeechobee Craw color and a skinny dipper in a color that matched the Tilapia.  I had put a minnow trap out the day before, and caught some giant crawdads that were mostly blue along with a few dozen 2 to 4 inch Tilapia.  I don't know if even a double digit bass would try and take on a craw das as big as the ones I caught, but I have to assume there are also smaller ones for them to eat.  I thought the Rage Bug would be a good match the hatch, along with a black and blue jig.  I blanked on the jig, caught a few on the swimbait, and they tore the T rig Rage Bug up.  It was calm in the morning making it possible to see down10 feet deep from a spot I climbed to on a cliff.  I saw many bass cruising up and down the shoreline about six feet deep.  I can only guess they were waiting for one of the baby Tilapia to make a mistake and venture to far away from the shore.  They definitely were not scared to be that shallow in the clear water, and stayed about that depth regardless of how deep the water was.   I would position my kayak to make a long cast next to the bluff or other rock, and the bass would usually hit it as soon as it sank a foot or two.  If they didn't hit right away I would would hop it down one ledge, and if not bit make another cast.   Surprisingly cast made parallel with the bank did not work very well compared with casts made directly toward the bank. 

       I ended up landing dozens of small bass, along with about 20 in the 4 to 6 pound range, with the biggest being a 7.7 pounds and 23.5 inches long.  I saw a couple double digit bass cruising up and down the bank, but couldn't get one to bite.  Sure wish I had a few more days to fish this amazing place before the rainy season starts later this month.

Went night fishing with a red eye shad. Got a 5.5 and a 3.1. By weight this suddenly becomes one of my best days all year and my second biggest bass of 2022. I got pooped on by a tiny spotted bass, and I'd almost lost the clippers that belonged to my dad, searched through the rock pile to find em. Then a guy came and casted me down after I caught the 3.1. Not even 5 minutes after he left, 5.5 crushes the RES literally right where he was standing. I like to leave on a high note. What a night. I'm very happy.

First bass on my new finesse rig—caught first fish on weightless Texas-rigged Stick-O between first light and sunrise. Then after the sun came up, tried a Neko rig for the first time. Used a Zoom trick worm. Didn’t buy fancy weights, either; drywall screws worked perfect.

They ain't biting 

43 minutes ago, lunkerboss923 said:

They ain't biting 

Been tough here for numbers the past week or 2 but size has been good. 

I got a 3 and a 5 on back to back casts one trip two weeks ago. Since then I've caught 3 3s a 3.5 and a 6. I caught one close to 3 last Monday on a crappie jig under a slip bobber.

Great day on the water. Topwater was on fire at sunrise. Did some damage with a Pop Max and a Chug Bug, and when the topwater bite died, they slammed jigs and spinnerbaits all day long. Biggest went 3lb 5oz, but my buddy and I were catching them all day. 

 

 

19 hours ago, king fisher said:

giant crawdads that were mostly blue

     I showed my wife a the picture of one of the giant Crawdads I caught and she laughed.  She told me they are fresh water Lobsters, and asked how many I got.  I told her I got 4.  She got mad when she found out I let all 4 back in the water.  Turns out they are very good to eat, and demand a high price in the fish market here.  She has learned to live with me letting bass go, she doesn't understand the logic of catch and release, but knows I enjoy fishing that way.  On the other hand, I was informed catch and release lobster fishing will not be tolerated.

        I am going to make the best of this situation.  The next time I want to bass fish at Trigomil, I am going to tell her I'm going Lobster fishing.

  

I started off the day losing 3-4 fish in the first hour or so on a swimbait, thought it might be one of those days. Then i decided to pick up the ole jig worm and caught one about 16-17” and then a second almost touching 18”. 


The pic below I took for @LrgmouthShad

When you get them stuck in that spot, they won’t come off 


my buddy showed up later and we went way up river, caught some smallies in shallow water but kept seeing big drum feeding. I sight casted to a few and they chomped down on the worm, pretty fun 

 

25 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

The pic below I took for @LrgmouthShad

When you get them stuck in that spot, they won’t come off 

*Frantically scribbles notes*
 

Awesome fish! 

27 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

*Frantically scribbles notes*
 

Awesome fish! 

If only I knew how to hook them there every time …….

First cast of the day was a dink but good luck and the start of a great morning.

 

Amazing how agressive the little fellas can be.

 

A better one on a jig.

 

Drop shot

 

Also hammered the underspin

 

Pops getting in on the action