I decided it was Fish Flu Friday and left very early for a rematch at the smallmouth lake I discovered (went equipped for largemouth last time).  I bought a selection of Keitech and jig heads to try, and was not disappointed.  I started with a 3.3” FAT with 1/4oz. Keitech tungsten head and landed 3 fish on my first 4 casts, including the best smallie of the day (20.5”… no scale) followed by a largemouth that wasn’t far behind.  But things died off very quickly after the first hour of daylight.  It’s been hot here so I moved out deeper as the temperature climbed and picked up a few on dropshot.  In hindsight, I should have got the message and left at about 9am.  I caught about dozen or more in the first hour, then progressively slower and caught only two from about 8-11am.  Lesson learned for next trip - go early, leave early.  Also, I caught more largemouth than smallmouth so seems I need to work on my smallie mojo at my secret smallie lake. lol

Been real slow lately but I've also been fishing way less than normal. Just haven't had the motivation, life happened pretty hard in the last month.

Despite this, I have been managing some good size fish when something does happen to bite. It's weird, I haven't caught much below or above five pounds in that spot, and I get them about every third trip out there. There's a tournament that releases bags there every Tuesday and that seems to be a better luck day. I wonder why. Lmao. Lol.

Water temps are in the mid 80s right now and it's just slow unless you can get into deeper water (hard to do on foot). Even downsizing to match the small shads isn't really doing much for me. Eagerly awaiting December when water is back in the 60s and 70s.

Got this lil 5.2 chunk last week

Road trip day 1 (plus night before)

 

 

Hot as hell, little wind but a pond with a fountain helped I think. Caught 4 on a 3/8 Siebert Fogy.

Even though its dangerously hot I still put the kayak on the water for 4 hours today, only caught a 15.75" on a wacky rigged creme worm and two 10" ers.

Dude from my crew, Ramon, upped his PB again with this nice slugger. Woke me up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night to share. Before I got my wits about me I thought he'd won the Powerball or something. His voice went up by several octaves telling the tale. He puts in the work. Happy for him. It's not easy to crack a 7 around here. Told him I was allowed to show him the secret handshake now?

 

MattLures Strong Shad

Got a dummy thicc 4.25 tonight. Probably the luckiest catch of my life, it came unhooked as I had it by the bank. She sat between two rocks in front of me, facing me, and I was able to gently put my net behind her and land her. Strike King RES keeps pulling solid fish. All my 4+lbs been on a 1/2oz RES for the last two months. Broke the 5lb average streak tonight but I'm still happy to catch a hard fighter like this. Took drag to a point I thought it might be a PB. Three other dinks, two LMB and one spot. It was only 100 degrees out today, felt great to get some relief from the 105+

 

Edited to add photo lol

1 hour ago, thediscochef said:

Got a dummy thicc 4.25

Nice catches.

 

1 hour ago, PhishLI said:

Nice catches.

 

Thanks! you as well. I see we both recently had "...is that PB?" moments 

Day two of road trip. Sorry it’s not bass

 

 

 

We are definitely in a drought. It rained yesterday for all of five minutes. It’s basically been no rain in over a month. The pond is down about 2’, which is huge in a 7’-8’ pond. I only caught bass in one spot (and shallow at that), and except for the last one (#5) on a wacky rig with a #956 Senko, the rest were only interested in a purple Zoom Mag 2 Texas rig. No bites on topwater, squarebills, spinnerbaits, etc. But they did like that Mag 2! All were this size 

 

I caught my new Kalamazoo PB bass! I think that it was in the 4.5-5 pound range! Also caught a 3 pounder and 2 others.

Nothing special but a few fish, caught 2 today to break in my 5lb fluorocarbon on my bfs reel after I had to re spool it. Caught on a 4.5” fat robo worm in bold bluegill on a 3/0 trokar finesse worm hook. Would have caught a couple more but drag was not set correctly on a couple hook sets lol. 1 dink and another slightly less smaller dink at 2.38lbs. Not bad for 30 minutes or less.

I caught 6 this morning.  3 on a devils horse, and 3 on a t-rig.   This particular spotted bass was 18 inches long, but only weighed 2 pounds 1 ounce.    I don't think the weight is a scale malfunction.  When I got home my 10 pound weight weighed 9 pounds 15 ounces on it.    Lake Wylie has plenty of forage.  Most of the bass I catch are fat.   I wonder if this one is sick, or just thin.   

 

In pursuit of Murphy's bass - lol. I've been threatening (myself) to pull out a split shot rig the past couple years, maybe even start a good thread on it. Finally got around to doing it today, and now kind of kicking myself for not doing it earlier. Pulled 16 on it from a stingy summer pond that has been recently treated. Learned a bunch and got things dialed in pretty quick once I got that first bite. Very interested now in playing with it a little more on a couple other types of water first.

 

 

 

 

Caught my best river Smallmouth Bass of the year today. A 2 pounder on a 1/16 oz EWG weedless Ned rig drifted and hopped along the current. My combo was a  6’ medium light fast action St Croix Avid rod paired with a 1000 size Shimano Vanford spooled with 6# Berkley Trilene XT. 
 

The fight with a fish this size on light gear against the current was one of my top 3 of all time. 
 

 Today was a struggle and almost took the L. However, I was able scratch out one to avoid the skunk .
 

Launched at lee street. Started on the Shiawassee and nodda. Went up the cass a little bit and nothing. Ran back down to down town Saginaw to one of my historically better spots. picked up one large mouth on one of my pb&j arkie jigs that make. Nothing special but, about 15 inches. 

