My oldest heads back to college in a few days, so we're sneaking in a couple last trips before she heads out. Took the kayaks out for a lazy morning on a local mountain lake with a small population of SM and a ton of planted trout. 

 

 

Starting to feel really comfortable on the pdl 120 and will hopefully get a chance to take it out on the bigger water soon.

 

Invested in some small Japanese minnow baits for trout and bass when they're on small bait, and I have to admit throwing those on an UL rod was a lot of fun. Running 3lb fc and it's going to be quite the fight when I run into a decent sized spot or LM. 

11 hours ago, JWall14 said:

How you like free rigging?? It would replace tubes for me but not sure if it’s worth going down that rabbit hole

It's nice to mix it up and I'll definitely have one rigged up through the fall to give it a long look. I've been rigging weedless with 3/16-1/4oz and an ewg, and I've had to retrain myself with that setup since I'm used to just reel setting most of my finesse setups with an exposed hook.

36 minutes ago, NorcalBassin said:

My oldest heads back to college in a few days, so we're sneaking in a couple last trips before she heads out. Took the kayaks out for a lazy morning on a local mountain lake with a small population of SM and a ton of planted trout. 

 

 

Starting to feel really comfortable on the pdl 120 and will hopefully get a chance to take it out on the bigger water soon.

 

Invested in some small Japanese minnow baits for trout and bass when they're on small bait, and I have to admit throwing those on an UL rod was a lot of fun. Running 3lb fc and it's going to be quite the fight when I run into a decent sized spot or LM. 

Wow beautiful scenery and fish.    Looks like a great time.   Alabama has a very special place below Lewis Smith Dam, where the first 1/4 mile below the dam where it constantly releases 50degree water a monthly stocked Rainbow Trout population exists year round.   It's crystal clear, perfect for wading and flyfishing....it's like we stole 1/4th mile of wild river from CO, or somewhere like that.  Just beautiful, both the river, and the fish.   Those are the only fish I'll keep one or two of and eat, very tasty fish, and this is one of the few sources of truly clean eating freshwater fish in Alabama outside of private locations.    

 

 

3lb test is crazy, that's hard to even tie a knot with.     6lb is what I use and it's more than sporty with a 12-15" Rainbow.  They are tremendous, little fighters.

9 hours ago, NorcalBassin said:

My oldest heads back to college in a few days, so we're sneaking in a couple last trips before she heads out. Took the kayaks out for a lazy morning on a local mountain lake with a small population of SM and a ton of planted trout. 

 

 

Starting to feel really comfortable on the pdl 120 and will hopefully get a chance to take it out on the bigger water soon.

 

Invested in some small Japanese minnow baits for trout and bass when they're on small bait, and I have to admit throwing those on an UL rod was a lot of fun. Running 3lb fc and it's going to be quite the fight when I run into a decent sized spot or LM. 

That lake is soooo beautiful!

On 8/20/2022 at 11:12 PM, NorcalBassin said:

 

Dink of dinks but it always amazes me how aggressive small SM and spots can be.

 

 

Sometimes those little guys are shockingly aggressive. This is the only fish I've ever caught on this bait. Somehow the little fella thought he was gonna get that in his mouth. 

I finally got into some bigger fish today. There was a good dock bite and I caught a pair of 4 pounders about 20 minutes apart.

Your fish look so healthy! Real beauties. 

35 minutes ago, gimruis said:

I finally got into some bigger fish today. There was a good dock bite and I caught a pair of 4 pounders about 20 minutes apart.

Nice! 

22 hours ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Nice fish, and loving the retro tackle box...I don't miss hard tackle systems though haha

Thanks lol it was my dad's, I keep a little of his old stuff on me. 

Had a great last summer trip with my oldest. Got to the lake about 30 minutes before sunrise so we'd have time to run up to where I was hoping the best topwater action would be. She's done really well with small swimbaits, grubs, tubes, Neds, senkos, and drop shot over the years (I've always just tried to put the girls on fish when I take them out), and I figured it was past time to set her up for topwater.

