17 hours ago, A-Jay said:

A-Jay

 

This feels like a teaser @A-Jay. Very nice fish!

On 5/17/2023 at 12:45 PM, ol'crickety said:

You guys are nailing the photos...and the fish! I go fishing again on Friday morning. The wind right now is 18 mph and tomorrow morning's temps will be in the mid-thirties. C'mon, Summer! 

Kent gave me a tip on the weatherman......if he says winds will be 5-10 MPH, add those together for the TRUTH!

On 5/16/2023 at 2:46 PM, Jmurphy87 said:

I didn’t have to go to work today, wife had a biopsy scheduled for today. I got to go fishing after the hospital came out of lockdown and they took her back for the procedure. First cast caught the 2.16lb smallmouth again in a different spot this time. Cast up along the rocks with a 3/8 oz bullet weight and a jackal chunk craw 3.5 in black and blue. Working it back and felt the tap and set the hook and landed it. I wonder if it is the same one from Saturday. 
 

I then headed to the pond without my steel leader attached and caught the small large mouth on the same bait. I had a different hit and reeled down and swung hard. I heard the line snap like a gunshot and knew that I hooked a pike. I then tied on my leader and caught the tiny pike on a lipless crank popping it out of grass. It went dead after that. 
 

I think that they are getting wise to moving baits now and I seem to get more hits on slower presentations it seems, overall it was a good 2 hours in the end.

Prayers for you and your wife. Hope it's nothing serious. It's always scary just the same.

13 minutes ago, Blue Raider Bob said:

Prayers for you and your wife. Hope it's nothing serious. It's always scary just the same.

Thank you, it was a liver biopsy. I don’t have a clue what is going on really. Seems like since she had thyroid cancer and surgery a couple years back that there’s been something going on. Hopefully they are on top of the ball, it seems good but we will see. Only time will tell, at least she is not working so she has all the time she needs to relax and recover. Keeps me busy with our 2 year old and tending to the small wound site. Thanks again it means the world to us.

3 minutes ago, Jmurphy87 said:

Thank you, it was a liver biopsy. I don’t have a clue what is going on really. Seems like since she had thyroid cancer and surgery a couple years back that there’s been something going on. Hopefully they are on top of the ball, it seems good but we will see. Only time will tell, at least she is not working so she has all the time she needs to relax and recover. Keeps me busy with our 2 year old and tending to the small wound site. Thanks again it means the world to us.

 

Murph, I hope good thoughts amount to something because I'm thinking a heap of good thoughts for your wife, you, and your two-year-old. 

20 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

 

Murph, I hope good thoughts amount to something because I'm thinking a heap of good thoughts for your wife, you, and your two-year-old. 

Thank you, good thoughts always amount to something positive. I think that she will be perfectly fine and healthy. I have the feeling like they are just going through the testing process because of elevated levels of sorts. I am not a fan of hospitals, which is very odd considering that I wanted to become a doctor someday. But some odd things happened in life and that changed that possibility for the present moment. I think that knowing you will be somewhere for a set period of time and when you will be going back home makes the difference. I will definitely get back out when I can to try and work on some new bodies of water. I have to wait until I get my wife her license for the year and she will be out there catching them again too. Thank you for the good thoughts my wife and I appreciate it.

54 minutes ago, Jmurphy87 said:

Thank you, it was a liver biopsy. I don’t have a clue what is going on really. Seems like since she had thyroid cancer and surgery a couple years back that there’s been something going on. Hopefully they are on top of the ball, it seems good but we will see. Only time will tell, at least she is not working so she has all the time she needs to relax and recover. Keeps me busy with our 2 year old and tending to the small wound site. Thanks again it means the world to us.

Prayers for y'all here too. Those things can get you down if you let the worry get to you, but you seem to have a great outlook. I know getting out to fish helps me reset my head when I'm stressed. Keep taking care of the family & hang in there.

6 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

Had a really fun and interesting day on the water yesterday and felt like it might be cool to relay the info to you all!

 

Yesterday Jake and I put in at about 3:45 after he finished his homework and chores after getting home from school.  We only had about 3 hours to put something together having to be off the water at 7:30 by lake regulations.

 

The wind was blowing out of the southwest into the rip rap and it was mottled sun/clouds.

 

Probably my favorite fishing conditions.  I have done amazingly well on jigs and on moving baits on days like these so we left the marina with Jerkbaits, crankbaits, swim jigs, pencil poppers and lots of other 'windy sunny' baits tied on.

