Got my first fish of 2024 yesterday. Caught 2 but other one picture didn’t turn out😟 They were definitely cold 😬

Awesome job Eric, great to see you on the board for the year!   Here's to a great season 🙂

Way to go, Eric! You're on the board. 

 

16 hours ago, N Florida Mike said:

I think the otters may have really decimated our fish over 5 pounds…🙁

 

Gosh, I hope not. In 2023, I fished a bog twice. The first time I went, I had five otters surface by my boat, curious about me. The second time I went, I think I only caught about 5 bass and this was a bog good for 35 bass in 2022. 

38 minutes ago, Eric 26 said:

Got my first fish of 2024 yesterday. Caught 2 but other one picture didn’t turn out😟 They were definitely cold 😬

Eric broke out the inline spinner!!!!   Reminds me to fish it more often this year. Just the durn thing hangs everything below air level. Stumps, grass, sticks, and fish.

 

 

@Blue Raider Bob I had really good luck late last season on an 1/8 oz blue fox spinner but I remember our very own @ol'crickety commented on not forgetting the plain brass mepps and although this is a eagle claw version it still did the job. 

1 hour ago, Eric 26 said:

@Blue Raider Bob I had really good luck late last season on an 1/8 oz blue fox spinner but I remember our very own @ol'crickety commented on not forgetting the plain brass mepps and although this is a eagle claw version it still did the job. 

 

I get a kick out of catching bass on such a plain, old lure. 

4 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

Way to go, Eric! You're on the board. 

 

 

Gosh, I hope not. In 2023, I fished a bog twice. The first time I went, I had five otters surface by my boat, curious about me. The second time I went, I think I only caught about 5 bass and this was a bog good for 35 bass in 2022. 

 The fishing in my lake has declined steadily in the last 3 years after starting to see otters again. My best day 3 years ago was 35 also, and a 7.6 the same year with an  8.1 the year before . Im hard pressed to catch 10 in the same amount of time, and fish even over 4 pounds seem to be rare. If I could get a shot at the dern things I’d take it…

59 minutes ago, N Florida Mike said:

 The fishing in my lake has declined steadily in the last 3 years after starting to see otters again. My best day 3 years ago was 35 also, and a 7.6 the same year with an  8.1 the year before . Im hard pressed to catch 10 in the same amount of time, and fish even over 4 pounds seem to be rare. If I could get a shot at the dern things I’d take it…

 

I'm sorry to read about your otters, Mike. I once saw a nature show about otters and in the show, the narrator said that most predators struggle to kill, missing most of their prey, but not otters, which is why they're so playful and carefree. They expend energy willy-nilly because they're faster and smarter and more nimble than their prey. 

Warm and rainy front got them biting good out on the grassy pond.

 

 

Found what they were eating too.

Finally hooked into a few of these little beep boops. Freight trained a red eye shad off the end of the ripraps that make up the pier. Such a fun bite.

8 hours ago, Eric 26 said:

Got my first fish of 2024 yesterday. Caught 2 but other one picture didn’t turn out😟 They were definitely cold 😬

Congratulations I'm still trying. 👍

Yall ever get surprised? Happened to me today. My boss needed help troubleshooting his depth finder so I helped him for a bit. The wind was blowing 20-30 so I didn’t want to use my boat. Fished off the dock at the paddle shop where we work for 1.5 hours after that and caught 22 fish, 5 species. Got one largemouth that was pretty nice! 

Check out this state of the art livescope 

 

Mooneye, aka the freshwater tarpon! Cool catch, @TnRiver46!

Amazing day @TnRiver46, daygum stud on that green one 💪

 

 

42 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

My boss needed help troubleshooting his depth finder so I helped him for a bit.

Were you able to trouble shoot the graph?

@gimruis Yes it’s the one in the pic. his boat sank and he said it hasn’t turned on ever since. I got under the console and cut a thousand wire ties and found the red wire disconnected 😂. Touched them to a hot battery and it fired up. It’s a fiberglass center console so I probably can’t fish the wires into the belly properly but he had an auxiliary battery under there that seemed like a good option. He’s going to look at it tomorrow and make a decision. Then he wants me to wire up a brand new tiny little garmin onto his sailboat. Luckily it’s all open in the belly

@Dogface  I’m sure you’ll be sharing some pictures soon 😉

@TnRiver46: You're a handy friend.

 

@Eric 26: Like Alex, Pat, and others, you are so supportive of your fellow anglers. 

11 hours ago, gimruis said:

Were you able to trouble shoot the graph?

My guess is he never got to it!    😁

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

@TnRiver46: You're a handy friend.

 

@Eric 26: Like Alex, Pat, and others, you are so supportive of your fellow anglers. 

I don’t know about that, but I have decades of experience crawling into scary small places 😂 

10 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

@gimruis Yes it’s the one in the pic. his boat sank and he said it hasn’t turned on ever since. I got under the console and cut a thousand wire ties and found the red wire disconnected 😂. Touched them to a hot battery and it fired up. It’s a fiberglass center console so I probably can’t fish the wires into the belly properly but he had an auxiliary battery under there that seemed like a good option. He’s going to look at it tomorrow and make a decision. Then he wants me to wire up a brand new tiny little garmin onto his sailboat. Luckily it’s all open in the belly

 

…and with that, the student becomes the master.

 

Proud of you, buddy.

Last day of a mini-vacation. Went back home to Maryland for my daughter’s birthday and got back late last night. Decided to fish this morning as a cold front was due in today. 
 

Woke up and it was 72° and calm. Decided to fish the shore due to wind. Good choice. By 9:30 it was 60° and gusty. Got a lot of light strikes and caught three. Two were 1 lb’ers but the second one was nice. Almost 3-1/2 lbs. Nice fight on M/XF spinning rig. All on a watermelon red Zoom Trick TR. 

 

Most bites were in deeper water. 

 

14 hours ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Amazing day @TnRiver46, daygum stud on that green one 💪

 

 

I forgot to mention in my report, that spot has got to be some of the nastiest water in East TN, it’s at an urban creek mouth that is a river of garbage and needles. 💉 one of my coworkers cut his foot on a rock and immediately got an infection last summer 

 

guess the fish are feeding off the microbes 😂 

Went out this last Sunday to enjoy some of the unseasonably warm weather before it went back in the tank today (19* out this morning 🙄). My lake of choice was certainly a target rich environment. 

Fishing was a little tougher than I'd hoped, but I managed to nab about 15 of them before I had to call it a day. Saw water temps all the way to 51* already, makes the cold front hurt that much worse. Supposed to be back up to nearly 80* by Sunday though, just have to make it through a rough couple days. 

@Bluebasser86: Your last bass is quite close to popping! What a fatty.