Some spring time fatties showing up! Good catches, y’all. 

@Pat Brown, how did you get no winter and I got triple winter ?? 😂 😂 🥶 

 

awesome fishes everyone 

I mean it was kinda like the great Smoky Mountains were just buffering that nasty cold weather I guess.

 

I'll take it!  Nice weather suits me fine!

50 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

@Pat Brown, how did you get no winter and I got triple winter ?? 😂 😂 🥶 

 

awesome fishes everyone 

 

At least you can fish. We're getting another 3-7" of snow this week and when it's not snowing, there's cold, cold rain with nighttime lows around 20 degrees. I want to fish again, but then I think about how cold the one bass I caught was. 

@ol'crickety, ouch!  That sounds brutal. This winter was the first since I started driving that I couldn’t fish for a spell and it lasted 9-10 days, roads were solid ice and some of the water was too. Old man winter likes to hang on too long sometime, hoping you thaw out quickly and get back after them 

13 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Hahahahahaha you crack me up man . Bass don’t get much bigger than 5 lbs here, we need to take a road trip apparently 😂 

Location, location, location 

@Woody B, sounds like you forgot livescope is cheating and the fish just jump in the boat when you turn it on. Yours was off and got two 6’s???!!! I heard Andrew upshaw tell a story of the bassmaster open on santee where he wasted 3.5 hours on a bed fish he saw on sonar. Missed it dozens of times. He finally caught it and it was a 3 lb crappie 😂 

Hey

 

Caught my first largemouth for the year...almost forgot what it feels like!! 

4 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

At least you can fish. We're getting another 3-7" of snow this week and when it's not snowing, there's cold, cold rain with nighttime lows around 20 degrees. I want to fish again, but then I think about how cold the one bass I caught was.

That’s what may be coming here too for the second half of March. Lows below freezing with possible rain/snow later this week. I got my boat and gear all ready to go but no chance I’m heading out in this. I’ll wait.

 

We are in dire need of moisture so whether it falls as snow or rain, I don’t care. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Pat and Alex,  WOW!!!!!    Y'all catch Bass that would eat my little 5 and 6 pounders.    TnRiver, our Winter isn't over yet.  It's supposed to be in the 20's Tuesday.  I like pre spawn so maybe that will extend it.   

 

I got my wiring fixed.   None of my sonar was working right, but the problem happened gradually so it took a while to notice.   I was losing almost 3 volts in my fuse block.   The 2D sonar would show the bottom, but not much more.  I use it for "signs of life".  I have been wondering why there was so much barren water.  My Down/Side imaging basically shows a thin line that was the bottom.   Same with my Active Target and range was limited.   According to my Fluke meter I had 10.3 volts exiting my fuse block.  I'm surprised the graphs worked at all.    

 

So,  I caught 12 today.  No hawgs.  The biggest 2 were a 17 and 18 inch Spots.   (first 2 pictures)  The 3rd picture is a 13 inch...... something perhaps a Spot/LM hybrid.(I wanted it to be 14 so I measured it)  No tooth patch on it's tongue,(LM trait)  Same size scales all over. (LM trait, Spots have smaller scales on their cheeks)  Connected dorsal.(Spot trait) But it's color simply isn't "right".  I wonder if it's a Meanmouth but I've never seen or heard of a Small Mouth is Wylie.   

The 4th picture is a tiny Largemouth.   I'm pretty sure it's a juvenile female full of eggs.  I've never seen a belly like that on a buck bass.  Perhaps this is it's first spawn.  I wonder how old it is.   

I got broke off my something kinda strong and slow.  I had just got my spinnerbait loose from the rocks a couple casts earlier.  It hit and started to go slowly around the boat, like a Cat does.  I didn't have near enough pressure to break my line.  It must have had a nick from the rock snag earlier.  Check your gear often.  In my mind it was either a 20 pound Bass or 80 pound Flathead.  It could have been a lazy 2 pound Spot though.   

