We didn’t get into any big ones but we had a blast. It was the first time this year my son and I were able to get out together.

 

 

 

 

I got out this afternoon around 1:50pm, I was planning on fishing a small pond that I had not been to in a week or so. I have been seeing more and more people there recently than the past 2 years, not sure what to make of it but oh well. I always hit the river before I get to the pond, I mean it’s right on the way there and why not. 
 

I started off pitching past a rock outcropping that normally holds fish, nothing. I then thought about how it’s been warmer than it has been all this past week long. Temperatures between 85-90, decided to throw out towards the deeper water a little ways ahead of the pylon. Bingo, felt the tap and set the hook and got a nice little 2lb smallie. Bait was a 1/4 oz strike king tungsten football swinghead jig with a owner 3/0 j hook along with a black and blue bandito big.

 

 I then snuck the back way into the pond, this way I don’t have to walk past the only shady spot on the pond. Much to my dismay the water level was a couple feet lower than normal so a lot of the structure was not even in the water. I kept at it with the same bait that I caught the smallie on but no takers. I had a couple blow up on it when I was dragging it across the top of the weed mats but they never grabbed it. I then decided to change baits, I went with a weightless super fluke in Houdini on a 3/0 hook. I figured that I might get more action. I caught one tiny one and was ready to go, I was tired of picking the cotton off of my line and fighting with that. I stayed a little longer and caught another tiny one and left skunk free.

 

 I then decided to go to spring valley to throw the fluke because it is also very weedy but hard to catch much there. I was in one of the spots that I know of. Looked like most of the other spots were occupied from my vantage point, plus a couple kayaks out fishing also. This place is slammed with people fishing it most of the time. Less than 10 minutes I caught one working it back next to the brush in the water. I told myself that’s good enough for me, difficult fishery and less than 10 minutes is a victory. 
 

they were not big fish by far but I earned every one of them with my knowledge of the spots and also knowing where the fish are holding throughout the year at these places. This is what drives me, to be able to go places where people fish but don’t catch many and catch them consistently is a start. We can work on size latter, patterns, locations and weather are the things that we can use as tools to stack the odds in our favor.

@Jmurphy87: Another photo of where you cast and thanks for that!

 

 

 

 

 

2

13 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

@Jmurphy87: Another photo of where you cast and thanks for that!

 

 

 

 

 

2

No problem, I figure it will help someone out one way or another. I look at it as a piece that helps add perspective to the story as we tell them. This way you can feel like you’re there.

Pops with one on a senko.

 

I picked up a nice one on an underspin with a 2.8 on 4# test. That was a good time!

 

Got out Friday night for an hour and a half or so.  Threw a buzzbait around for a bit and got a couple of good eats.  Nothing on the chatterbait.  Seemed like fish would really eat a worm but I didn't feel like rigging up a texas rig.  Had my light rod with an inline spinner already tied on and thought wth I know I'll catch some fish and it'll be a lot of fun.  Proceeded to catch everything from 6" bass to giant bluegills to a bunch of 2 pound bass.  Had so much fun.  Had around 15 bass on the evening and mixed in close to a dozen bluegills as well.  

 

 

 

 

18 minutes ago, hokiehunter373 said:

Got out Friday night for an hour and a half or so.  Threw a buzzbait around for a bit and got a couple of good eats.  Nothing on the chatterbait.  Seemed like fish would really eat a worm but I didn't feel like rigging up a texas rig.  Had my light rod with an inline spinner already tied on and thought wth I know I'll catch some fish and it'll be a lot of fun.  Proceeded to catch everything from 6" bass to giant bluegills to a bunch of 2 pound bass.  Had so much fun.  Had around 15 bass on the evening and mixed in close to a dozen bluegills as well.  

 

 

 

 

I call the Mepps Aglia my "Secret Weapon". When all else fails it will get bit. Only thing for me is that it is a hang up machine. If you fish laydowns, forget it! I ALWAYS have one tied on! I especially like it because of what you just described, it is multi species. It catches everything that swims. I even caught a big grass carp on it.

13 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

 

As much as I love looking at pics of bass, photos of where you guys cast are just as great, if not better, for they're instructive. So, thanks, Tim. 

I’ve never taken pics of that. Thanks for putting that bug in my ear! I’ll do that next trip!

