Just now, MN Fisher said:

Yes those are good size - but I think Maine would average a little larger given that their state record is almost 3# more than ours.

MN state record largemouth = 8#15oz

ME state record largemouth = 11#10oz

Great point. Didn’t know that. Pretty amazed that such a northerly state like Maine has produced almost a 12 pound largemouth.

1 minute ago, gimruis said:

Great point. Didn’t know that. Pretty amazed that such a northerly state like Maine has produced almost a 12 pound largemouth.

They got a milder climate temperature wise than we do given the moderating effects of the Atlantic and some outliers of the Gulf Stream.

I lived in western Wisconsin for thirty years. It's much colder there than the coast of Maine. However, inland Maine is close, climate-wise, to northern MN and northern WI, i.e. growing zone 3. 

 

@gimruis, I'm happy to catch bass of any size, but I'm especially happy to catch 19" bass. I'm excited for you to fish soon!

Katie how far are you from Moose Pond, and can you fish it? ?

 

Haven't posted a fish in a minute.....pretty guy from yesterday on the Shimano.   It's so much fun to fish with.  

They were biting good again today. , temps in the low 80s, partly cloudy, slight breeze. Decided to start at the south end of our island. Something told me to try the speed craw and I wasn’t disappointed. I used my lightest combo, which features 8 pound test and a 1/0 wide gap T Rig. They were all over it- caught 5 in the same general area, near eel grass dropping into deeper water. Also even got one on a roostertail when I noticed some bream beds… Bite slowed , so I went around a point and  caught another one. Fished around the southeast end of the lake and got one in a deep hole on a uv speed worm. Caught a couple more on the craw, including one that bit when I skipped the craw way back under a dock. Caught another one on the same point on the way back, and got another one on the other side of the island on the craw.

Switched to a grape shad culprit worm, and caught 2 nice fish on the same side of the island. Stopped off at the deep hole on the way home , and got 2 more quality fish on the Rage tail cut R. The only downsides today was missing several nice fish, and 

I tried a chatterbait with craw trailer to no avail off and on. Did not catch a fish on the super fluke either, which is unusual…but I ain’t complaining…

Ended up with 16 again.

1 minute ago, N Florida Mike said:

They were biting good again today. , temps in the low 80s, partly cloudy, slight breeze. Decided to start at the south end of our island. Something told me to try the speed craw and I wasn’t disappointed. I used my lightest combo, which features 8 pound test and a 1/0 wide gap T Rig. They were all over it- caught 5 in the same general area, near eel grass dropping into deeper water. Also even got one on a roostertail when I noticed some bream beds… Bite slowed , so I went around a point and  caught another one. Fished around the southeast end of the lake and got one in a deep hole on a uv speed worm. Caught a couple more on the craw, including one that bit when I skipped the craw way back under a dock. Caught another one on the same point on the way back, and got another one on the other side of the island on the craw.

Switched to a grape shad culprit worm, and caught 2 nice fish on the same side of the island. Stopped off at the deep hole on the way home , and got 2 more quality fish on the Rage tail cut R.  Ended up with 16 again.

Speak of the dark Bass debil ?

 

Nice ones!  

On 5/7/2023 at 9:46 PM, Eric 26 said:

@AlabamaSpothunter I love your enthusiasm for everyone else’s fish pictures. “Mother of god” dang near made me choke on my Cheerios I’m currently enjoying ?

No doubt. He just seems like a dang good dude! A real one. 

On 5/7/2023 at 8:27 PM, AlabamaSpothunter said:

MOTHER OF GOD!  

 

Best movie ever?

 

 

5-2 over emerging grass on a Lipless. Really difficult to find spots to fish at the local F&G, trout guys everywhere. Brian. 

That’s a pretty fish!

Moose Lake is 2.5 hours away. It sounds like it's heavily fished. Not my kind of lake. Why did you ask?

11 minutes ago, a1712 said:

5-2 over emerging grass on a Lipless. Really difficult to find spots to fish at the local F&G, trout guys everywhere. Brian. 

Nice toad! 

 

21 minutes ago, NorthernBasser said:

No doubt. He just seems like a dang good dude! A real one. 

 

Best movie ever?

 

 

I sincerely appreciate that friend, and right back at you!    I'd be thrilled to spend a day on the water with so many of you great anglers, and more importantly humans. 

 

I loved that movie as a kid, but I was thinking of an equally great albeit different movie lol ?

 

4 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

Moose Lake is 2.5 hours away. It sounds like it's heavily fished. Not my kind of lake. Why did you ask?

I was googling where the Maine state record came from, and it's listed as there.  Then again that record is very old, so the lake is likely very different today than it was.   

 

The Alabama record 16.8 was caught in my same County in a small lake in the 80s, I'd love to fish the lake but I'm sure it's totally different even 30+ years later.   

