Beautiful photo. 

1 minute ago, ol'crickety said:

Beautiful photo. 

My cousin (in law) Diana took them, she’s great 

1 hour ago, Blue Raider Bob said:

Don't have to go too far north! Just make a trip to Tennessee. We got smallies and the first time you hook a four pounder and it takes off like a scalded dog, goes airborne, and rips your heart out, you will be a regular visitor!

 

Not that far north? I'm in Orlando, Tennessee might as well be Canada to me! ?

 

The idea is still rattling around, I kind of want to make a road trip from here to upstate NY with fishing stops along the way, Tennessee is definitely part of that plan.

18 minutes ago, Aaron_H said:

 

Not that far north? I'm in Orlando, Tennessee might as well be Canada to me! ?

 

The idea is still rattling around, I kind of want to make a road trip from here to upstate NY with fishing stops along the way, Tennessee is definitely part of that plan.

You can find smallies in N GA and N AL if you need a shorter trip 

43 minutes ago, Aaron_H said:

 

Not that far north? I'm in Orlando, Tennessee might as well be Canada to me! ?

 

The idea is still rattling around, I kind of want to make a road trip from here to upstate NY with fishing stops along the way, Tennessee is definitely part of that plan.

 

How far can you cast? Work on casting really, really far. Think big lures and hurricane tailwinds. 

 

Truly,

 

Ol' Crickety, Winner of the Bad Ideas Trophy in 2003, 2007, 2016, and 2022

3 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

 

Heck, yeah, Tennessee is Smallmouth Town. I've never fished it, but I know its long, glorious smallmouth history. However, If you're going to fish Tennessee, Aaron, you might as well mosey up to Erie. If you're fishing Erie, you're not far from St. Clair. If you're fishing St. Clair, you're already in Michigan and you might as well roll a little farther north to its countless smallmouth lakes. Then, if you're fishing northern Michigan, you oughta....

Sign me up! If Aaron passes through Tennessee on the way to Ontario, he'd better have an empty seat!

20 hours ago, NorcalBassin said:

Love this time of year when the lake is mostly empty, mornings feel like winter and the daytime temps rise up into the low 50's. Saw a lot of bait but not many fish around it... fortunate to still cross paths with some solid ones.

 

Pops picked up a nice trout (very nice out here) on a Keitech.

 

 

This fatty really, really wanted my burrito.

 

You had to do it.  Post a nice bass with a burrito.  The Bait Monkey has been on my back for a few months, trying to get me to buy one.  Every other Tactical Bass video has them using them.  I kept telling the Monkey to calm down because they have their own color of burrito, are simply pushing their product. Then the monkey shows me this picture and screams black Friday in my ear.  I think I have lost the battle, and will order two for Christmas.

9 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

You can find smallies in N GA and N AL if you need a shorter trip 

Lake Guntersville!

9 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

You can find smallies in N GA and N AL if you need a shorter trip 

 

We have some property in SE Alabama, might not be too far of a drive up north from there. I'm currently trying to convince my brother to take a road trip with me to Dale Hollow next year. He tried unsuccessfully to target some smallmouth a few years ago on a trip up the eastern seaboard, he's still salty about it.

Slipped in a quick 1/2 hour before wicked cold rain whipped in. Kinda crappy?

 

Went out for some catching this morning, I tried yesterday but the combo of cold, clouds, and wind kept me inside. Just too much for my hands. Today was great though, partly cloudy with the occasional 10mph NW wind. Had 6 LMB and a shad. Foul hooked it right under the pectoral fin. If I'd had some other gear it'd've become bait. 

Good job, DiscoChef. If you'd turn that first fish into bait, what might you have caught with it?

20", scale was in the truck. I ALWAYS carry my scale after November but had an hour to slip out, just grabbed my rod, reel and 3 Lipless and fished. 