I've been doing a lot of night fishing lately so I decided to switch it up and go early. I arrived at my local lake around 5am and broke the transducer mount off my kayak while unloading, which meant I didn't have a graph to use for the day. Saw bass blowing up on bait balls in 2 FOW so decided to throw a white walking bait and stuck my first 5 fish within minutes of my getting there. That bite stayed on until about 6:30am and afterwards I decided to venture out into 8-10 FOW and fish a 6th Sense Trace along grass line that was just barely visible. That bait got hammered every few minutes for the next 2 hours. This South Jersey lake is normally tough but I managed to pull multiple 20" fish today and also lost quite a few. Once that bite died down I moved out into the main lake and began fishing a 3/8 Dirty Jigs with a Craw trailer against the shade lines near the bank and managed to catch 4 more for the next hour.

 

I've fished this lake for years and can't recall any days where I pulled so many quality size fish from it. This is  also probably one of the best 5 fish days I've had in South Jersey. I haven't looked through all my pictures yet but here are a couple I got on the Trace.

I love my wife. She's the best person in the world imo. And I get really excited when, on the rare occasion, she asks to come fishing with me. But she always does one thing everytime we go fishing that irks me to no end: she always outfishes me. We went out the other day, she caught four, I lost one, and a lure to boot. In all actuality though, I get super excited when other people I take fishing have more success. It's almost more fun than catching myself. Watching her get excited everytime she got a bite makes my day. 

 

 

 

 

 

Then a couple days later I went out on my own and caught a couple to make me feel good about myself. 

 

 

 

Edited June 5, 20232 yr by IcatchDinks
Realized I sounded like a bitter jerk. ?

49 minutes ago, Blue Raider Bob said:

1 hour ago, hokiehunter373 said:

I call the Mepps Aglia my "Secret Weapon". When all else fails it will get bit.

 

Me too! I was thinking the other day of the five lures I would choose if I could only fish with five and the Mepps made the cut.

 

@Pat Brown: If I were going to hire a guide, I don't think I'd hire a guide pulling an $80,000, shiny bass boat with an $80,000, shiny truck. I'd hire Pat Brown if he were willing and we'd go out in his humble jon boat. And I'd do everything he told me to do! 

 

This thread is a heckuva rebuttal to the bass fishing is getting harder thread. You guys and gal are catching!

Went out and did something different Saturday, chased some walleye around. I'm not a walleye fishermen by any means, and Kansas doesn't have a bunch of them, but my parents wanted some walleye so I went out and tried. Wind was at least twice as strong as they'd called for, probably 15 with some 20mph gust, all I wanted to handle in the kayak. I was tearing up some short walleye, went through 2 tubs of 18 crawlers and caught a bunch on plastics too. Ended up getting 4 keepers before calling it a day. Also caught a few magnum bluegills.

 

Sunday was a family day. My walleye catching seemed to have carried over with me as we probably put 25 of them in the boat. I had 5 in a row at one point. Mrs. Blue had the big bass of the day with a great smallmouth that was 3.32 pounds on a Ned rig. I thought I had a monster smallie at one point, but it turned out to be a carp that slurped up my Ned. I've only ever caught 2 carp on a Ned, both have been from this lake.

 

 

Camped this weekend and just fun fished for anything. 
 

 

It's been awhile since I've caught one of these guys!  A good one, too -- look at that belly:

 

...and followed it up with what I'm sure is my PB White Crappie, at 14", 1.43lb (perspective in pic is a bit distorted, and doesn't do justice, but that was the measurement). 

 

On the other hand, the bass this morning were somewhat less interesting than the bycatch, with the biggest of 9 at 15":

 

Other than 3 of the bass, everybody ate the same bluegill-pattern Siebert Fogy bladed jig.

Fished from 12a - 7a this morning. Caught 5 LM, 1 on the Zoom Ol Monster 3/4 oz Shakey Head and 4 on a Magnum Trickworm also on a Shakey Head. 

2 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

 

Me too! I was thinking the other day of the five lures I would choose if I could only fish with five and the Mepps made the cut.

 

@Pat Brown: If I were going to hire a guide, I don't think I'd hire a guide pulling an $80,000, shiny bass boat with an $80,000, shiny truck. I'd hire Pat Brown if he were willing and we'd go out in his humble jon boat. And I'd do everything he told me to do! 

 

This thread is a heckuva rebuttal to the bass fishing is getting harder thread. You guys and gal are catching!

 

 

You sure do know how to make a humble NC angler blush!

 

Ever make it down this way, I'd happily oblige that idea with some fishing!

 

??????

2 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

 

Me too! I was thinking the other day of the five lures I would choose if I could only fish with five and the Mepps made the cut.

 

@Pat Brown: If I were going to hire a guide, I don't think I'd hire a guide pulling an $80,000, shiny bass boat with an $80,000, shiny truck. I'd hire Pat Brown if he were willing and we'd go out in his humble jon boat. And I'd do everything he told me to do! 

 

This thread is a heckuva rebuttal to the bass fishing is getting harder thread. You guys and gal are catching!