 

First fish of the day a couple casts in with a whopper plopper.

 

My turn on a rover

 

Nice upgrade on the plopper

 

Double hookup... she won.

 

She'll be reminding me of this one for a while...

 

And then she followed it up with her new PB... 19" and close enough to 4 pounds to let her call it a 4 pounder. 

 

Day couldn't have gone better.   

Gorgeous Spot she caught, and the whole lot is full of great fish, congrats!   She has the right shirt on as well....If I'm spending big money on a rod, it's going to G.Loomis.   

 

What a heck of a night I just back home from.   13 fish released, lost a few near the boat, and my Lord did I get eaten up by peckerhead bites.     These fish were everywhere, but seemingly in the beginning of the night they did not want to eat on anything but shad offshore.   It was maddening listening to huge thumps all around, and not having anything to offer.

 

All fish were caught on my old reliable.....8" Mag Lizard setup as I described in a previous report, and perhaps my new confidence bait at least in terms of quality to big fish, the ZMAN chatterbait in Breaking Bream with the Zoom twin tail trailer.   Generates a ton of strikes from all size Bass, but it seems only Bass of a certain size really get stuck with it.    I hate myself a little for just now deciding to learn how to chatterbait fish.   The more I fish it, the more I realize I need a special rod just for these baits.   One thing I'm noticing is that thinner or more sparse skirts do better for me than full or thick skirts.   The 3/8th models seem like the sweet spot as well for me.  I can't get the same action on the 1/2oz models I've thrown.    

 

Found a great place where an above lake's spillpipe was flowing into the large lake, one of those places and times where you just know you are going to catch a fish.....well that happen, and 6 more right after happened, all from the same 10ft stretch spanning the area where the fast flowing runoff was flowing into the lake.

 

Mix bagged basically 50/50 b/t Spots and LGMs.    Got a really healthy, quality pig slow rolling that chatterbait on a dock off the main body of the lake.    Thought it was dang catfish at first.   I had trouble making myself quit as the fish were still biting, but I was fishing in rather poor conditions.   It lightly rained on me for 75% of the night, it was pitch black with almost complete cloud cover, couldn't see a moon.       One very notable thing about tonight was I've never seen so many threadfins roaming all over the lake....offshore, inshore, by docks, just everywhere.  One of those nights where it's just flat out fishy, you feel like you are going to get bit every cast.   The lake was fully alive, Herons and Owls, then I saw a few muskrats or otters, never can tell what they are.  Bats diving down all over after mosquitos, Beavers slapping the water like jerks, then saw a baby Opossum scrounging for bugs on the bank.  It's literally just you and nature.....something I rarely get during the day fishing.

6 hours ago, NorcalBassin said:

Had a great last summer trip with my oldest. Got to the lake about 30 minutes before sunrise so we'd have time to run up to where I was hoping the best topwater action would be. She's done really well with small swimbaits, grubs, tubes, Neds, senkos, and drop shot over the years (I've always just tried to put the girls on fish when I take them out), and I figured it was past time to set her up for topwater.

 

First fish of the day a couple casts in with a whopper plopper.

 

My turn on a rover

 

Nice upgrade on the plopper

 

Double hookup... she won.

 

She'll be reminding me of this one for a while...

 

And then she followed it up with her new PB... 19" and close enough to 4 pounds to let her call it a 4 pounder. 

 

Day couldn't have gone better.   

 

                           

 

     

8 hours ago, NorcalBassin said:

Double hookup... she won.

 

That bottom one really has some nice color!

Went on a short fishing trip with a good buddy this past weekend, Friday-Sunday. Went to a lake out in the western part of Kansas that he'd never been to but wanted to go to and camped. Friday started out pretty good other than the storms and 30mph winds. Then the storms passed and it got flat calm and hot, then more storms rolled in and it got really windy again, we just couldn't really get any decent weather, but probably had a 20ish pound bag for the day.

This 3+ pound smallmouth had the 4.5lb largemouth follow it to the boat while I was fighting it, dropped a YUM FFS minnow on it and she ate that, so I gave Jon the rod with the smallmouth and landed the largemouth.

