4 minutes ago, Woody B said:

We've thought for some time he was posting a single fish picture multiple times.  I watched him several different times come up to an area, pull a bass out of his livewell, take a picture, then fish for a bit.  Later at the landing I saw him release a single fish out of his livewell.   I saw the pictures later on fakebook.  I'm 99% sure they were all the same bass, out of his livewell with different backgrounds.   I've been resisting commenting "that looks like a bunch of pictures of the same bass".    

 

Man, that's a lot of work to impress a few friends and relations. Bad for the bass too. 

I made it to Lake Woodybchuck this afternoon for a couple hours after getting home from camping.   I thought I had caught 5, but after checking my pictures it was 6.   I have a clicker I keep count with, but left if in my coat pocket in the truck.   The first, and smallest was a Largemouth.  The last was a 17 1/2" Largemouth.  The rest were Spots, including one that was 18 1/2" and one that was 17".   

 

Headed up to one of my favorite local spots for an afternoon sesh. Winds were ripping at 21mph, and 52* felt more like 32*. It felt good though. I haven't been there much over the past several months due to being aggravated by the night-crew bucketeer poachers, and the huge piles of stinking milfoil left on the shore by one lone casting net criminal, or so I thought. Casting nets are illegal here and so is taking bass, period. I confronted this guy twice. The second time I wasn't nice at all, and he split.

 

As I was wading through a creek on my way to the lake, I passed by one of the regulars. He asked how I've been doing here and told him I haven't really been down for some time. He said fishing's been awful for months, almost impossible, then went on to share the worst news. It turns out a casting net crew had been pounding this place at night. Someone finally got the DEC officers to show up and they caught four of them. They denied having any fish, but the officers found their stash bags loaded with 90 fish. 90 fish in one night. How much damage have they done to this 25-acre place over the course of months? Apparently, a lot. For the most part, the regular I met in the creek typically fishes the zone they netted. They all got ticketed and the story made a local paper. This place has been a tough bite for years without these clowns pillaging it further. It makes me sick.

 

The upside is that there are zones these jackholes can't do their work, so I went to those under the assumption that they'd wiped out the resident fish where they plied their trade.

 

We had heavy rain Friday through Saturday, so I knew they'd be offshore. I tried working cover nearshore anyway, but no bueno. I got all my bites moon-shotting a Fat IKA rigged on a 1/4oz swimbait hook and slow dragged it up a drop-off. Tough to set a hook at 180ft out, but I nabbed two scrappy smalls and left with some bass perfume on my thumb. I'll take it, and the fallen leaves gave the place some nice color. I'm still fuming though.

 

Great fish all things considering buddy, and the reason the Bass is so awesome is in part due to it's ability to survive extreme levels of pressure, it's hard to kill a Bass population once it takes holds.    

 

Once you get old enough in life, one realizes how much humans ruin pretty everything that isn't man made, aka nature 😥

 

I think that's why I romanticize Katie's adventures and amazing success, she fishes for these fish in unmolested, unmanaged, largely un fished locations.    As I've said a number of times now here, if I were a Bass, no doubt about it I want to live wherever Katie fishes.    

 

If I put in the work Katie puts in, you better believe I'm expecting not to see other anglers, or humans 😁

Sadly, Alex, I can foresee my fine, local fishing fading. More and more houses are being built in Maine and a member of the BR community who lives in southern Maine reported that he's catching fewer fish and seeing less non-finned wildlife too, blaming the people who crowd their homes on shorelines.

 

Humans do ruin pretty much everything. On my last outing, I retrieved two bobbing beer bottles from the bog and fetched two beer cans in the woods. 

 

I'm grateful that @PhishLI scolded the glutton/thief who was casting a net. 

Cabin or lake shore owners isn’t necessarily a death sentence. Many lakes form a lake association and put together an annual clean up of the lake, in addition to private stocking if they receive permission. Docks can often provide cover. I target docks regularly in the heat of summer as they have lots of shade.

 

There is a down side to it though. People with docks usually try to control weeds and many of our lakes get treated with a herbicide for weed growth in the spring. Sometimes the fishing pressure goes up too, and word gets out. Then it becomes tougher. The “virgin” bass you’re used to targeting might not be so easy to catch as a result, but they are still in there.