13 Metanium HG, ALX OXIM Agent, Daiwa Game Vibe Lipless. Brian. 

55 minutes ago, a1712 said:

20", scale was in the truck. I ALWAYS carry my scale after November but had an hour to slip out, just grabbed my rod, reel and 3 Lipless and fished. 

13 Metanium HG, ALX OXIM Agent, Daiwa JDM Lipless. Brian. 

Nice! Love the trap bite. 20”er, I reckon you could say somewhere between 4 and 5 

3 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

Good job, DiscoChef. If you'd turn that first fish into bait, what might you have caught with it?

Thanks! With a shad that size, it'd be likely a Flathead or Blue Catfish, a decent size Black Bass, or a Gar - at this lake probably a longnose or shortnose, alligator gar are very sparse in Ray Roberts. Very few recorded catches. My money is on a blue catfish though, I've caught them on lures there.

On 11/14/2022 at 5:52 PM, Aaron_H said:

Finally got into a nice fall fish, and got it on the new jerkbait combo to boot. Took a page out of @thediscochef's book and caught a 5lber. Couldn't stand getting run out of that spot yesterday by the storm, so went back today for some revenge. Pretty decent wind out of the east, caught most of my fish along the windblown bank on a jerkbait and lipless, including one ~3lber on the lipless. The 5 was the biggest of the evening, got it on the opposite bank twitching the jerkbait next to a point.

 

Also got a stud bluegill on the jerkbait working it through a drain outflow that's kicking pretty good from all the storms. Didn't have my measuring tape with me so I can't submit it to FWC, but took a picture of it laid out on my hand, then measured once I got home. Would've been 10.5", not my biggest but my biggest in a while and a nice surprise.

 

I think I'm starting to get the hang of throwing the jerkbaits on mono. I think my drag was too loose for the first few fish that came off, so used to being ginger with the drag throwing them on braid. I tightened it way down (not cranked down but compared to my old braid setup) and stopped missing those bites. Gotta really lean hard into them to bypass the stretch and load that rod deep/drive those trebles home instead of just reeling/sweeping into them with braid.

 

It's a learning process, but I'm happy to have some nice results. The 5lber jumped 3 times, had a couple of nice runs, but I was able to really lean into her on that 12lb mono and never felt like she was going to come unpinned, and no bent out trebles so far either.

Hey NICE! I'm still lookin for this week's fiver...she's out there somewhere. I'm gonna get her

My latest catch was furry! These little critters use my dock as a latrine. They also chew my electrical wires on my solar lights and solar fish feeder. Don't know why but they do. I have to trap and release several times a year. This particular coon was reluctant to escape the cage when we got to the release site. The pictures will give you an idea of why it can be uncomfortable releasing these critters. You have to open door and remain in place as they leave. You also have to hope there is no remaining animosity! This one didn't and I'm glad because I'm no longer fleet of foot!

1 hour ago, Blue Raider Bob said:

My latest catch was furry! These little critters use my dock as a latrine. They also chew my electrical wires on my solar lights and solar fish feeder. Don't know why but they do. I have to trap and release several times a year. This particular coon was reluctant to escape the cage when we got to the release site. The pictures will give you an idea of why it can be uncomfortable releasing these critters. You have to open door and remain in place as they leave. You also have to hope there is no remaining animosity! This one didn't and I'm glad because I'm no longer fleet of foot!

Haha! Prop the door open on a log or a block and then you can walk away and let it come out on its own terms. We have a couple traps like yours but most of ours are different and you could run a stick through the cage to hold the door open and back away

 

i had one come at me snarling from 30 feet away once, had to kick it to smitherines 

 

be careful, the health dept considers it a rabies exposure it one of those things so much as touches you (I don’t but they do) 

13 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

i had one come at me snarling from 30 feet away once, had to kick it to smitherines 

This is why, possum get released, coon get lead poisoning.

