1 hour ago, IcatchDinks said:

Exactly what I was thinking. Blame my wife. Lol

Or me, the haircut police.

1 hour ago, Pat Brown said:

Well I'm speechless.  I got a fishing story to tell but I'm sunburned and smitten with how happy I am.

 

Double digit achieved.  Middle of summer.  1:30 pm.  On brush on a point.  Motor oil power worm.

 

Pictures and more to come later when I've processed what just happened y'all ??????

 

 

WOW!!!!! What a fish!!!! Congrats.....that's the biggest bass I have seen in this thread since I started. 

 

I braved the storm, went out in the rain because I had a feeling that during the drizzle, the fish would be biting.....got this little guy on a large Rat-L-Trap. Its pouring now.....arrggg....right when they are biting. Only took me a few casts. 

 

@Pat Brown is a heckuva fisherman. If you have the time, Pat, please tell us about the fight. 

What a toad!  You probably would've caught a 22-pounder if you were throwing a 16" worm. LOL!!

 

Just kidding!  Congrats on your trophy!

7 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

@Pat Brown is a heckuva fisherman. If you have the time, Pat, please tell us about the fight. 

 

 

Yes of course!  I just needed a second to catch my breath and process the whole thing but here goes:

 

Me and Meagan and Jake decided to hit the lake today and the wind was blowing hard into the rock wall near the marina so we new that was going to position fish in cover on drops near main lake structure and baitfish in that wind driven current.

 

We fished the rip rap for a while and gave it our best for one hour and then the wind picked up around 1 pm.

 

I decided we needed to make a move and figured we might as well try to fish some brush and submerged wood off of one of those deeper wind blown points.

 

Jake got his lure hung in a tree on his first cast which forced me to move the boat in super tight to the bank in order to help him and when he had successfully retrieved the bait, I decided to take advantage of the casting angles that being in such close proximity to the cover gave me.  

 

On my first cast I dragged my motor oil power worm across some brush and felt it come down the steep bluff through the submerged thicket and when it came to rest at about 8-9 feet of water (a mere 10 ft from the bank to put how steep of a drop it was into perspective) I felt a subtle thump. I reeled down and set the hook and immidiately my rod doubled over and my line shot under the boat towards deeper water. My drag was screeching out and I was convinced I had a catfish that was about to break me off.

 

Somehow I turned her head and up came the largest bass myself of Meagan or Jake have ever seen in our lives and it's up to Meagan to net her.

 

Meagan misses the first try and then gets her and she BARELY even fits! ????

 

We quickly did some photos of the occasion and revived and released her. She was barely hooked in the skin in the top of he lip and swam away happily.

 

New personal best and double digit bass achieved!

 

11 lbs 5 oz

 

Can't even believe it happened in the dead of summer but I will take it!

 

And here's some photos of her revival and release for all you's anglers!

 

 

Had to of course give her the 'Jimmy Houston' send off.  Ain't gonna go through all the trouble catching that beautiful fish and not give her some sugar to remember me by ??????

Congratulations are in order, I'm very jealous.  You are to be commended for the clean and quick release, many people would not have done that.  One question.....was that pectoral fin deformed?

She had some of the usual spawn stuff going on but she seemed to be in tip top shape for a 6-10 year old bass that spawned from January til June this year.

STREAK ON.....fish for 7/17. Went out late after the rain let up (thank you mother nature). 

 

Got 4 fish in about 45mins. I got 3 from a shaky head (Zoom trick work, junebug) and 1 on a Rat-L-Trap (Mag). 

 

I said it before and I'll say it again,@Pat Brown is a HAWG SNATCHER!!! Congrats Pat!!! Heck of a fish!!!

Awwww shucks y'all humble a budding bass fisherman with your kindness.

 

I gotta give a special shout out to @Glenn for providing us with such an awesome place/resource to learn from one another and extra special shout out to @Catt and @WRB who basically taught me how to catch big fish over many years of posts that I dredge up with my absurdly specific searches as I get ideas seasonally!  ???

 

Just know that the search feature has saved us all from 1.5 thousand bad 'what if I did xxxxx threads?' made by me!

 

?????

 

Edit:  just had to add some little Easter eggs for those who follow along:

 

A- I was wrong.  My big fish for the year appears to have come on a rubber worm, not a jig.  The universe smiles at us when we think we have it all figured out etc.

 

B- the pre spawn is NOT the only time you can catch a giant bass at ALL.  Catt specifically would laugh at me for realizing this obviously true thing that we as bass fisherman collectively deny.

 

C- I pegged my weight y'all ????.  I was staunchly anti pegging.

 

Just had to put it out there that I stuck to the challenge to myself to only peg my weight on my T Rigs for the rest of the year to see if my catch rates changed at all.....some of y'all told me to try it in another thread.

 

I have gotten a few less bites but quality has definitely gone up with the pegged weight.  Why?

