Biggest Smallmouth of the year! A 3lb, 4oz beauty caught this morning on a weightless worm. Amazing power in these fish especially fighting them out of the current. 

 

42 minutes ago, NYWayfarer said:

Biggest Smallmouth of the year! A 3lb, 4oz beauty caught this morning on a weightless worm. Amazing power in these fish especially fighting them out of the current. 

 

Heck, yeah, that's a gorgeous fish! And a river fish means it's twice as fun.

1 hour ago, NYWayfarer said:

Biggest Smallmouth of the year! A 3lb, 4oz beauty caught this morning on a weightless worm. Amazing power in these fish especially fighting them out of the current. 

 

Yeah buddy!!!

2 hours ago, NYWayfarer said:

Biggest Smallmouth of the year! A 3lb, 4oz beauty caught this morning on a weightless worm. Amazing power in these fish especially fighting them out of the current. 

 

Yeah I wish I have small mouth around here. I’ve heard it put up fight lb to lb a lot harder than LMB.

4 minutes ago, Bass_Fishing_SoCal said:

Yeah I wish I have small mouth around here. I’ve heard it put up fight lb to lb a lot harder than LMB.

For sure. This fish was peeling drag. I had to put my thumb on the spool to stop the line coming off. Steady pressure with the rod to wear her down to the point where I could regain some lost yardage. Strangely she never jumped. Made me think it was a Channel Cat at first.

4 hours ago, NYWayfarer said:

Biggest Smallmouth of the year! A 3lb, 4oz beauty caught this morning on a weightless worm. Amazing power in these fish especially fighting them out of the current. 

 

 

were you fishing from the rocky shoreline this day?

Saturday the weather was near perfect, rain clouds hanging low, nice chop onto the bank, water vis good, all except one thing. The temp dropped 20 degrees from fridays hot humid sunny weather.

 

Wife and i caught 6 bass from the bank and wading. It was tough fishing and it was crunch time so i throw the berkley kingtail on using a straight worm hook t-rigged and picked up a couple fish. This kingtail has turned out to be my last resort bait this year.

 

46 minutes ago, throttleplate said:

 

were you fishing from the rocky shoreline this day?

This stretch of the river is between 2 Dams. They have dropped the water level in it by 8 feet to make repairs on the lower Dam.
 

Now I have access to parts of the river I would have never had bank fishing. This particular spot is by the upper Dam. I am able to walk out on rocks that are normally underwater to fish the current coming out of an electrical plant.

17 minutes ago, NYWayfarer said:

This stretch of the river is between 2 Dams. They have dropped the water level in it by 8 feet to make repairs on the lower Dam.
 

Now I have access to parts of the river I would have never had bank fishing. This particular spot is by the upper Dam. I am able to walk out on rocks that are normally underwater to fish the current coming out of an electrical plant.

Man that sounds cool. They did something similar here but they wouldn’t allow anyone to walk out near the water when the lake was drawn down. They patrolled it 24 hours a day for a few years. Some thing about native artifacts they were trying to protect

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Some thing about native artifacts they were trying to protect

 

Yeah right, probably picking up all the snagged lures for themselves.

I caught 5 about this size, 2.5 - 3lb and 4 small ones. Made for a fun day on the water.

 

 

38 minutes ago, FishTank said:

I caught 5 about this size, 2.5 - 3lb and 4 small ones. Made for a fun day on the water.

 

 

Chunky!

Got out a little early this morning off the bank. Just brought my St. Croix Bass-X ML/XF and Daiwa Revros LT2000 and a few bags of soft plastics. Started with a #906 blue/black laminate Senko weightless TR and got no bites. Switched to an X-Zone True Center Stick in Carolina pumpkin black flake. About the third or fourth cast it got bit close to the bank, missed the hookset and it hit it again. Hard. Set the hook and saw this lol. 

I rigged another X-Zone and started working it. It got whacked again. This one did not miss the hook. 
Was just shy of 2 lbs. Good fighter. Don’t know what he ran into at one point, but if he won the fight, I’d hate to see the loser!