Got another nice fall one on the jerkbait. I am loving this new jerkbait combo! Biggest of the evening went 6lb 1oz:

 

Air temp almost 20 degrees cooler during the day than yesterday, the fish were blowing up on shad schools pretty nicely starting around 3:30 PM or so. Just a bit too far out to get to the really big blowups I was seeing, but I did manage to pick off quite a few smaller bass. Then I saw a nice blowup ~20 feet from the bank off to my left. Made a cast right into where she blew up, twitch twitch BOOM loaded into that 6lber. Fantastic fight, a couple of jumps and some strong runs but she stayed pegged

 

The first bass I hooked into jumped in about 10" of water and my line went slack as soon as it landed, thought I lost it. Reeled up and the rod loaded, jerkbait is hung on the bottom. Water was clear, I could see where it was stuck in the mud, but I couldn't quite see my lure. Then I notice about 8" of bass tail sticking up out of the mud, the fish had nosedived in that shallow water and buried itself in the mud. Got her unstuck and back on her way after a quick laugh.

 

Shout out to the strongest fight of the evening, though:

 

I really had to put some mussel into it. ?

45 minutes ago, Aaron_H said:

Shout out to the strongest fight of the evening

So I'm not the only one that catches shellfish.  Cape Cod has big freshwater clams.

1 hour ago, Aaron_H said:

twitch twitch BOOM loaded into that 6lber.

I see you're in Orlando.  I'll be down there for MECUM in January.  Are there any decent places to fish from shore?  Thanks, in advance.

14 minutes ago, DogBone_384 said:

I see you're in Orlando.  I'll be down there for MECUM in January.  Are there any decent places to fish from shore?  Thanks, in advance.

 

Lots. And lots. And even more than that. I can't express to you just how many ponds there are in central FL, since it's a dirty swamp and needs all the drainage it can get just to make it (moderately) habitable. The best advice I can give is to hop on Google Earth Pro, figure out where you'll be staying and just start dropping pins on ponds you find. Anything that isn't fenced and has no signage I would try. Use the past satellite imagery feature to narrow down ponds that are older (10+ years) and have a better chance at holding some quality fish, but if it's just numbers you're after then you can skip that. Just be warned that many, many ponds are going to be privately owned and do not allow fishing either by the homeowner or HOA.

 

FWC has some lakes and ponds listed on their sites with forecasts that you can check out. The Fab Five lakes should all have quality bank access, and all of the urban ponds they list do. If you make the drive down to Hunters Creek area, Bear Creek park (one of the urban ponds) has some very big bass in it, as well as stocked channel catfish if that's your thing. The bass bite can be a little stingy there, but there are some true giants in that pond.

Burning leaves @ 10 o'clock at night in snow flurries and these girls were hunting the neighbor's docks....

 

scott

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Aaron_H said:

Got another nice fall one on the jerkbait. I am loving this new jerkbait combo! Biggest of the evening went 6lb 1oz:

 

Air temp almost 20 degrees cooler during the day than yesterday, the fish were blowing up on shad schools pretty nicely starting around 3:30 PM or so. Just a bit too far out to get to the really big blowups I was seeing, but I did manage to pick off quite a few smaller bass. Then I saw a nice blowup ~20 feet from the bank off to my left. Made a cast right into where she blew up, twitch twitch BOOM loaded into that 6lber. Fantastic fight, a couple of jumps and some strong runs but she stayed pegged

 

The first bass I hooked into jumped in about 10" of water and my line went slack as soon as it landed, thought I lost it. Reeled up and the rod loaded, jerkbait is hung on the bottom. Water was clear, I could see where it was stuck in the mud, but I couldn't quite see my lure. Then I notice about 8" of bass tail sticking up out of the mud, the fish had nosedived in that shallow water and buried itself in the mud. Got her unstuck and back on her way after a quick laugh.

 

Shout out to the strongest fight of the evening, though:

 

I really had to put some mussel into it. ?

Man's over here casually catching bigger bass than I have all year LOL

37* and blowing 10mph. Forgot my electric underwear, so I froze my dingaling off for an hour, then tapped out. Brrrr. One bite. One bass. No drama. No skunk!