@Woody B There’s no stopping you. Glad you’re feeling better, good to hear. 👍

46 minutes ago, Woody B said:

(I kinda hate the word pattern). 

 

Me too. I watch YouTubers catch two bass and they start using the word, "pattern."

 

47 minutes ago, Woody B said:

 I went across the channel to another hump and caught a 16 inch Spot on a shaky head. 

 

Woody, what did you have on your shaky head?

 

I'm glad you're feeling better, Woody, and I'm also glad you didn't push it.

Latest topwater fish ever today on the buzzbait and a nice chunk at that!

 

Caught some Peacocks on hard jerkbaits this morning… switched to a soft plastic jerkbait this afternoon and caught a 23 inch largemouth/pig.  

1 hour ago, RipzLipz said:

There’s no stopping you.

The only thing that's going to stop him is the haircut police.  Mrs Woody B needs to trim up that mop.

@gimruis COVID might stop haircuts or might just be some bed head going on. Unless you’re gonna plow your way out of MN & head him off at the ramp, I don’t think the haircut or fashion police will be stopping Woody anytime soon. 🤣

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

Woody, what did you have on your shaky head?

I get way too simple with plastics, and I'm also a cheapskate.   I used to use Zoom trick worms, any dark color, but switched to "Dizzy Diamond" worms from Bizz Baits after Pat Brown pointed out that Bizz baits in an NC company,   I had good luck most Summer using the entire 6 inch Dizzy Diamond with a 3/16 ounce shaky head.   6 weeks or so ago I noticed Bass ignoring them.   I cut them down to 4 inches(for a faster fall rate?) and they're clobbering them again.   A heavier weight with the full size worm might be the trick, but I've got a bunch of 3/16's.    As long as cutting a little off the worm works I'm sticking with what I've got, and keeping the bait monkey in his cage.  LOL

 

However,  the monkey is rattling the cage.  It's it's rainy, windy and cold tomorrow, instead of going fishing I might make a BPS/Academy run.   I've got a couple local tackle shops I really like,  but I'm usually either working or fishing when they're open.  This helps with the monkey too.

1 minute ago, Woody B said:

keeping the bait monkey in his cage.  LOL

 

However,  the monkey is rattling the cage.  It's it's rainy, windy and cold tomorrow, instead of going fishing I might make a BPS/Academy run.   I've got a couple local tackle shops I really like,  but I'm usually either working or fishing when they're open.  This helps with the monkey too.

Good luck with that - my door all week long:

A haircut has proven to result in catching 33% more fish per outing.

 

Has to be hard to drive these with hands like that.

Don't do it, Woody. American men spend $3,500,000,000 on hair loss, i.e. to replace the hair that you already have.

 

Thanks for the trick worm info. I have some shaky heads and I like the look of them, but have never used one because my ponds and bogs are soooooo weedy and shallow. 10' is about as deep as they get. 

12 hours ago, Woody B said:

I use 50 pound braid for A-rigs instead of my normal 12 to 14 pound mono.  I decided to lean on it and it broke.  The knot was several months old.  I suppose I need to maintain braid like I do my mono

I'll often go several trips without retying braid. Never been an issue with lighter baits, but I've learned the hard way, with heavy baits you need to retie a few times a day. I've casted a couple rigs into orbit, and broke off a muskie on 50# and 65# that hadn't been retied that day. 

 

@T-Billy: What do you think happens to braid when using big baits that it needs to be retied? 

 

The last time I was in Canada stretching my mono for three weeks, by the third week, my mono was seriously compromised. 

He isn't much at all and honestly not worth posting, BUT I am pretty thrilled I was able to get on the water,  read the conditions,  take a guess where the bait/fish would be, select the right bait and then actually have that all play out and have him in the boat in less than 30min. Despite catching really nice fish this year I'd be lying if I said it all comes together as easily as it did this time. All clones of him but putting together the pieces yesterday felt good. 

 

Question... why do fish sometimes bleed when all the hooks are in the jaw? 

 

@Functional:

 

A. I had a couple jaw-hooked bass bleed in 2023 and I don't know why.

 

B. However, I did read that bass blood can't coagulate unless the fish are in the water, so releasing them ASAP is best for the bass.

 

C. Unlike @gimruis, I'm happy to see pics of bass that aren't bodacious because this thread isn't a bragging board. It's a trip report board and if we don't catch big bass, well, that should be in the report if the report is to be accurate. 