 

Today was struggle to say the least. Did real good this spring on bass on the Saginaw and Shiawassee  but, summer has been a differnt story.
 

we need rain bad.  I was leary of the titabawassee but, should have tried it I guess. Probably would have better protected from the wind.  Rivers are down in the Saginaw Area probably 3-4 feet from the past summers.  We have not had much rain since April 

On 7/22/2022 at 7:18 AM, Deleted account said:

 

Now I gotta go get checked for Monkey Pox...

I wonder if there's a Bait Monkey strain? Hmmm.

5 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

I wonder if there's a Bait Monkey strain? Hmmm.

There is, and I believe I contracted it at Fitz Tackle and Supplies, MO yesterday. I need to stay away from that place. So many spinnerbaits. So many rods and reels 

10 hours ago, Team9nine said:

In pursuit of Murphy's bass - lol. I've been threatening (myself) to pull out a split shot rig the past couple years, maybe even start a good thread on it. Finally got around to doing it today, and now kind of kicking myself for not doing it earlier. Pulled 16 on it from a stingy summer pond that has been recently treated. Learned a bunch and got things dialed in pretty quick once I got that first bite. Very interested now in playing with it a little more on a couple other types of water first.

 

 

 

 

I culled several times in a kayak tournament earlier this year with a split shot rigged mid sized Rage Bug, enough to finish in the money. When they called me up to get my prize and talk and I said a split shot rig saved the day, I saw several guys just look confused and one even came and asked me what that was afterwards. I guess I didn't realized it was that long forgotten.

 

 

There was a couple kids fishing derbies yesterday but we went to the one put on by my old high school that now has a fishing team. I have only fished the lake it was at maybe twice so didn't know much but we set up just inside the only point on the lake going back into a little feeder creek cove with some cattails and grass. Both my boys were there as well as my 2 older nieces Lily and Zoey. There was little bluegills swimming all over right in front of us and a prize for first fish in all the age groups, so when the horn blew I had the girls drop their worms right in front of them and pretty much instantly doubled on 4 inch bluegill. We had an score keeper in a tent right behind us and both got on the board before the tournament was a minute old, so they both ended up winning "first fish", in their age groups. 

 

I set Lake up with a #10 mosquito hook and a BB sized split shot with a piece of nightcrawler and he was perch jerking as fast as he could go for awhile. I guess the Tournament Director actually called to make sure his score was right because he has 8 fish on the board in the first 5 minutes. I was casting Finn's for him but he was doing the rest, it was pretty much just cast and hand it to him and he could go ahead and reel the fish in. I also brought a rod to set out for catfish and saved a couple of the tiny sunfish they caught to put on it. First one barely hit the bottom before a little 12" bass ate it, Lily got that one. I put a bobber on it and floated the next one over the grass and a nice 15.5" largemouth ate it and did everything it could to get away but Finn finally beached him.

Lily got tired of catching bluegills and wanted to fish for bass. She's never fished much so I gave her a wacky rig and told her to try the back of the cove in front of the cattails. Wasn't long before she was carrying her own bass back, a 16" fish that was the second biggest fish in her age group. She was extremely proud of catching it on her own.

When the 2 hours was up, the girls got their prizes for the first fish in the groups, Finn won most fish in his age group with 36, and Lake won the most out of everyone with 46.

 

Fished a 45 yak tournament yesterday in 95 degree heat.  We had a choice of five local reservoirs.   I had never been on three of them.  The other two are somewhat similar - I like both, one sets up better for me in fall.  I chose the one I do best in summer.  It's a fairly clear lake with well defined weed lines throughout.  Lots of wood, but mostly inside the 20 foot contour lines.  Outside grass edge is in 15-16 FOW around most of the lake.  Surface temps were 86 at 6:30, and hit 89 by late afternoon.  I headed out to a favored wood spot, but passing a point, I found stacks of fish on a point at 17 - 18 feet, so I just stopped and started there.  I caught a couple 16 inchers early on the outside weed lines;  casting CutRs and 7" Thumpers into the grass and gently bringing out to the edge and stop.  That turned out to be the ticket all day.  I actually tried to shake off the second 16.  There was a fish twice his size following it in.  Needless to say, I spent way too long at that spot trying to find her again.  At 1030, I only had three keepers (12 in min).  Then picked up one of the better fish I'd ever caught in that lake, right at 22.  At that point, i was confident in the pattern and finally relaxed a little.  Of course that's when things shut down for a couple hours. I caught a few 13-15s when it picked up again, then hooked a 20" kicker near the end.  All the bass yesterday were in a foul mood, nearly every one jumped off the board.  Spent a lot of time getting jabbed by fins while trying to keep them under control.  Fortunately,  none got back in the water before getting the pictures.  First win since October felt pretty sweet.

Had to call a trapper this weekend to catch this little guy walking down our street Yesterday.

8 foot 3 inch but still caused concern for children and pets. 

On a great ? bite lately. 

I've had fewer outings than usual so far this summer, but lots of action when I have been out. A sampling of the better fish from 4 morning trips to different lakes over the last month-- all cookie-cutter 2 and 3lb-ers, but they just kept coming:

 

 

Buzzbaits and texas rigged worms (mainly power worms and the Zoom speed worm in bottom middle) have done almost all the work.

Love topwater. I have been fishing the Baby Pop-Max on BFS gear and it has been a blast. The bait in the pic alone has caught almost 100 fish in just a few months.  This guy was a fuzz over 3lbs and just destroyed it.