8 hours ago, gimruis said:

Nice haircut @TnRiver46!

Thanks, my wife cut it at home hahaha. The kitchen floor looked like a poodle had been sheared 

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

Thanks, my wife cut it at home hahaha

That's what mine does too.

 

Hard to beat the feeling you have when you get a haircut.  Its like the temperature drops 5 degrees instantly after that mop is gone off your head.

8 hours ago, thediscochef said:

I've not been fishing nearly enough, but I managed this little guy on a lipless last night. The guys in the Tuesday Night Tournament at Ray Roberts Isle du Bois need to figure out how to stop killing fish at weigh in, I keep finding dead fish 3-5lbs after each of their tournaments. A solid chunk floating up on the boat ramp last night. Sickening. At least take it home and eat it. Literally anything other than that.

 

The other photo is the best sight I've seen all summer.

Thank you for doing that. I too hate to waste or to witness it. 

8 hours ago, thediscochef said:

I've not been fishing nearly enough, but I managed this little guy on a lipless last night. The guys in the Tuesday Night Tournament at Ray Roberts Isle du Bois need to figure out how to stop killing fish at weigh in, I keep finding dead fish 3-5lbs after each of their tournaments. A solid chunk floating up on the boat ramp last night. Sickening. At least take it home and eat it. Literally anything other than that.

 

The other photo is the best sight I've seen all summer.

Congrats on the coming rain too. We're also in drought in Maine, but got more than an inch last night. 

21 hours ago, thediscochef said:

I keep finding dead fish 3-5lbs after each of their tournaments.

I wonder if emailing a picture to TWPD that some "training outreach" is needed might get some attention on it. Not kidding, some of those TWPD guys are real serious about their fish. 

 

Had a fun day, started about 130 and ended at about 530.  Caught 11, lost 2, and got one epic unrecoverable backlash on a steez reel lol.   

 

First few hours were slow, and caught 3 all on a Roboworm.   Biggest fish of the day did come this way on a huge channel dropoff, somewhere maybe in the mid 3s.     

 

The really fun part was I caught 8 and then lost a few all within that last hour chasing shad balls.  Seen balls of shad at the surface on this lake my whole life, only on the rare occasion would I catch one throwing a top water at them.  All 8 were b/t 1-2 lbs, 2 were Spots, 6 were LGMs.   

 

Today I had a new weapon, a fish finder, so when I saw the bass blowing them up, I motored over a few pods and saw bigger fish below the extremely balled up threadfins.   Upon seeing that I took the top water off and tied on a jig vibration head/Magic Shad, it seemed to penetrate down below the balls where I would then pick up these violent strikes, and every single fish practically stayed on the surface.   These fish were clearly amped up.    Just as quick as they turned on, they turned off.    Now I know how to catch these fish in the middle of the lake when I see the shad.  

 

Biggest of the day on the Roboworm in first pic, the next two are representative of the schooling Bass I was catching, lastly my setup......TD-X with low gear ratio on a special edition 6'6 GLX Mag Bass with SST handle (there special name for carbon fiber I guess).    Greatest fishing handle ever made, wish I could buy more.   

 

Mr. SpotHunter, thanks for all the details and the great pics. 

14 hours ago, txchaser said:

I wonder if emailing a picture to TWPD that some "training outreach" is needed might get some attention on it. Not kidding, some of those TWPD guys are real serious about their fish. 

 

I plan to start gathering data for TPWD. It makes me insane, some of these guys have boats that cost more than I make in a year and they use them like complete boneheads. For shame.

 

Anyway. Here's the fish I caught this morning. It was the biggest fish I saw at the state park this morning. Even from the guy livescoping the crowded fishing pier ? I think swimbaits are good

Hooked into 6, landed 4, got pics of 2. Thankful for the rain and the beautiful weather, finally some easier bank conditions.

On 8/17/2022 at 8:53 PM, TnRiver46 said:

I think we need to see if there’s a spinnerbait on the back of that shirt. ? ? 

On 8/18/2022 at 7:32 AM, gimruis said:

That's what mine does too.

 

Hard to beat the feeling you have when you get a haircut.  Its like the temperature drops 5 degrees instantly after that mop is gone off your head.

I need a haircut something fierce..just been too busy or too lazy to go. I have curly hair and I brushed it output in the shower the other night...it was to the top of my shoulder blades.

 

On 8/17/2022 at 8:53 PM, TnRiver46 said:

You legally shouldn't be allowed to own that shirt since you said spinnerbaits are worthless.

26 minutes ago, Fishlegs said:

I think we need to see if there’s a spinnerbait on the back of that shirt. ? ? 

 

8 minutes ago, DitchPanda said:

I need a haircut something fierce..just been too busy or too lazy to go. I have curly hair and I brushed it output in the shower the other night...it was to the top of my shoulder blades.