 

 

 

 

Thanks Woody!   

 

Agreed that's a very interesting fish in the 3rd pic, and I caught one like that not too long ago, but I came to the conclusion it was just a weird Spot because it had tongue teeth.

 

Appreciate the kind words @Pat Brown, right back at ya!   

 

 

Nice fish @Woody B! For the record LMB SMB and spots can have a tooth patch so that’s not the best indicator. Spots have it way more often than the other 2 but it’s still possible for all 3 to have it, I’ve caught LM and SM with tooth patch. 

That's good info @TnRiver46, a biologist had just told me that he's seen green fish with them as well.   

      I went bass fishing for the first time since last June.  I planned on fishing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  I didn't fish Sunday, because I sprang a leak in a radiator hose, and didn't know if my temporary fix with electrical tape and zip ties would last, so I chose to leave Sunday morning for the 5 hour drive home, instead of waiting until evening.  Most of the trip there is no cell reception, and I didn't want to get stuck in a remote part of Mexico at night with no communication, and a long walk.  The fishing was slow, I'm sure if the DD had been biting, I would have fished until the last minute of day light on Sunday after all I do have my priorities.

      It had been almost a year since I had last been to this lake.  Last May I caught a 42 pound bag, and was ready to top my success.   The water temp. was 71 degrees, 4 to 5 foot of visibility, and about 10 feet higher than last May, but lower than I expected it to be this early in March.

      Friday I started fishing main lake  points, then moved back in to the bays with zero luck.  I finally caught a few baby bass along with a 4.5 pound bass all in random locations.  There were other people camped at the launch so I decided to camp on a small island in the middle of the lake.

      Saturday morning I woke with no idea where to go.  The wind starts blowing hard at noon, this time of year so I didn't think I would be able to find any offshore spots before the wind made fishing offshore difficult in my kayak.  I decided to work my way towards the lake inlet, and fish points and the back of pockets in this long winding section of the lake which I had never been to.  The day ended the same as the day before, with many small 1 pound bass, and one that tipped the scale at 4.1 pounds.  This would be the only bass I stopped casting to take a picture of during two hard days of fishing.  The only lure that I could get bit was a Rattle Trap, and I tried the everything.  I have had days before when a trap was the go to lure, but never a time when it was the only lure.  Very strange.

      Looking back I wish I would have tried fishing offshore.  I don't know why I thought fishing points and pockets would work on a different part of the lake, when they obviously didn't produce well the day before.  At least I got to map another section of the lake, and found some spots I want to try when I go back in May.  I talked to the other fisherman at the launch, and they had about the same luck as I did.  They fished all similar places that I did, and obviously the fish were somewhere else.

      I didn't get skunked, and enjoyed camping on the recently exposed island.  I will plan on camping there when I go back in May.  All in all a good trip, and my car and I made it home well before dark with out any difficulties.

 

Pictures of Island I camped on, second day biggest bass, and kayak loaded with all my fishing and camping gear.

 

 

      

2 hours ago, Woody B said:

The 3rd picture is a 13 inch...... something perhaps a Spot/LM hybrid.(I wanted it to be 14 so I measured it)  No tooth patch on it's tongue,(LM trait)  Same size scales all over. (LM trait, Spots have smaller scales on their cheeks)  Connected dorsal.(Spot trait) But it's color simply isn't "right".  I wonder if it's a Meanmouth but I've never seen or heard of a Small Mouth is Wylie.   

 

Did some digging and came up with this info from a NC forum: "There are smallmouth in the South Fork Catawba which feeds Wylie. So no surprise there are smallies in there. There are also smallies in the Jacobs Fork which feeds into the South Fork. Above lincolnton but others have caught smalls and even trout around the old mill and hydro dams on the south fork as there are several."

 

Just based off the picture, and another a guy posted in that above mentioned thread, I'd guess smallie, too. We would occasionally catch them in IN in reservoirs where you'd never expect to see one because every once in a great while, one would end up either coming down from out of a feeder creek/river or got caught above the lake and transported down for some reason. Cool catch from the sound of it for there.

