30 minutes ago, IcatchDinks said:

@ol'crickety I know the photo looks like 16, but could swear it said 15.5 in real life. I think the camera angle makes it look like it's measuring longer. But since I have photographic evidence, we'll call him 16. ?

 

Fishing is fun, even when I'm pulling in the little guys. As much as I'd love to pull in monsters all the time like you and some others here seem to do, that's just not the reality of the fisheries readily available to me.

Catching the bigger fish from your ecosystem is as much an accomplishment as anything else from my point of view. Good stuff man, call that 16" for sure cause that fish is definitely not fully flat. I wish I caught more 16" smallmouth. Nice work!

I went last night.  I was on the lake from 1:30 until 4:30.   I caught 6 dinks, 4 on a bladed jig, 2 on a t-rig.   Picture is the biggest one.  I didn't measure it so I could "call" it 14 inches.   I think there was a Catfish tournament last night.   The (huge) landing was 1/2 full of trailers when I got there.   I wasn't fishing very far from the landing.  Weigh in must have been 3am.  Around 2:50 all kinds of boats came back to the landing.   There was only one trailer left at the landing when I came home.   

@thediscochef and @IcatchDinks, now that's been established that @IcatchDinks folds bass to make them appear smaller, I wonder what other visual tricks he's using to shrink his fish so that his screen name fits. Just as some of us thrust our bass at the camera to make them appear larger, @IcatchDinks is working the other way. 

I had pretty good day on the water despite the rain and wind. We caught about 20 good size large mouth and even a striper.

 

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the monster catfish I brought in that did this because my phone was drenched but I'll let you take a guess as to how big it was. 

 

 

 

This a Deps Evoke 3.0. It's a 1oz, 3in+ squarebill. The catfish I caught bent out a 40lb test Owner Hyper Wire split ring and pretty much ate this big lure whole. It was awesome. 

1 hour ago, FishTank said:

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the monster catfish I brought in that did this because my phone was drenched but I'll let you take a guess as to how big it was. 

I've seen a lot of "how much does this fish weigh" posts but never one that didn't include a photo of the fish!  LOL!

That sounds like a good day.  I don't mind the weather either.  That catfish had to be a beast. 

2 hours ago, FishTank said:

I had pretty good day on the water despite the rain and wind. We caught about 20 good size large mouth and even a striper.

 

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the monster catfish I brought in that did this because my phone was drenched but I'll let you take a guess as to how big it was. 

 

 

 

This a Deps Evoke 3.0. It's a 1oz, 3in+ squarebill. The catfish I caught bent out a 40lb test Owner Hyper Wire split ring and pretty much ate this big lure whole. It was awesome. 

 

I have an F13 Rapala that a musky hit. I didn't catch the musky. There's a steel wire in an F13 Rapala. I know this because the musky ripped it out of the lure's body, splintering the balsa. It also deformed the hooks and this all happened in about two seconds of thrashing, splashing fury. Then it loaded my rod with so much energy that when the beast spat the lure, it whizzed past my head.

 

I love that lure.

 

Treasure yours too. 

Okay lost two fish, had a few definitive bites. Skunked. I’m not entirely sure that I chalk this trip up as a loss though. One of the fish I lost on the jig, and I’m pretty sure that fish is bigger than any I’ve tango’d with on this lake. It actually started to run during the fight and kinda do its own thing. Felt really heavy. If it was a bass, I consider the trip a win. I know where that bass’s crib is at, lol. It was sitting on something that I had marked in deep water months ago. There were a ton of very large fish arches in the area just roaming, and plentiful bait

33 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

Okay lost two fish, had a few definitive bites. Skunked. I’m not entirely sure that I chalk this trip up as a loss though. One of the fish I lost on the jig, and I’m pretty sure that fish is bigger than any I’ve tango’d with on this lake. It actually started to run during the fight and kinda do its own thing. Felt really heavy. If it was a bass, I consider the trip a win. I know where that bass’s crib is at, lol. It was sitting on something that I had marked in deep water months ago. There were a ton of very large fish arches in the area just roaming, and plentiful bait

 

I see your PB is 9-10 lbs., so you know what a big bass feels like and you have the address of your next PB. Ex-ci-ting!