 

You legally shouldn't be allowed to own that shirt since you said spinnerbaits are worthless.

Zorro makes jigs too

y’all reminding me that I need to try that Bango blade spinnerbait sometime

49 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

 

Zorro makes jigs too

I know but they are most known for spinnerbaits. And  honestly a spinnerbait is a jig with a wire and blades?

On 8/15/2022 at 5:23 PM, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Nice fish, and hello fellow Alabamian.    I'm in Hoover, nice to see a fellow member relatively close by me.   I just went out for about two hours because of the crazy drop in pressure and pickup in wind.   Caught one little spot.   I like to fish these extremes thinking I'm going to figure something out.....nope, never do lmao   

I went out to Inland lake this morning. Overcast, windy… caught 3 dink smallies and went bust after that. My luck isn’t going well either 

1 hour ago, sdw215 said:

I went out to Inland lake this morning. Overcast, windy… caught 3 dink smallies and went bust after that. My luck isn’t going well either 

One's luck is always turning pal, I just went out for a few hours but did more fish finder looking than fishing, caught two 1lb or less fish.   I watched huge balls of threadfins across the area of the lake I was scanning, but unlike yesterday I didn't see the bigger fish under or around the balls.  I imagine they were tight on the grass and cover with the wind.   That's what I took away from the session.

 

When I know it's been bad during the day, I especially want to fish that night.....they gotta eat some time is my thinking lol. It was brutal in a high sided v hulled jon boat in 5-7mph winds so I called it early, might go back out tonight and re try, bet I get rewarded if I do   

 

 

The really clear pond I last fished a couple days ago is still fresh in my mind. So when I stumbled upon a package of my old favorite dropshot/split shot worms sitting in the garage, the light bulb went off - I had never tried dropshotting any of these ponds. So I rerigged my only dedicated DS rod with some 6 lb. test, found all my old DS terminal tackle, and made a quick (1 hr) trip this evening just to test this idea out while the water is still really clear (rain in forecast all weekend).

 

First cast produced a bass 

Second cast produced a bass 

Long story short...Twelve bass fishing a 125 ft. stretch of bank in 60 minutes from what has been a very stingy pond. 

 

Now I've got my fingers crossed that one of the two really clear ponds stays that way through the weekend rain. What a blast!

 

 

Tried my best to make myself not go back out night fishing, but the inner fishing demon won out, and likely for the best.

 

Fished from 10:20pm-1:45am.     Perfect pressure @ 30.00, started very dark and cloudy, then ended with stars and a qtr moon.   Apparently, it wasn't the wind during the day that was turning them off as it was present until almost the end of the session.   

 

Caught 8 fish all b/t 1-3lbs, so no 5lb+ fish which was kinda rare for a good biting night session.  Not sure where the big fish went.    Did catch one Spot over 2lbs so that got the heart racing. 

 

4 fish came on my all time favorite night bait.....1/8th tungsten T Rigged 8" zoom Magnum lizard in Black Grape on 5/0 Gama red EWG.   Fish these off points, and structure located in the 5-10ft range.   Then once the wind and clouds started to fade, I caught the other 4  on a ZMAN 3/8th weedless chatterbait in Bream color.   I was really slow rolling it, just barely enough to get it to chatter.     Must have gotten 10-12 bites, but only hooked the 4.    The smaller fish were out last night so it could be that, but I might switch to a non weedless in the future.   They were just ripping off zoom twin tail trailers.    

 

 

1 hour ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

4 fish came on my all time favorite night bait.....1/8th tungsten T Rigged 8" zoom Magnum lizard in Black Grape on 5/0 Gama red EWG.

Awesome! Reminds me I need to restock on lizards and craw creature baits. I won’t ask what your night fishing spot is but would I recognize it? You mentioned the boat so I’m guessing it’s not a pond.

 

My next trip is Neely Henry somewhere around Rainbow Landing or Canoe Creek hopefully.

22 minutes ago, sdw215 said:

Awesome! Reminds me I need to restock on lizards and craw creature baits. I won’t ask what your night fishing spot is but would I recognize it? You mentioned the boat so I’m guessing it’s not a pond.

 

My next trip is Neely Henry somewhere around Rainbow Landing or Canoe Creek hopefully.

Thanks, it's a smaller private 200-300 acre lake in Shelby County.   It's an electric motor only lake, so that lake feels significantly bigger than it is when you're fishing it.   About 1.5-2 miles in length not counting a few creeks.     I think the lake was built in the early 70s, and quite deep for it's size.  I've found 34ft so far.   Huge amounts of threadfins, along with lots of Crawfish.  Starting about 20 years ago me and a pal before we knew any better stocked bigger Alabama Bass we'd catch around the Coosa and Cahaba Rivers, and somehow they've managed to thrive, and seemingly balance with the lake's original Northern strain LGM bass.   I have to imagine it's the deep water throughout the lake that allows the Alabama Bass population.   I've never seen Alabama Bass in a lake this size.  Trying to get the Lake Treasury to buy F1 Bass, but we'd have to get 10-12" fish which are crazy expensive, fingerlings would just end up feeding bigger fish.     