16 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

 

I sincerely appreciate that friend, and right back at you!    I'd be thrilled to spend a day on the water with so many of you great anglers, and more importantly humans. 

 

Let me know if you ever come up this way! 

1 hour ago, NorthernBasser said:

Let me know if you ever come up this way! 

 

I just wanna visit your tackle cave/monkey cage.....must be like the Chocolate Factory for Charlie ?

8 hours ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

I just wanna visit your tackle cave/monkey cage

Its a SHED, not a cage.

On 5/8/2023 at 5:16 AM, roadwarrior said:

  I was back to trying floro again, after swearing I would never use it again for the hundredth time, but I will say the 15 pound fluorocarbon was up to the task.  Now for the real test, how well it performs next week after being stressed to the limit.

 

Maybe respool?

I would, but the only floro here is for leaders, 60 pound and up.  The airlines wont let anyone bring fishing line in carry on luggage.  All my friends fly down with only carry on bags.  The Sniper I put on will have to live up to its reputation, and last for more than one big fish and a snag.  If it doesn't I will once again, be off the floro wagon.    

My second kayak tournament of the year was this past weekend at El Dorado lake in Southeast Kansas. El Dorado is Spanish for "The Big Wind". Okay not really, but I've never seen this lake without whitecaps I don't think and this weekend wasn't any better. It was super low, so the limited areas was even more limited than usual. I'd heard through the grapevine that my favorite areas to fish, the creeks, had almost no water in them and were a huge hassle to even try to fish, so I was going to focus on mainlake stuff. Like usual, when I got to the lake and was setting up my tent, I put out my catfish rods, which found a nice blue. I was excited about that, until it promptly removed a couple good sized chunks of skin from my hand as I tried to release it. Those spots would be sore and uncomfortable the rest of the weekend.

I prefished for 10 or 11 hours. I started the morning by immediately dropping my pliers in the lake. I caught 4 or 5 little bass along with several accidental bycatches before I did what I told myself all day not to do, I went to the area I planned on fishing. I guess I was hurting bad to catch a fish, because I caught a 15" smallmouth pretty fast, then another, then this one.

Kicking myself for leaning on this one, I was grumbling while I dropped my bait back in the water to fix a loop, and it took off again with a 17" largemouth. I finally bent the hook all the way in on my Ned rig and had several more swim off with it but not hook up. I decided to see if they'd eat a glide bait. Of course I couldn't protect them from the hooks, and yes they would literally try to eat it.

So I knew they were there but I ended the night just fuming at myself for sticking a mid 80 inch bag in practice on a tough lake. 

 

Tournament day was blowing 25mph at launch and got windier as the day went on. There was white caps in the small marina I was sharing with 12-15 other kayaks. Took a minute to get my first bite, which was only 13". Second bite was 8 3/4". 3rd bite was 14", and I broke my brand new rod on the hookset, my first fish I got to catch on it. The day never got much better. I caught a small limit and culled up an inch here, half and inch there, but never caught any kicker fish like the day before. Finished in 9th with 77" and found out that 1st, 2nd, and 3rd all fished in the creeks, should have trusted my instincts there. I did catch all 3 species of bass, which is pretty rare in Kansas, so that was neat.

 

Last night I got off work a little early and it was nice and cloudy with storms on the way, so I got the okay from Mrs. Blue and asked my boys if they wanted to fish the pond down the street for some bluegills for a short trip before the storms moved in. My youngest wasn't interested, but my oldest jumped at the chance. The only thing more eager than he was, was the bluegills. Not sure how many we caught before we had to call it because lightning started rumbling, but it was a bunch. I missed the first dozen bites I had on my flyrod before I finally looked at my fly, the hook was bent so awkwardly there was no way I would have ever landed a fish. My son was talking some serious smack with about a 10-0 advantage on me, but I made a furious comeback once I had a functioning hook.

There's some huge hybrids in this pond. I caught one of the more average ones but she appeared to be about to pop with eggs.

Ended the night on back to back doubles.

 

 

@Bluebasser86

 

As always, I loved your trip report, but man, you've really raised the bar, for your trip report was actually three trip reports with the grand finale of catching bluegills with your son. I surrender all my bases to you.

 

P. S. - Please tell your son that he's the best. Whadda fisherboy. Whadda smile!

 

P. P. S. - Ouch! 

 

 

                                                       

This past Sunday was the end of a low pressure trend with 10-15 SE - E wind shift. Swim jigs, jackhammer, glide bait all generating bites. After landing some swim jig/jackhammer fish and then being short struck by a few other swim jig and Jackhammer/5.5 Spunk Shad fish, decided to try out the Gilly on a Jackhammer. Landed 3 bass and a pike in 20 min before the Gilly was unusable and didn't have more Gillys on hand. Even from the human perspective, seeing the Gilly buzzing throwing the water looked pretty annoying! 