5 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

 

I see your PB is 9-10 lbs., so you know what a big bass feels like and you have the address of your next PB. Ex-ci-ting!

It gave me a thrill. I am pretty sure that the fish thought my bait was a really large crawdad. There were a few bites I got where it would be a tick, and then nothing. Then I’d reel and set hook and there’d be nothing there. I’m pretty sure that was smaller fish trying to disarm the “crawdad.” This larger fish did none of that. It violently attacked and then started running. But when it spit the bait and I got it back, my bait was tore at the hook. So I think the big fish attacked and then was holding the jig by the “pinchers.” But the way that fish ran, it did it with authority. Maybe not PB, but big fish 

We got our wish for heavy cloud cover hiding a big moon on our every-other-Saturday john boat trip, but it was completely windless. They were on total lockdown, so the bite was super tough, and our skunk-free streak was seriously teetering on the edge. I finally knocked the stink off with a Livington Bullnose wake/crank eating squirt, and my brother got the right bite on a Megabass Hazedong Shad and closed the show. He thought he'd snagged a branch at first, then it jumped.?I was thrilled to see him finally hook into some decent horsepower after several trips of slogging a 12' john boat inhumane distances back and forth to these off the beaten path puddles where we travel to.

Went wading again. This time in the rain. It was a nice gentle drizzle when I started, and then turned into a heavy downpour. I kept fishing, seeing as I was already soaked. But I coulda called it a day an hour early and saved myself from turning into a human raisin. The downpour turned off the bite like a light switch.

 

I caught three in total, only took pictures of two. And I had two more bites but they got away. I think they grabbed the end of my plastic but not the hook.

 

As I was reeling in both of these fish, I saw bigger smallies chasing them in. I'm gonna head back to that specific hole soon, and see if I can get even bigger fish. 

 

On 8/5/2023 at 5:14 PM, LrgmouthShad said:

I really ain't messing around tonight. Have a 1oz jig with giant trailer, 3/4oz thumper spinnerbait, and frog rigged and that's all I plan on throwing.

 

On 8/5/2023 at 5:24 PM, LrgmouthShad said:

My lake is a grass lake,

I know I sound like a broken record but... 

Weed edges first, if they ain't there, rock structure if you have any.

2 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

 

I know I sound like a broken record but... 

Weed edges first, if they ain't there, rock structure if you have any.

Rig chatterbait, good to go until I encounter wood, which there is a lot of in this lake. Rig spinnerbait, and I don't give a darn what I encounter. If I rigged both, I've gotta worry about one more rod when it's dark out. Just my thoughts. I appreciate it though. 

@T-Billy actually who am I kidding. There’s more to it than that. I just have so much darned confidence in a spinnerbait, that, by golly, that’s what I’m going to use. Somebody else might catch em on a chatterbait but I’m okay with that. 

4 hours ago, PhishLI said:

We got our wish for heavy cloud cover hiding a big moon on our every-other-Saturday john boat trip, but it was completely windless. They were on total lockdown, so the bite was super tough, and our skunk-free streak was seriously teetering on the edge. I finally knocked the stink off with a Livington Bullnose wake/crank eating squirt, and my brother got the right bite on a Megabass Hazedong Shad and closed the show. He thought he'd snagged a branch at first, then it jumped.?I was thrilled to see him finally hook into some decent horsepower after several trips of slogging a 12' john boat inhumane distances back and forth to these off the beaten path puddles where we travel to.

 

Go, go, PhishLI bro!!!

 

2 hours ago, IcatchDinks said:

I'm gonna head back to that specific hole soon, and see if I can get even bigger fish. 

 

 

You can. You will! And when you do, don't use any of your visual tricks to make it appear to be a dink, like putting 100 yards between you and the camera.

 

 

19 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

rock structure if you have any.

There is rock and that’s where the bigger fish was sitting. There a bit of a change in bottom composition where the bottom gets much harder on the side of a point and there’s a rock pile out there

On 8/5/2023 at 5:24 PM, LrgmouthShad said:

My lake is a grass lake....

 

Did I hear somebody say "grass lake"?

 

3 minutes ago, MIbassyaker said:

 

Did I hear somebody say "grass lake"?