 

D. Congrats on it all coming together!

 

E. The whole notion of locating the bait is beyond me. I'm guessing that's for sonar-owners. I fish more by light, chasing the shadows rather than the bait that I can't see. 

@ol'crickety I locate bait with my eyes 90% of the time.  I like to look for birds, surface disturbance, main lake structure and current breaks and go from there.  If I can't see bait doing stuff with my eyes or at least the evidence of bait in the area, I have learned that it's probably gonna be a pretty big waste of time to fish it on a bigger impoundment.  Especially this time of year when fish are very very grouped up.

 

Yesterday I puttered around on a lake I haven't fished in a little while looking at my cheap little sonar unit and the ONLY place I saw any fish at all in 4 hours of graphing was in 10-23 feet of water (really more like 17-23 of water for 90% of the fish) and they were carpeting the bottom out in the middle of the main lake relating to absolutely nothing but slightly warmer deeper water.

 

I caught my only fish in 1 foot of water on a buzzbait casting my way in back to the marina.

 

If I was to go back to that lake today and fish again I'd probably sit on top of that carpet offshore with Damiki rigs, drop shots, Alabama rigs, Jerkbaits and blade baits because it seems to me like that's about how you're going to have to fish to catch many at this lake in the winter!

 

Most of the year I'm able to work cover and targets up shallow but around this time every year that becomes a struggle down south and the electronics are a big help adapting to that drastic migration.

 

7 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

I locate bait with my eyes 90% of the time.  I like to look for birds, surface disturbance, main lake structure and current breaks and go from there.

 

Now that you mention it, I think I do the same thing. I'm always scanning the water, looking for anomalies. Even if I'm retrieving a surface lure, I'm still scanning, for I can always feel and hear a surface lure hit; I don't have to see it. By looking, I'm setting up my next cast. 

 

9 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

Yesterday I puttered around on a lake I haven't fished in a little while looking at my cheap little sonar unit and the ONLY place I saw any fish at all in 4 hours of graphing was in 10-23 feet of water (really more like 17-23 of water for 90% of the fish) and they were carpeting the bottom out in the middle of the main lake relating to absolutely nothing but slightly warmer deeper water.

 

10 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

 

If I was to go back to that lake today and fish again I'd probably sit on top of that carpet offshore with Damiki rigs, drop shots, Alabama rigs, Jerkbaits and blade baits because it seems to me like that's about how you're going to have to fish to catch many at this lake in the winter!

 

^This^ sort of comment is one of the most useful I encounter at BR. I like to hear the reasoning behind decisions to use this lure or that. 

@Pat Brown @ol'crickety

 

Typically during every season but winter I'm more like both of you and working cover,  shade, wind, etc. Winter time on my smaller home lake(actually more river than lake)  it becomes a grind and with all the veg died out its tough to find them. My best luck has been graphing large schools of bait with some type of cover below them (a stump, a depression, a few rocks). 9/10 they are middle of the lake channel and the bass relate to the cover and feed up. Spoons, rattle traps, cranks, spinners and swim jigs Typically do it here. I'll have to try Pat's techniques but it's painful for me to fish that slow lol. 

 

Yesterday was in 15-20fow and a 18' crank did it. Mind you I'm not a crankbait type person but we do what we have to. 

@Functional

 

I love fishing wind too, but my current boat, being 15' 6' long and only 32 pounds, is so easily pushed by the wind. If I had one of my V-hulls with a heavy motor and anchor again, I'd prefer windy days.

Rain rain rain is the forecast for today.  I was sitting home watching is drizzle.  I was either going to make a BPS/Academy bait monkey run, or go fishing.  I decided to go fishing.   (take that monkey).  It's not cold.  When I got the the landing (which I had to myself) there was a light drizzle, very little wind and it was 63 degrees.   I was stuck on the decision to wear my Summer rain gear or Winter rain gear.  I opted for the Winter rain gear, since my Summer jacket doesn't have a hood to keep my head dry.  That was a bad decision.   I re treated my winter stuff and it worked great for a couple trips.  Not this time.  Once the drizzle turned into real rain I was soaked.   I caught 6 Spots.  No big ones.  The 2 pictured are typical for all of them.      My phone was trying to fog up so I didn't take any more pictures after the rain got hard.  Fish were active.  I may have fished 45 minutes.  I never got more than 1/4 mile from the landing.    I realize I would have caught 9 instead of 6 if I'd had my hair cut.  It's all a matter of time management.  I didn't have time to go fishing and get a haircut.   