Little guy with a big tail munched the jig: 

 

Tough morning. Air temp was 28° when I launched. Warmed up to 65° by the time I left. Few small fish here and there, including my first topwater fish of the year; a 12” on a PopX. Only saw a couple shallow cruisers. Not the day I was expecting but even during prespawn bass can be unpredictable. The first couple weeks of fishing were incredible, with excellent quality and quantity, but the last two weeks there’s been an unseasonable lull. Still a little early for true pre spawn action compared to years past though. Did see a ton of wildlife though. A bald eagle, two foxes, a deer, a mink, a blue heron, my loon pals, and a beaver that scared the beard right off my face after he snuck up on me and smashed his tail on the surface 20 yards from my boat. 

@Jar11591, 28 to 65 degrees, all those critters, and that whale tail make for a perfect morning. I'm struggling with quantity too.

 

@Fat Ika, I like your Gilly on a Jackhammer. Did you get weight or length on your bass? It looks big.

 

 

8 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

@Jar11591, 28 to 65 degrees, all those critters, and that whale tail make for a perfect morning. I'm struggling with quantity too.

Hard to complain, despite the lack of wildlife of the micropterus variety. Had the lake to myself again, even until noon. Whenever I go fishing at this particular mountain lake, I tell my girlfriend “I’m

going to my favorite place in the world”. 

Got out for about 6 hours today, boated 6 bass, 2 on a buzzbait and 4 on a frog, with 1 buzbait fish weighing 4-2, and 1 of the frog fish at 4-3 .

4 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

My second kayak tournament of the year was this past weekend at El Dorado lake in Southeast Kansas. El Dorado is Spanish for "The Big Wind". Okay not really, but I've never seen this lake without whitecaps I don't think and this weekend wasn't any better. It was super low, so the limited areas was even more limited than usual. I'd heard through the grapevine that my favorite areas to fish, the creeks, had almost no water in them and were a huge hassle to even try to fish, so I was going to focus on mainlake stuff. Like usual, when I got to the lake and was setting up my tent, I put out my catfish rods, which found a nice blue. I was excited about that, until it promptly removed a couple good sized chunks of skin from my hand as I tried to release it. Those spots would be sore and uncomfortable the rest of the weekend.

I prefished for 10 or 11 hours. I started the morning by immediately dropping my pliers in the lake. I caught 4 or 5 little bass along with several accidental bycatches before I did what I told myself all day not to do, I went to the area I planned on fishing. I guess I was hurting bad to catch a fish, because I caught a 15" smallmouth pretty fast, then another, then this one.

Kicking myself for leaning on this one, I was grumbling while I dropped my bait back in the water to fix a loop, and it took off again with a 17" largemouth. I finally bent the hook all the way in on my Ned rig and had several more swim off with it but not hook up. I decided to see if they'd eat a glide bait. Of course I couldn't protect them from the hooks, and yes they would literally try to eat it.

So I knew they were there but I ended the night just fuming at myself for sticking a mid 80 inch bag in practice on a tough lake. 

 

Tournament day was blowing 25mph at launch and got windier as the day went on. There was white caps in the small marina I was sharing with 12-15 other kayaks. Took a minute to get my first bite, which was only 13". Second bite was 8 3/4". 3rd bite was 14", and I broke my brand new rod on the hookset, my first fish I got to catch on it. The day never got much better. I caught a small limit and culled up an inch here, half and inch there, but never caught any kicker fish like the day before. Finished in 9th with 77" and found out that 1st, 2nd, and 3rd all fished in the creeks, should have trusted my instincts there. I did catch all 3 species of bass, which is pretty rare in Kansas, so that was neat.

 

Last night I got off work a little early and it was nice and cloudy with storms on the way, so I got the okay from Mrs. Blue and asked my boys if they wanted to fish the pond down the street for some bluegills for a short trip before the storms moved in. My youngest wasn't interested, but my oldest jumped at the chance. The only thing more eager than he was, was the bluegills. Not sure how many we caught before we had to call it because lightning started rumbling, but it was a bunch. I missed the first dozen bites I had on my flyrod before I finally looked at my fly, the hook was bent so awkwardly there was no way I would have ever landed a fish. My son was talking some serious smack with about a 10-0 advantage on me, but I made a furious comeback once I had a functioning hook.

There's some huge hybrids in this pond. I caught one of the more average ones but she appeared to be about to pop with eggs.

Ended the night on back to back doubles.

 

 

Great job BB….??

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

@Jar11591, 28 to 65 degrees, all those critters, and that whale tail make for a perfect morning. I'm struggling with quantity too.

 

@Fat Ika, I like your Gilly on a Jackhammer. Did you get weight or length on your bass? It looks big.

 

 

@ol'crickety Just a rod estimate. 19.5"-20"