Last weekend was our championship tournament. Don't have time to do the whole write up now, but it went well, as did the rest of the season.

 

23 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Last weekend was our championship tournament. Don't have time to do the whole write up now, but it went well, as did the rest of the season.

 

"I'm a 3 to 6 most days"

 

? congrats man

45 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Last weekend was our championship tournament. Don't have time to do the whole write up now, but it went well, as did the rest of the season.

 

Congratulations! I always enjoy your reports, and watching your videos. I also like how the awards are shaped like the state. That's cool.

My partner and I won our annual contest today. It was tough fishing out there. We enjoyed free beer and lunch at Applebees afterwards though. The beer always goes down smoother when it’s free.

 

A bluegill colored swim jig with a rage trailer produced enough sizable bass to win today.

 

1 hour ago, Fishlegs said:

Congratulations! I always enjoy your reports, and watching your videos. I also like how the awards are shaped like the state. That's cool.

The plaques are really cool. Kind of hard to tell in the picture but they have stars in the county where the tournaments were at too, really nicely done. 

 

1 hour ago, LrgmouthShad said:

"I'm a 3 to 6 most days"

 

? congrats man

The tournament pressure pushes me to be more towards the 6 on those days.

4 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Last weekend was our championship tournament. Don't have time to do the whole write up now, but it went well, as did the rest of the season.

 

 

Those are cool plaques. So proud of you!

 

@Blue Raider Bob: I'm pretty tuckered, Bob. Plus, just like last year, my catch totals are steadily dropping as the water temps drop. I don't know if you remember, but last year, I went out in the middle of the night for my last trip and the wind was howling. When the Sun rose, I could see how brown and bleak Maine had become and understood I'd lingered too long. I'm not making that mistake this year.

 

I had the best fishing year of my life. I'm past happy. 

 

I'll make a point next year of more scenery shots just for you, my friend!

 

I'm still hoping to fish for two hours Friday evening at one of my two big bass bogs, but only if the wind permits. 

 

2 hours ago, gimruis said:

My partner and I won our annual contest today.

 

Gimruis! BR is the Hall of Champions.

On perhaps my last fishing trip of the year, I landed 18 on a gorgeous evening. The first two are average fish. Then two 18-inchers and then the same two 18-inchers in the air, where you can really see how thick they were. 

 

I might fish one more time Friday evening, wind permitting. We'll see.

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

Gimruis! BR is the Hall of Champions

This is the 7th year we’ve had this contest. We usually have 3 teams for it on a smaller, local lake.

 

My partner and I have won 4 out of 7 times. But there was a 3 year gap when we didn’t do so well, and ended up paying for lunch and beers afterwards. We currently have a 2 year win steak going after today.

Hit my first Carolina lake by boat late  last week (Fri). Used @A-Jay’s topo link to look it over and mark a few spots of interest. Spent 2.5 hours mostly looking around and figuring out pretty quick this is not a well structured lake. More like a flatlander with some light weeds down to about 6-7 ft, slight tannic but clear water, and very little offshore cover. Looks heavily silted in, and I’m thinking this is going to be a dock lake for the most part, with some fish around the scattered shallow weeds and treefalls. Only got to see about a quarter of the lake in that time, and caught 2 small bass (and no crappies). 
 

Today I went back for trip No. 2. Weather was mostly sunny with a very light and variable breeze, but at least half the day was calm. Moved up the lake a bit looking for a bit more stain, but didn’t find it. Did find an old roadbed along with a small bridge and one or two weird pallet-like assemblages, so focused much of my 3 hr day offshore in that area.
 

The weather conditions looked like it had the fish well pinned to the bottom on the graph, so I just started fishing along the length of the roadbed. Started out trying for crappie based on the clusters of fish I was seeing, and after a few trial and error attempts at bait styles and colors, I finally figured a couple combos out and was able to catch about 15 or so. 
 

I was seeing a lot of scattered fish all along the roadbed, so I picked up a Ned rod and started working a TRD TicklerZ over the hard bottom and was quickly rewarded with a 14” bass. Long story short, there were a lot of bass running this roadbed along with the crappie, as well as a few schools of the occasional baitfish of some sort. I was able to catch about 15 bass, most in the 12”-15” range, but did trick this one that went a bit over 4 lbs. 

 

Starting to piece together the puzzle, and looking forward to trip No. 3 to expand on this bite and to check out another section of this lake.

 

 

 

A couple highlights from the past week.  Nothing super wild but I did catch some bass from the bank at Lake James.  The nicest came early in the morning on a Manns Jelly Worm in grape fire tail.  The water there is so clear it is mesmerizing.

 

Successfully caught bass on the 'poop baits' I got to try out.  Definitely looking forward to throwing these in the winter.  Seem like they'll be incredibly useful for bomb casts to deep fish that normally don't see lures.

 

Caught a nice one on the micro chatterbait with a fluke jr and the buzzbait got the biggest of the day yesterday out of 9 small fish on the boat.