 

We fished the rip rap with squarebills and jigs and jerkbaits and didn't get bit and decided to make a bee line for a new hump I had identified earlier this week on Google Earth.

 

The hump held less fish than I expected, which looking back, doesn't surprise me.  Seems like more of an ideal winter hump being that it's very far from spawning locations and near the deepest water in the lake.  We couldn't get a bite and made our way to the adjacent mainlake point.

 

The point sticks out into the wind and the wind was blowing a healthy current through all of the flooded cover and immidiately I could see shad schools glowing just beneath the surface in the waters just off the cover all along the bank.  Then I started to see bass come up out of nowhere attacking the schools like tuna in the ocean!

 

I informed Jake, it was go time and be ready.

 

We threw swim jigs, underpins, little swimbaits, crankbaits, jerkbaits, walking topwaters, poppers, Texas rigs, glide baits....worked them fast and slow.  Could literally see fish eating around the boat.

 

Then it finally dawned on me.

 

Windy day.  Sun.  Little schools of shad.

 

Spinnerbait.

 

THIS was where the day began.  With 1.5 hours left to go, I tied on my beat up Siebert Cosmic double white chartreuse willow spinner 1/2 oz where the skirt came off so I have to rig rage bugs to keep it planing straight up and down and I pitched it haphazardly to the nearest laydown.

 

I SAW the bass ANNIHILATE the bait.  First bass.

 

Nice chunky 2 lber.

 

Toss my spinner bait to the next piece of cover.  Slowly rolling it by.  BOOM!

 

Same thing.  Nice little 1.5 lber.

 

We went down the bank in the wind where I saw boats and kayaks and all sorts of fishing happening and we got bit on EVERY single piece of submerged wood we brought those Spinnerbaits by.

 

I jumped off more fish than I caught yesterday but boated 6 in one hour before we had to leave.

 

It felt AMAZING to figure out the magical bait for the day and pattern it and catch a limit all in one hour.

 

I even threw my spinnerbait at a stick that had washed into the rip rap that was just isolated and sticking up near the marina to see if I was crazy and caught one more before we packed up.

 

Once we were on the pattern I tried to put other baits that theoretically should have worked into areas that I was getting bit over and over and over again on every cast and they wouldn't touch it and then I'd put the spinner bait in there and get bit again.

 

It was the ONLY bait they would touch.

 

Didn't catch any fish over two lbs and it only lasted an hour before I had to leave but I had an absolute ball!

 

@TnRiver46 will never believe this story.

1 hour ago, Fishlegs said:

Prayers for y'all here too. Those things can get you down if you let the worry get to you, but you seem to have a great outlook. I know getting out to fish helps me reset my head when I'm stressed. Keep taking care of the family & hang in there.

Thank you me and the wife appreciate it. Life is like the weather we can want one thing and get another. Just like the storms and bad weather that happens it is all beautiful in its own special way and serves a purpose even if we don’t understand it at the time. The ups and downs are what make life special, we just need to take a step back and realize it sometimes.

Definitely realizing that I missed the spawn this spring.  I think the fish came up in early April when we had that week of 80 degree temps and never left the shallows. 
 

fished long lake Ionia county.  Water temp 62 degrees.  Pretty much anything anybody wanted to throw today would work.  It’s almost like 2 differnt lakes in one.  1/2 the lake is 5-8 feet deep and weedy than the other half is 20-30 ft deep with no weeds. 
 

Seemed like most of the bigger fish were sitting right outside the weed edge right before the drop to 20 ft.  I caught my first spinner bait fish up in 5ft of water a nice 2.4 lber.   Caught a decent  fish on my new DD22.  Caught one  t-rig summer craw shimme stick.  Caught 3-4 on a Berkley max scent tube on 3/8 oz tube jig.  Pulled the last 3 fish out of the same area in 9ft of water next to the weed edge.

 

I always wonder why I abandoned fishing tubes.  They always catch fish. 

Went to Fergus Falls Minn yesterday to Orwell dam. No minnows today just gulp live and lures. Wife caught a smallie on a crank bait 3rd cast so i remembered on this forum we were talking about lizzards so i texas rigged a lizzard.

Used a 3ewg hook with 5/8oz unpegged weight and casted out into the current break. I very slowly crawled the lizzard in and got hit and I was shocked that i caught a walleye on the lizzard.

The rest of the day i decided to use a Northland Mimic minnow and throw it right into the heavy current and letting it tumble and bounce off the rocks and i ended up catching a handfull of small smallies a couple more walleye and a catfish.