 

Over the next month I'm going to be making a number of artificial Bass structures and dropping them in, going to concentrate on adding stuff offshore.    I'll make a thread about it when I do.  Think it should be cool to document.   

 

I sold my Bass boat years ago, but now that I'm getting back into it, I'm already seeing my wings feeling the need to fly haha.    Good Luck at Neely Henry brother!   

Couple river smallies today. Larger one photo’d came on a spinnerbait. Somebody tell TnRiver that spinnerbaits work for smallmouth, I’m not sure if he knows ?. 
 

 

34 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

Couple river smallies today. Larger one photo’d came on a spinnerbait. Somebody tell TnRiver that spinnerbaits work for smallmouth, I’m not sure if he knows ?. 
 

 

Nice one!   What always amazes me about smallmouths is the wide variance in their coloring and patterns.   That one has little bronzing, and you could be fooled at first if you didn't look for the lateral line.  I've been watching the MLF tourney on the St. Lawrence River today, and the ones they are pulling up are super bronze and have pronounced tiger striping.       I used to think it was largely based on temp, but now I really have no idea what causes smallmouths to look so differently from place to place.   

 

LGMs have some of this as well...some have pronounced lateral lines, some are much greener, some have whiter bellies, etc.     Alabama Bass and Spots seem to look much more uniform from location to location.   

 

I've always found river Bass to be much more exciting, and hard fighting fish. 

 

ETA:  Peak irony a spinnerbait man is wearing a zoom shirt, and a non spinnerbait man was wearing a zorro shirt 

10 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Nice one!   What always amazes me about smallmouths is the wide variance in their coloring and patterns.   That one has little bronzing, and you could be fooled at first if you didn't look for the lateral line.  I've been watching the MLF tourney on the St. Lawrence River today, and the ones they are pulling up are super bronze and have pronounced tiger striping.       I used to think it was largely based on temp, but now I really have no idea what causes smallmouths to look so differently from place to place.   

 

LGMs have some of this as well...some have pronounced lateral lines, some are much greener, some have whiter bellies, etc.     Alabama Bass and Spots seem to look much more uniform from location to location.   

 

I've always found river Bass to be much more exciting, and hard fighting fish.   

Thanks man. That smallie has typical coloring of the smallies I’ve caught around here. So I guess in my neck of the woods, this is what they look like. I agree, it’s fascinating how much the coloration can differ and seeing photos of smallies that people catch around the country on here makes it easy to see the differences. 
 

I am still a newbie to both smallmouth and river fishing, but definitely seems like the fight of these fish is incredible compared to a lake/pond largie.

7 largemouth and 5 spots today.   I think I caught this one twice.   I didn't take a picture the first time.  Both were 16 1/2 inches and colored exactly like this one.   1st one on a crankbait.  Released it, took a leak, then caught this one on a Devils Horse.   That's 2 weeks that I think I've caught the same fish back to back.  (the one last week was a dink)

 

3 minutes ago, Woody B said:

7 largemouth and 5 spots today.   I think I caught this one twice.   I didn't take a picture the first time.  Both were 16 1/2 inches and colored exactly like this one.   1st one on a crankbait.  Released it, took a leak, then caught this one on a Devils Horse.   That's 2 weeks that I think I've caught the same fish back to back.  (the one last week was a dink)

 

Their beauty is only matched by their aggressiveness.    That's an especially beautiful Spot.    Spots love that riprap in the background 

1 hour ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

ETA:  Peak irony a spinnerbait man is wearing a zoom shirt, and a non spinnerbait man was wearing a zorro shirt 

HA! ? I just saw this. Think you added it? 
 

I thought the same thing when I posted it. @TnRiver46 loves zoom worms and I am a fan of them too. 
 

Zorro spinnerbait has my biggest bass this year @6.21, NY
 

 

It rained! Sweet Mother of God, it actually rained yesterday! Heavy downpours (rained again this afternoon, too!). Which meant I had to check out the pond this morning. It is still lower than normal, but yesterday’s gullywasher filled up 3/4 of what it was down (filled up now lol), and that’s a good thing. 
 

Caught 6. I dropped one as I was grabbing the phone and he fell in and swam off. First one on a black/silver floating Rapala, three on a Zoom Trick and two on a black Senko. All caught as baits were worked through or near submerged vegetation. None were big but they were scrappers!