That’s funny because clients always bust my chops about my cheap gear and cheap truck when I take guided trips 

 

they think $700 combos are the minimum 

1 hour ago, Pat Brown said:

 

Ever make it down this way, I'd happily oblige that idea with some fishing!

 

Ditto. However, I can't imagine you driving all the way to Maine to catch smaller bass, unless you'd want a shot at a 100-bass day. However, we do have lobster, scallops, and shrimp and waves thundering into cliffs. 

2 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

 

Ditto. However, I can't imagine you driving all the way to Maine to catch smaller bass, unless you'd want a shot at a 100-bass day. However, we do have lobster, scallops, and shrimp and waves thundering into cliffs. 

 

 

You also have my closest thing to a grandma I've got left living in Bangor: My great aunt Tish! (She likes me to call her Great Aunt Fish ???)

 

I'm not even remotely opposed to the idea of 

 

- 100 bass days

- lobster

- smallmouth

- muskie

- pike

- perch

- successfully using whopper ploppers to catch fish.

 

Seems like you got all of those and even mooses (meese?) to boot!

 

Maine is calling....

Well I was off work today, wife had a doctors appointment and the car is going in to get checked out tomorrow. So I took 2 vacation days, it’s sad that I have to make a appointment to get my vehicle looked at when I know that it’s the lower ball joint, oh well if the warranty covers it I am fine with that.

 

 I was teaching my wife about fishing the river and where to cast. I decided to bring my daughters spinning rod, ugly stick gx2 medium action. I chose that cause I already had a Ned rig on it, a 1/16 Ned lock z with a trd craw in watermelon red. The reel was a daiwa regalis or something, the purple one lol. I have 15lb j braid on it, chartreuse color.

 

first small largemouth came parallel to the rock wall, the smallmouth came about 15-20 feet in front of the pylon. I saw the line running with the largemouth, the smallie I just felt a tap and reeled in some slack and felt the tension and set the hook. I was hoping for a decent smallie today to show her, where to cast and how to fish it. Along with watching your line. 
 

I don’t know how much it weighed because I didn’t bring my tackle bag, just one rod and a single Ned rig. Not too bad for less than 15 minutes. My last pb smallie was 2.12lbs, this one seemed bigger than that. I used my arm to measure it and when I got home that part of my arm is a little bit over 18 inches. The thing took up all of that, tried to get the wife to hold it but she wouldn’t. Because it came out of the Kalamazoo river lol, I don’t care either way I am holding a fish. At least I got her in a picture with a decent one.

 

Now she needs to show me that she can catch one like that, then the next lesson will begin.

@Jmurphy87, you are a fishing machine

2 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

@Jmurphy87, you are a fishing machine

Thank you, I still have a long ways to go and more to learn than I possibly can in my lifetime. But in the meantime I am going to have fun and keep at it.

1 hour ago, Pat Brown said:

 

 

You also have my closest thing to a grandma I've got left living in Bangor: My great aunt Tish! (She likes me to call her Great Aunt Fish ???)

 

I'm not even remotely opposed to the idea of 

 

- 100 bass days

- lobster

- smallmouth

- muskie

- pike

- perch

- successfully using whopper ploppers to catch fish.

 

Seems like you got all of those and even mooses (meese?) to boot!

 

Maine is calling....

 

Weirdly, we don't have a lot of muskies. Nor pike. the St. John River on the Canadian border is good musky fishing. Mostly, we're smallmouth, largemouth, striped bass, white perch, yellow perch, brook trout, lake trout, and Atlantic salmon. 

 

Regarding Whopper Ploppers, if you read the very, very fine print on a Whopper Plopper box, you'll see, "Guaranteed to work only in Maine!" 

 

Great Aunt Fish sounds like a great ol' gal and I assert this as a pretty good ol' gal. 

 

Murph, that's a new PB!

13 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

 

Weirdly, we don't have a lot of muskies. Nor pike. the St. John River on the Canadian border is good musky fishing. Mostly, we're smallmouth, largemouth, striped bass, white perch, yellow perch, brook trout, lake trout, and Atlantic salmon. 

 

Regarding Whopper Ploppers, if you read the very, very fine print on a Whopper Plopper box, you'll see, "Guaranteed to work only in Maine!" 

 

Great Aunt Fish sounds like a great ol' gal and I assert this as a pretty good ol' gal. 

 

Murph, that's a new PB!

That’s what I was thinking too lol, sometimes you don’t have the scale when it happens. But you just know, sometimes I think if we quit chasing numbers we would be happier. I mean we are catching fish and that’s all that matters in reality, everything else comes in the correct location and timing.

Maine. Such a beautiful state. And Allagash White to boot!