The other fisherman around me were throwing ballhead jigs with minnows but the Mimic minnow held its own against live bait and i will be buying some more for sure.

The weather was 62, dreary and 30 mph gusts of steady wind. I was actually very cold and had to bundle up.

 

 

 

I launched at five this morning on a quantity pond. I could only fish three hours because the wind rose around 7:30 and the pond was whitecapping when I left at eight. Still, I caught 24 bass, averaging eight an hour, and they were between two and three pounds and fifteen to seventeen inches, as I weighed and measured a few. Two were smallmouth and the rest were largemouth. I didn't load all the photos, as the bass were pretty much the same size.

 

My primary lures were a wacky Senko in pumpkin with a chartreuse tip, a wakebait worked just under the surface (Thanks, @PhishLI!), and a Rage Swimmer in gray with a weighted hook. They would hit a Choppo, but not hard, but once they hit it, I knew a bass was there and would catch it with my Senko. Fun morning, even though it was in the forties and I was cold once the wind blew.

 

Tomorrow, I'm fishing a quality pond, where I'll likely catch three to five fish, but I'll also likely hook a four to six pounder. Whether I land that old gal or not, we shall see! 

9 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

I launched at five this morning on a quantity pond. I could only fish three hours because the wind rose around 7:30 and the pond was whitecapping when I left at eight. Still, I caught 24 bass, averaging eight an hour, and they were between two and three pounds and fifteen to seventeen inches, as I weighed and measured a few. Two were smallmouth and the rest were largemouth. I didn't load all the photos, as the bass were pretty much the same size.

 

My primary lures were a wacky Senko in pumpkin with a chartreuse tip, a wakebait worked just under the surface (Thanks, @PhishLI!), and a Rage Swimmer in gray with a weighted hook. They would hit a Choppo, but not hard, but once they hit it, I knew a bass was there and would catch it with my Senko. Fun morning, even though it was in the forties and I was cold once the wind blew.

 

Tomorrow, I'm fishing a quality pond, where I'll likely catch three to five fish, but I'll also likely hook a four to six pounder. Whether I land that old gal or not, we shall see! 

8 fish an hour, yeah I should just quit Bass fishing or move to Maine.

 

Awesome stuff Katie, and get a DAYGUM STUD tomorrow ?

19 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

I launched at five this morning on a quantity pond. I could only fish three hours because the wind rose around 7:30 and the pond was whitecapping when I left at eight. Still, I caught 24 bass, averaging eight an hour, and they were between two and three pounds and fifteen to seventeen inches, as I weighed and measured a few. Two were smallmouth and the rest were largemouth. I didn't load all the photos, as the bass were pretty much the same size.

 

My primary lures were a wacky Senko in pumpkin with a chartreuse tip, a wakebait worked just under the surface (Thanks, @PhishLI!), and a Rage Swimmer in gray with a weighted hook. They would hit a Choppo, but not hard, but once they hit it, I knew a bass was there and would catch it with my Senko. Fun morning, even though it was in the forties and I was cold once the wind blew.

 

Tomorrow, I'm fishing a quality pond, where I'll likely catch three to five fish, but I'll also likely hook a four to six pounder. Whether I land that old gal or not, we shall see! 

     Katie that is so above awesome! I am several shades of green envy right now! That's more quality fish than I've caught all year! Can't wait to see your pictures when the weather warms up and they start really eating!

     The bottle opener in the last picture reminds me of my fishing trip with Roadwarrior Wednesday. He had a bottle he really wanted to open but did not have an opener. He persisted with a pair of fishing pliers until he "Got 'er DONE"! Good for a real good laugh! Of course the drink wasn't cold by then but he really didn't seem to mind!

 

@throttleplate, I catch a decent amount of walleye on lizards as well 

@Blue Raider Bob,

9 minutes ago, Blue Raider Bob said:

Can't wait to see your pictures when the weather warms up and they start really eating!

 

Yeah, 24 is the most I've caught in 2023. I'm thinking they'll become friskier and friskier.

 

I lost quite a few at the end. It's so tough to play a fish when the wind is howling and my canoe is skittering. 

 

I appreciated how they were all fat. This pond doesn't grow long bass. The longest I've ever caught was 18", but it does grow one fat bass after another.

 

Of course, Bob, you're welcome to fish this pond anytime you want to vacay in Maine. I'll be your guide!

 

28 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Awesome stuff Katie, and get a DAYGUM STUD tomorrow 

 

Gosh, I hope so. Big fish are so unforgiving. They're wily and strong and if I make one mistake, I likely lost my only chance for that session. I am excited to use my just-arrived Livingston Bull Nose wakebaits. There's a big flat with emerging vegetation and I think the Bull Nose will skim the tops of the weeds. 