Sunday was flat calm and tough, a buzzbait was about all we could get bit on until the wake boats started up, then nothing worked.

We decided to pull up camp and go to a different lake about 2 hours closer to home. The fishing was tough there for smallmouth too, I only caught 1 decent fish, the rest were well short of being 15".

The highlight of this lake was the catfish bite. We didn't have a campsite so we parked the boat on a gravel bar and slept there with the catfish rods out. I didn't really sleep because they were going off so constantly. Not sure how many I caught but it was all 3 species up to 20lbs.

Sunday was flat calm and tough again. We were leaving at noon but today I put a dragging rod out for blues while we were bass fishing. It did nothing until about 11 when a little 5lb blue ate it. I almost didn't put it back out but figured I would anyways. Not 5 minutes later it slammed down and ripped drag for a good bit. The fish gave Jon quite the fight before I got it in the net. Ended up being his PB 21.5lb blue to end the trip.

 

                                                 

Decided to go out to the pond and try my luck today and nailed a 3.14lb LMB on a T-rigged ribbon tail craw in black/blue on my spinning rod with 12lb mono in moss green. Got ran off when it decided to come a lightning dropping thunderstorm though

 

 

Edited August 23, 20223 yr by sdw215
Typo

Fished 5am - 1pm today and caught 4. A Spot on rocks in 20' on a jig and 3 on the Bull Wake.

On 8/20/2022 at 10:11 AM, AlabamaSpothunter said:

ZMAN 3/8th weedless chatterbait in Bream color. 

Try the Crosseyez chatterbait. Same idea, but better hookups with the wire weedguard.

16 minutes ago, txchaser said:

Try the Crosseyez chatterbait. Same idea, but better hookups with the wire weedguard.

Awesome, gonna google it right now.   Why do you guys like costing me so much money

 

Oh yeah, I'll buy a few of these for sure.   These things seem relatively weedless without the guard, but I love the added peace of mind because I'm really slow rolling these things into cover.    Places where everything gets hung including jigs and T-Rigged plastics.    

 

Think this pattern should work great 

On 8/23/2022 at 3:15 PM, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Awesome, gonna google it right now.   Why do you guys like costing me so much money

 

Oh yeah, I'll buy a few of these for sure.   These things seem relatively weedless without the guard, but I love the added peace of mind because I'm really slow rolling these things into cover.    Places where everything gets hung including jigs and T-Rigged plastics.    

 

Think this pattern should work great 

I've been really impressed with how well the Booyah Melee comes through cover, much better than any bladed jig I've used. I think the head design allows it to roll over cover instead of into it like most others do.

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Booyah_Melee_Vibrating_Jig/descpage-BYMVJ.html

Walked out on the dock just now and there was a fish feeding around the nieghbors dock across the canal. I skipped a watermelon seed super fluke over there and ….

56 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Nice catch. Beautiful sunset.

33 minutes ago, N Florida Mike said:

Walked out on the dock just now and there was a fish feeding around the nieghbors dock across the canal. I skipped a watermelon seed super fluke over there and ….

Nice catch Mike.

I had my best morning of the year. It was mild and overcast and I was on on the water by 5:15 a.m. and fished until 10:15 a.m., fishing a 49-acre pond. I don't usually fish that long, but I'm thinking the gray day made the bite better. I caught 57 bass and one of my best bass of the summer. The first two photos and the last one were the typical size. Then there's one of the nicer ones. Then my big gal, who erupted on a Whopper Plopper as soon as it hit the water. There's a pic of me holding her, another on the board, and a third showing her measurement.

 

I did fail at frogging. I got lots of great hits, but caught none. I think because the hits are so close and explosive that I'm pulling it from their mouths, whereas the Whopper Plopper hits tend to be distant and not as hard and I don't yank the lure, but wait until I feel the fish. I was using a baitcasting reel and braid with a 17-pound mono leader. I also used pliers to spread the hooks a bit and also trimmed the ends. I'll try again tomorrow.