 

The trash is an unfortunate result of lazy, careless, irresponsible people. It may not be locals either. Could be just about anyone.

The septic systems of lakeside homes leak, degrading water quality. If they want a suburban lawn, the fertilizers and herbicides are washed into the water. 

 

Of course I don't know who littered. I only knew who retrieved the trash. 

Both are true. However, it’s not all bad. Those types of activities keep some murkiness to the water, which makes fishing a little easier.

 

Clear water makes it more difficult. Some of the lakes I fish here have very clear water and the fishing is tough there. The lakes that still have a stain to them are easier with my preferred power fishing presentations.

 

Either way, this sort of thing doesn’t happen overnight. It’s going to be years before you notice a significant change.

I got my lakeside septic system pumped out last year…:….

 

the 20 deer in the yard everyday just let theirs wash downhill into the lake 

Topwater continues to produce

3-10 on the walking bait, I had probably two or three others at least as big hit the pompadour but I think I set the hook too fast. Not as active as yesterday, and the better fish were in deeper water. but there's weather moving in, no great surprise they were a little mixed up

nice one, love a big LM on topwater 

I thought I was the only one who loved big LGMs on topwater 😁

 

Caught a fat little 3lber on a buzzbait yesterday, I must have laughed and giggled for 5 minutes over the joy of that experience.  

 

If only every Bass could be caught like that.  

Looks like I'm ending it right here ~ Last Brown Bass of 2023.

A-Jay

 

But not the last bass, no? 😃

 

As much as Love to say "OH Yea",

that's just not in the cards.

At least for now.

A-Jay

We have to take care of stuff when stuff comes around. Y'all stay well and enjoy the time with Lynn and the dogs 

@A-Jay nice one to end on. Already seeing icebergs ?

Thanks ~

No icebergs yet, just completely miserable fishing weather.

I must be getting old & weak.

A-Jay

Well, it's on like Donkey Kong now.  The LM aren't in the creeks yet but they are piling up together getting ready to go.  The stripers are in the middle of coves following the wind from bank to bank.  12 LMs and lost track of the stripers...18?19?  All fish on a lipless crank.  A bank fisherman had an angry, 3 pound striper break off his little crappie jig so I got it back for him.  LOL  The stripers are insane.  Like an underwater Tasmanian Devil.  Very fun. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last trip of the season for me today too. 

 

Went to my favorite lake, the closest thing I have to a "Crickety Bog". It's the quietest, least-pressured place I know how access. 

 

You paddle in from a creek:

 

 

 

The creek opens to an irregularly-shaped lake basin of about 3 dozen acres:

 

I haven't been here in October before, and didn't know what I would find, but I was expecting some tough, slow fishing.  Our daytime temps have just dropped 10 degrees after three days of rain.  Air temp was 46 degrees when I launched at noon. Surface water temps in the lake were 52', though there was still a lot of green vegetation, both shallow and deep.

 

In 3 1/2 hours I caught three -- one 12" on my second cast at the creek mouth with a chatterbait.  Two more fishing more vertically in the central basin, about 10' down along the drop from a 3' to 20' -- a 16.5" on a t-rigged space monkey, and another 12" on a 4" power worm:

 

Not exactly lights out fishing, but could have been worse!  Probably my last bass of 2023.

If I could fish a place like that, catching would be secondary!  Katie type bog is right. 

 

Congrats on ending the season on a high note.   

I love ^this^ little river and pond. I'm actually (I brace for the teasing here.) going to fish again this week. It's suddenly warm again in Maine, up to the high sixties and low seventies by day and the high fifties by night. Come Sunday or Monday, it'll be back to the high forties by day and the low thirties by night, so I'm going out one or two more times. 

HA! HAHAHAHAHA

 

Oh man that’s funny 😂

 

Have fun 😃. Throw a spinnerbait I think bass like those

 

One or two or six or eight more times, we know the drill! 

I think the rumblings are that I may get out for a couple or few trips soon too, before I may vanish? 
 

Moral of the story is: Never trust a BR member when they say they are done fishing for any length of time