 

 

The year of pain continues, this is all I got this morning. Water temps are touching 80. Massive amounts of shad all around but nothing feeding on them. I guess I'll try night fishing, I'm lost at this point lol

4 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

@throttleplate, I catch a decent amount of walleye on lizards as well 

 

My Father and I had a pretty epic day targeting brown bass on Mille Lacs.  Not a ton of fish, but all quality ones.  My Father tied a PB with a 21 incher, and I caught two over 20 inches.  I weighed one of them just to see how much it weighed and it was 5.65 pounds (5th photo).  None of the smallmouth we caught were under 18 inches.  They were all prespawn females.  We even caught three accidental walleyes, one of which just happened to be in the keeper slot which was a pure stroke of luck.  This is a very big lake, and the wind rarely cooperates.  I only have a 17.5 foot boat and I need it to cooperate in order to fish where and how I want to.  For the first time in 3 years, that occurred yesterday and it paid off.  A perch colored jerk bait did most of the damage.  I feel very fortunate to have caught these fish.  Here are a few photos.  I'd like to thank @A-Jay and @Dwight Hottle for their advice, education, and inspiration when it comes targeting smallmouth on big waters.  They are a big help when it comes to this specific type of fishing.

1 hour ago, gimruis said:

My Father and I had a pretty epic day targeting brown bass on Mille Lacs.  Not a ton of fish, but all quality ones.  My Father tied a PB with a 21 incher, and I caught two over 20 inches.  I weighed one of them just to see how much it weighed and it was 5.65 pounds (5th photo).  None of the smallmouth we caught were under 18 inches.  They were all prespawn females.  We even caught three accidental walleyes, one of which just happened to be in the keeper slot which was a pure stroke of luck.  This is a very big lake, and the wind rarely cooperates.  I only have a 17.5 foot boat and I need it to cooperate in order to fish where and how I want to.  For the first time in 3 years, that occurred yesterday and it paid off.  A perch colored jerk bait did most of the damage.  I feel very fortunate to have caught these fish.  Here are a few photos.  I'd like to thank @A-Jay and @Dwight Hottle for their advice, education, and inspiration when it comes targeting smallmouth on big waters.  They are a big help when it comes to this specific type of fishing.

 

The weather looks as cold as i was thursday. Did you keep the walleye or did dad take it?

2 hours ago, gimruis said:

My Father and I had a pretty epic day targeting brown bass on Mille Lacs.  Not a ton of fish, but all quality ones.  My Father tied a PB with a 21 incher, and I caught two over 20 inches.  I weighed one of them just to see how much it weighed and it was 5.65 pounds (5th photo).  None of the smallmouth we caught were under 18 inches.  They were all prespawn females.  We even caught three accidental walleyes, one of which just happened to be in the keeper slot which was a pure stroke of luck.  This is a very big lake, and the wind rarely cooperates.  I only have a 17.5 foot boat and I need it to cooperate in order to fish where and how I want to.  For the first time in 3 years, that occurred yesterday and it paid off.  A perch colored jerk bait did most of the damage.  I feel very fortunate to have caught these fish.  Here are a few photos.  I'd like to thank @A-Jay and @Dwight Hottle for their advice, education, and inspiration when it comes targeting smallmouth on big waters.  They are a big help when it comes to this specific type of fishing.

Beautiful big brown fish, congrats!   Great to see you back on the water again, and also great to see you fishing with your dad.....you already won once you two launched the boat

18 minutes ago, throttleplate said:

 

The weather looks as cold as i was thursday. Did you keep the walleye or did dad take it?

Thursday wasn’t too bad. It rained for about half an hour in the morning and then it was a mix of hazy wildfire sun and clouds. I let him take the walleye home.

 

I wasn’t fishing today, but it would have been nasty out there. It was 42 degrees when I got up and there was a stiff NW wind.

Wife and I camped all week on the lake and had perfect fishing weather.

Water temp 70* and thick overcast skies.

This lake has VERY steep banks, did very well all week on 1/8 Shaky head/Zoom speed craw and Jackal flickShake 4.8 watermelon candy.

4 minutes ago, gimruis said:

I wasn’t fishing today, but it would have been nasty out there. It was 42 degrees when I got up and there was a stiff NW wind.

 

Thats what it was here thursday, cold and windy but the fish were biting.

Well fished, @gimruis!

 

Those are beautifully marked bass, @Bird.