 

My theory is now I'm REALLY confident putting my worm in some really stupid places a jig or unpegged weight would foul in.  Perhaps that's critical on my lake.

43 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

My theory is now I'm REALLY confident putting my worm in some really stupid places a jig or unpegged weight would foul in.  Perhaps that's critical on my lake.

THIS ∆∆∆ I'm confident that's why the sweet craw on a flippin rig is my best big fish producer. I'm fearless putting it places a jig would hang up, and other anglers won't put a bait.

You're the man @Pat Brown.   I wonder if that's the biggest NC bass of the year.   That's a HUGE bass.   Possible 13 pounds pre spawn.  Congrats.   

4 hours ago, Dominat0r said:

STREAK ON

For cryin' out loud, are your shoulders sore from reeling fish?  You've been catching twice a day!

 

8 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

She had some of the usual spawn stuff going on but she seemed to be in tip top shape for a 6-10 year old bass that spawned from January til June this year.

I have to be honest, most of the bass that size that I've seen (only in pics) aren't very pretty, but that one was gorgeous.  Hugely heavy but still great body shape and beautiful color.  You have an unfair advantage because your initials are PB. 

1 hour ago, Pat Brown said:

Just know that the search feature has saved us all from 1.5 thousand bad 'what if I did xxxxx threads?' made by me!

 

First congratulations on the Hawg!

 

Hint: I don't use the sites search feature, instead I use my favorite search engine, type in the subject, & then add bassresource.com. That will pull up almost everything on this site about that subject. 

@Pat Brown congratulations on the new PB. You skipped right over 10 lbs to 11lbs plus. 

This year I have not wanted to slow down and fish a TR, WR, or jig much.  Having to post these dinks after @Pat Brown pig may make me change that lol.  The pond I fish has become flush with algae and the fishing is tough.  Just been wanting to fish fast and enjoy the blowups in the limited time I have.  Got out for about an hour last night and wanted to start in the mucky corner.  Buzzbait was a disaster in there so I figured I'd work under it and try the sleeper.  Caught this little guy on the 1st cast.

 

 

That was it for the sleeper.  One thing I've learned about this pond is they don't like white buzzbaits but that's all I've got right now til I restock.  It wasn't getting it done so I switched the trailer to black and blue.  Instant success

 

 

Stuck 3 on that until the sun was down and the bugs were up.  Dragging a worm next time!

 

4 hours ago, BigAngus752 said:

For cryin' out loud, are your shoulders sore from reeling fish?  You've been catching twice a day!

 

 

It's really my back, I am almost to the point of sitting down and casting. The streak must go on though. My goal is almost accomplished, fish every day this summer. I am on the home stretch now.....I'll take the pain because I just LOVE I am back into fishing again. Brings me such peace....my job is really stressful and this is exactly what the doctor ordered. 

Congratulations! @Pat Brown Awesome fish, man!

We've got a roadrunner tournament this next weekend. Any public body of water is open to fish in the 3 counties south of the one I live in. Not super excited about it, there really isn't a lot of good options except a couple so even though there is a lot of options, we'll probably all be on the same small lakes anyways. I'm hoping I may have a little wildcard lake but I just don't think it has enough top-end sized fish to get it done. I went out and fished it Saturday and would have put together a pretty decent bag. Thought I had a kicker, but of course it had whiskers.

 

@Bluebasser86: With three 19" fish, I like your chances, plus and 18 and a 17.

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

@Bluebasser86: With three 19" fish, I like your chances, plus and 18 and a 17.

It took 98" to win last year...

26 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

It took 98" to win last year...

 

You can do it. 

 

@Pat Brown incredible fish! Great to see a monster come from local waters, especially this time of year, that's nuts! Motivated me to keep getting after them even mid day. What an awesome story and fish! 

Caught 16 yesterday and another 14 today, two different locations. Found all these crawdad holes (crayfish condos) within the Chara, so switched to a soft plastic crayfish imitation and it paid off. Had 6 fish in 6 casts at one point today…the first 6 casts of the day.

 

 

 

Went out for a couple hours tonight. The only thing they would bite today was the Mepps inline spinner. Which I hate fishing with because it has a tendancy to gill hook the fish. Sure enough, that's exactly what happened. Tried to save him. Instead I took him home and ate him. I don't usually eat fish, because I don't really like fish. But I fried him with garlic, salt, and butter, squeezed some lemon on it, and it wasn't too bad. 

 

I've had a bad streak the last couple days: I'll hook massive bass (massive for my ponds.) And then lose them half way through the fight. I hooked two more good ones tonight, and just couldn't land them. Oh well. I know where they live. I'll be back. 

 

Dink #1

 

Dink #2

 

Dink #3

 

Eh. He's not so bad: 

No picture of the one I ate. Bloody fish don't photograph well.