 

Pat, when I see them hugging the bottom on sonar I think they're sleeping or at least in some kind of inactive state.  I have a hard time getting them to respond to anything.   I suppose electricity or dynomite would work but I haven't tried that.....yet.   Often suspended bass are the same, but sometime running a buzz bait over their heads a few times will get them to respond to something else.   I can't get a buzz bait to wake up the bottom huggers though.   I think they're hugging the bottom for warmth.   The Earth is warmer than the water.   

 

8 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

@T-Billy: What do you think happens to braid when using big baits that it needs to be retied? 

 

The last time I was in Canada stretching my mono for three weeks, by the third week, my mono was seriously compromised. 

Just stressed over, and over, and over from casting I guess. I've had old knots fail with both the Palomar, and the the Improved Uni. I've never had either knot fail with less than several hours of chucking heavy baits. It's a known issue to me now, so I don't sweat it. I just retie a couple times a day when throwing heavy baits.

Braids only strength weakness is from impact breaks. The sudden snap when you backlash or snap casting will weaken it at the knot. 

Fun weekend filled with SMB (and drum)

 

Saturday morning was pouring rain like wild. It was scheduled to quit raining around 10 and it somewhat followed schedule. My buddy met me at a ramp that has been improved to where I can launch my bigger boat. That still restricted us to about 1-2 miles of river but I figured that would make us fish more thoroughly. There was also an eagle by the ramp……

 At the first place we anchored , I got a nice one with a swimbait and my buddy got 2 with an 8 wt fly rod and a minnow pattern he tied himself . By the end of the day we both caught 3 SMB and 1 drum a piece, his all on fly. I got 1 with swimbait and the rest on a tube 

 

 

Saturday night when I got home, it eventually started storming like crazy. It woke me up several times all night with constant lightning and rumbling thunder, and was still raining pretty hard Sunday morning . I cleaned up around the house and threw some stuff away and by about noon it had finally cleared off enough to launch a boat. I crossed a bridge near home and the water looked OK ish so I launched there. Motored upstream and the water kept getting darker and more filled with leaves from last nights storm. I marked some fish in 30 ft but couldn’t make them eat a spoon, thought for sure they were easy white bass. Oh well so I motor even further upstream and fish rock cliffs. After an hour or so of drifting a cliff, I finally hooked up to a nice SMB on a green tube. Ended up catching 2 SMB, a rock bass, and a drum in cold wind rain and muddy water when I was fairly certain all hope was lost. Even saw some cool ferns growing on a dead limb that was hanging off the cliff 

I look at that fern-covered tree and hear Jeff Goldblum intoning, "Life finds a way."

 

I enjoyed all your photos, but my two favorites are the bass by your spinning reel (good composition and a solid fish) and the one of your friend with the fly rod in his mouth.

On 12/10/2023 at 8:29 AM, Pat Brown said:

@ol'crickety I locate bait with my eyes 90% of the time.  I like to look for birds, surface disturbance, main lake structure and current breaks and go from there.  If I can't see bait doing stuff with my eyes or at least the evidence of bait in the area, I have learned that it's probably gonna be a pretty big waste of time to fish it on a bigger impoundment.  Especially this time of year when fish are very very grouped up.

 

Yesterday I puttered around on a lake I haven't fished in a little while looking at my cheap little sonar unit and the ONLY place I saw any fish at all in 4 hours of graphing was in 10-23 feet of water (really more like 17-23 of water for 90% of the fish) and they were carpeting the bottom out in the middle of the main lake relating to absolutely nothing but slightly warmer deeper water.

 

I caught my only fish in 1 foot of water on a buzzbait casting my way in back to the marina.

 

If I was to go back to that lake today and fish again I'd probably sit on top of that carpet offshore with Damiki rigs, drop shots, Alabama rigs, Jerkbaits and blade baits because it seems to me like that's about how you're going to have to fish to catch many at this lake in the winter!

 

Most of the year I'm able to work cover and targets up shallow but around this time every year that becomes a struggle down south and the electronics are a big help adapting to that drastic migration.

 

We identify bait and fish very similarly, if I'm not seeing signs of life I get real wary about even being at my favorite big water. Currently trying to get gassed up to go fish in 40 degree bluebird sky, I'm struggling LOL. At least it's not blowing 30 out like it was all weekend