 

Underspins were a huge deal on a grass lake I used to fish in NY. I never used em but they along with jerkbaits were a favorite among people who fished the lake. Thanks

37 minutes ago, MIbassyaker said:

 

Did I hear somebody say "grass lake"?

 

 

^This^ is one of my favorite lures. It can cut through all kinds of slop.

Fairly slow afternoon today with just 9 fish. Starting to see a lot of juvenile largemouth showing up in one particular pond. Thinking they got off a good spawn there this past year. 
 

 

This time last year we were melting under relentless heat, but we've been in a cool down for the past two weeks, even as low as the 60s during some overnights. Lack of any real rainfall has dropped the water levels quite a bit, but not as badly as last year when it was alarmingly low from the drought. Before the cool off high air temps had the water nearly hot, but it's dramatically lower now. I didn't bring my casting thermometer tonight, but I could easily feel the much colder temps through my waders. It's been pretty windy here too, so that aided in sucking the heat out. The milfoil patches I waded through which usually retain their heat were themselves even cooled down by a lot These shallow mill ponds where I often fish are so sensitive to changing conditions.

 

With rain forecast for tomorrow it's currently 72 and muggy. Moonrise is later every night by 45 minutes, so with clouds in the sky and relative darkness while I was out, I was hoping for some topwater action, but that wasn't the case. Other than one random skinny I landed running the Livingston Bullnose wake right against the shoreline, all of my other bites came from working small soft swimmers on the bottom, and with the much colder water temps pickerel are on the move again as evidenced by the tail-less or shredded swimmers I reeled in strike after strike. They're such jerks, but I've got Mend-It. One bass is better than none, so I'll take it.?‍♂️

7 hours ago, LrgmouthShad said:

There is rock and that’s where the bigger fish was sitting. There a bit of a change in bottom composition where the bottom gets much harder on the side of a point and there’s a rock pile out there

A chatterbait comes through rock very well, and when it does get hung I can usually free it. When fishing deeper rock with it, I like to let it hit bottom, then retrieve it by making a few turns of the handle and letting it fall back to the bottom on a tight line. I prefer this method over pulling it with the rod because I'm always in position to set the hook this way. Unlike a jig without that big metal blade, they often won't hold onto a CB very long.

 I used to fish those short arm spinnerbaits alot at night. I missed alot of fish because they would often hit the blade instead of the hook when slow rolling it close to the bottom. Hookup ratio was very good when running it high in the water colomn though. 

I'm with ya about fishing a chatterbait in wood. They don't come through it nearly as well as a spinnerbait. 

Caught a beaver bass before work this morning. 

 

 

 

18 hours ago, LrgmouthShad said:

It gave me a thrill. I am pretty sure that the fish thought my bait was a really large crawdad. There were a few bites I got where it would be a tick, and then nothing. Then I’d reel and set hook and there’d be nothing there. I’m pretty sure that was smaller fish trying to disarm the “crawdad.” This larger fish did none of that. It violently attacked and then started running. But when it spit the bait and I got it back, my bait was tore at the hook. So I think the big fish attacked and then was holding the jig by the “pinchers.” But the way that fish ran, it did it with authority. Maybe not PB, but big fish 

The only fishes I've had just slam a big craw like that were bass of 6# and up. Glad you got on one, hopefully you get it out next time.

 

I caught three LM about this size this morning on the 3/4oz red eye shad, and the 4lb blue cat pictured. Hanging out with the bumblebees. I then dropped my bluetooth earbud into the lake. I hope fish like the Oak Ridge Boys 

43 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Caught a beaver bass before work this morning. 

 

 

 

 

Okay, if a bass will hit a beaver lure, then a bass would love to hit a live beaver and Maine has plenty of beavers. I'm thinking a 30/0 hook and a beach ball for a bobber. 

@ol'crickety I plan on investing some real time in that little under spin doohickey this winter time.  I just know it's a fish catching machine and I feel like when 'not much is going on' in terms of weather or fish activity, that sneaky little critter would get munched by even the pickiest of bass.

 

Do you like to burn them, steady reel em, stop n go??  Heavier or lighter?  I feel like there's a big population of LARGE bass at the upper portion of the Pressured Pond™ (where I tend to not fish as much...lower pond seems more hackable), that ONLY eats tiny shad things all year long and this presentation could be the key to getting one or two of them.