 

Fishing has been awesome but I gotta figure out how to catch a big fish here soon ??

 

I feel like all the swings and misses have been the really big fish and it's getting to my head!

Went out to the lake with my girlfriend to eat dinner and watch the sunset...and also fish LOL 

Spent about 25 minutes with line in the water and managed to find a couple bass in the one spot I casted around. Nice night, good way to get back at the water after a few days off. Looking forward to the cooler weather and some bigger fish moving shallow

@thediscochef making it look easy on a date ??

 

That's how we roll.  BR style.

12 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

@thediscochef making it look easy on a date ??

 

That's how we roll.  BR style.

 

"BR style"

 

Downtown triple crown, all 3 species in the same spot 

as I was trying to get this photo of my canoe……

I noticed on one attempt when I had the flash on, a bat or tiny UFO whizzed by me…….. more likely a big bug or light reflecting but those aren’t nearly as cool of a story huh 

@TnRiver46: Downtown fishing is cool. When I was in college at Ohio State (Go Bucks!), I'd wade the Olentangy River for smallmouth within sight of the stadium. Your smallie has such strong striping.

@ol'crickety, check out this little feller’s stripes. I’m still trying to steal the @IcatchDinks moniker 

Hit Local Lake Menderchuck for an later afternoon / sunset trip.

Weather was crazy nice - like summer, so I really had no choice.

Coincidentally, this thought was running ramped through the minds of what seemed like every pontoon and Jet Ski operator in the tri-state area.  More on that later.

Either way, I committed to throwing horizontal moving baits along the perimeter of a historically productive main lake flat.  So 4-8 feet with plenty of cabbage on the flat.  I was being kept company by an abundance of bait making expectation of contact with a few smb, at least reasonable.  I my mind anyway.  Squarebills, spinnerbaits, Rattlebaits, vibrating jigs all looked good but never drew any attention.

My rig, on the other hand, seemed to be the focal point of every recreational vessel on the lake as they all just had to pass close aboard and even were thoughtful enough to run circles around me. 

I love that.  It's all good and they have every right.  But it usually doesn't help my catch rate.

So after a couple of hours of this, I bailed.  But not before catching my first "Dock Demon".

A jackhammer crawled along the bottom snagged some line and during the recovery process a sweet little Zebco (zip tied to an ice fishing rod) was my prize. 

Before departing, I decided to stop on a main lake point that was 'sort of' off the general path being taken by the circus.

Proved to be a decent move as there ended up being a school of small but willing participants positioned off the end of it.  A rage bug on a swinghead turned them all into biters. 

For several minutes it was brown bass every cast, or at least a bite.

All trophies in training but it was a fun way to finish this one up,

especially after such a pretty sunset. 

Fish Hard

A-Jay

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, A-Jay said:

Proved to be a decent move as there ended up being a school of small but willing participants positioned off the end of it.

 

 

Small. ? A-Jays "small" is my PB. Keep up it, man. I love seeing the fish you pull in. 

 

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

@ol'crickety, check out this little feller’s stripes. I’m still trying to steal the @IcatchDinks moniker 

 

? now's your chance. My opportunities for catching dinks are dropping since I'm too busy being a new dad. 

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

@IcatchDinks

You'll be standing in line for this one. Right after me!

Just now, Blue Raider Bob said:

You'll be standing in line for this one. Right after me!

 

Confession: I catch dinks too. It's the fearless nature of bass, as they hit lures as big as them. 

 

@IcatchDinks: Atta, Dad!

1 hour ago, Blue Raider Bob said:

You'll be standing in line for this one. Right after me!

 

Not a bass. ?

Can I be in the "dink" club?  This was a couple weeks ago.  

 

Day 3 on the new reservoir. Went uplake to check out what I was hoping would be another roadbed, but if it was ever there, it’s buried in silt now. Found one hard bottom area I want to check out later, but from just driving around, this section looks like a strictly shallow water dock bite. Since I haven’t found my jig boxes yet from the move, I ended up going back downlake and fishing the roadbed area from yesterday.

 

Blue skies and a light ENE breeze at times isn’t helping the bite in this clear lake. For whatever reason, I couldn’t generate a bite on bottom with Ned. Messed around with a few other options, and found out that I could trigger bites with a deep crankbait (DT10 that runs 12+ ft). Triggered a couple groups of bass on the roadbed with this tactic and was able to land 16 bass. No big fish today, but had more than a limit of fish that ran up to 17 inches. 

 

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

No big fish today, but had more than a limit of fish that ran up to 17 inches.

A 17 incher is still pretty solid in my book. Much better than the average fish in the far north here.

 

8 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

Confession: I catch dinks too.

I am pretty sure every bass angler catches their fair share of dinks, but only a few of the brave on here are actually willing to post photos of them. Not this guy lol. When I catch a dink it goes back faster than stink on a monkey.

42 minutes ago, Woody B said:

Can I be in the "dink" club?  This was a couple weeks ago.  

 

can i pay you $1000 to take me out to O.H. Ivie