I'm so behind the times. Almost 2 weeks ago I found a way to sideline myself yet again, and have had to sit it out, so I thought I've been on the DL. As it turns out the DL is so 2017, at least in baseball terms. The DL(disabled list) has been replaced with IL(injured list), and for good reason. My research has lead me to understand to never ever never say "I'm on the DL, or he's on the DL". The former would confuse my friends and loved ones who are hip to the lingo, and the latter might get me socked. Linguistic efficiency isn't my bag anyway, so no more acronyms for me.

 

It's been two weeks and nothing much has changed, except the water level is even lower. Scary low. It just won't rain here even when thunderstorms are in the forecast. It's still hot as Hades day after day, and the bite is very August-like within casting range. Just a few shorts and several super dinks I let shake off wake/cranks. Back to the ice packs and anti-inflammatories, but it's always good to get some tugs after being away from the action. 

3 hours ago, PhishLI said:

I'm so behind the times. Almost 2 weeks ago I found a way sideline myself yet again, and have had to sit it out, so I thought I've been on the DL. As it turns out the DL is so 2017, at least in baseball terms. The DL(disabled list) has been replaced with IL(injured list), and for good reason. My research has lead me to understand to never ever never say "I'm on the DL, or he's on the DL". The former would confuse my friends and loved ones who are hip to the lingo, and the latter might get me socked. Linguistic efficiency isn't my bag anyway, so no more acronyms for me.

 

It's been two weeks and nothing much has changed, except the water level is even lower. Scary low. It just won't rain here even when thunderstorms are in the forecast. It's still hot as Hades day after day, and the bite is very August-like within casting range. Just a few shorts and several super dinks I let shake off wake/cranks. Back to the ice packs and anti-inflammatories, but it's always good to get some tugs after being away from the action. 

Nice LMs! 
 

I always hear it called IR on sports radio, injured reserve. Maybe that’s different than the IL? 
 

also, I’m not surprised that your meteorologist has been swinging and missing. Par for the course

9 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I always hear it called IR on sports radio, injured reserve. Maybe that’s different than the IL? 

It's something or other.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/goodbye-to-the-dl-mlb-to-change-name-of-disabled-list-to-injured-list-report-says/

11 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Nice LMs! 

?

13 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

also, I’m not surprised that your meteorologist has been swinging and missing. Par for the course

This is next level whiffing though.

Much hotter and more humid than originally predicted today with a high of 92 and a heat index of 101. However, a passing storm threat brought heavy clouds and a good breeze to the area for about half an hour, so I took advantage and swung on a few - still throwing the jig.

 

 

Got out this evening finally for a couple hours. I knew it would be tough , and it was. This was the biggest of 3, caught on a yum dinger. Lost the biggest one that bit  of course. 

Wrenched my shoulder yesterday...it's a bit better today but not enough to launch/land the F-9. So I did some shore fishing. Got one...it was a monster...fighting it on my Procyon L/F was a bear

26 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

Wrenched my shoulder yesterday...it's a bit better today but not enough to launch/land the F-9. So I did some shore fishing. Got one...it was a monster...fighting it on my Procyon L/F was a bear

That's an amazingly small fish. When I used to fish northwestern Ontario, if I caught a dink, I was thrilled and always photographed it. 

2 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

That's an amazingly small fish. When I used to fish northwestern Ontario, if I caught a dink, I was thrilled and always photographed it. 

Ya, it's probably from this spring's spawning.

I fish minnows on the Tennessee River, but that would be thrown overboard,

it's too little for smalllmouth. Maybe about right for sauger or crappie.

Just now, roadwarrior said:

I fish minnows on the Tennessee River, but that would be thrown overboard,

it's too little for smalllmouth. Maybe about right for sauger or crappie.

Problem is, Kent. It's illegal to use any 'game' fish as bait here in MN.

 

That includes sunnies, crappies, etc....

In Tennessee

A licensed sport angler (with all required licenses and permits) can harvest game fish

(including rainbow trout and sunfish) for use as bait using legal sport fishing methods.

1 minute ago, roadwarrior said:

In Tennessee

A licensed sport angler (with all required licenses and permits) can harvest game fish

(including rainbow trout and sunfish) for use as bait using legal sport fishing methods.

That would be undersized for a keeper, not legal bait