20 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

There are smallmouth in the South Fork Catawba which feeds Wylie.

 

I've caught Smallies decades ago in the Jacob Fork.  The South Fork, especially South of Lowell NC is MUDDY,  pretty much all of the time.  I think this is due to construction.  I'm surprised Smallies would thrive there, but I suppose if they're there they're there.  Maybe all the recent rains brought some down from the Jacob Fork into the South Fork, and they came into Wylie looking for clearer/cleaner water.      There's a decent Mean Mouth (Smallie/Spot hybrid) population in Lake Hickory (4 lakes up the Catawba from Wylie) but I haven't heard of any Meanmouth or Smallmouth  South/downstream of there.  I need to look at some pictures to see if a Smallmouth has a connected dorsal like the fish pictured.  My first thought was Smallmouth but then I decided I was too far South.   Sometimes fish turn up in areas where they aren't common.  The SC state record Musky was caught in the Broad River not far from my house.   

Today I set out with the goal to catch at least 15lbs of bass throwing only spinnerbaits. BLUF: mission accomplished with 19.2lbs, best five weighing 15.6lbs. I threw 7 different spinnerbaits and 3 of them produced. I launched the kayak twice and dodged a thunderstorm, beaching the kayak and waiting it out. 
 

My strategy was to try and pinpoint where on the lake I thought a fish on a spinnerbait was darn near guaranteed. In order to go to all of these places, I had to launch twice. Strategy worked pretty good. 
 

I’ve refrained from showing the spinnerbaits in the fish’s mouth because  some of them I very much want to keep private. 
 

Here’s best 5:

(last one loading)

23 minutes ago, Woody B said:

 

I've caught Smallies decades ago in the Jacob Fork.  The South Fork, especially South of Lowell NC is MUDDY,  pretty much all of the time.  I think this is due to construction.  I'm surprised Smallies would thrive there, but I suppose if they're there they're there.  Maybe all the recent rains brought some down from the Jacob Fork into the South Fork, and they came into Wylie looking for clearer/cleaner water.      There's a decent Mean Mouth (Smallie/Spot hybrid) population in Lake Hickory (4 lakes up the Catawba from Wylie) but I haven't heard of any Meanmouth or Smallmouth  South/downstream of there.  I need to look at some pictures to see if a Smallmouth has a connected dorsal like the fish pictured.  My first thought was Smallmouth but then I decided I was too far South.   Sometimes fish turn up in areas where they aren't common.  The SC state record Musky was caught in the Broad River not far from my house.   

 

 

I believe spots also don't have that more pronounced break in their dorsal, similar to the smallies.

@LrgmouthShad: Way. to. fish!

5 hours ago, Woody B said:

 

 

That does look like a smallmouth to me.

Went out yesterday on my kayak and it was 40 degrees with 20+ mph winds.  I don't know what I was thinking but the kayak itself did fine. Battling the wind and the cold was something else. I did catch a few but only one nice one. Oddly there were more bird watchers out than fisherman.  They were there to see the weird duck below.

 

 

 

It's a bufflehead! What a name, huh?

 

@FishTank, that's some impressive paddling, given that wind speed and temp. I once paddled from the top of Minnesota to the Gulf, through the fall and into the winter. Big winds and frosty mornings were much of my life for three months. 

 

 

4 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

It's a bufflehead! What a name, huh?

 

@FishTank, that's some impressive paddling, given that wind speed and temp. I once paddled from the top of Minnesota to the Gulf, through the fall and into the winter. Big winds and frosty mornings were much of my life for three months. 

 

 

 

Nothing too impressive with my paddling if you look at the fuzzy black thing at the end of my kayak. 😀

 

I would have been toast without the trolling motor and its spot lock feature which is a work in progress for me. It's kind of all of the place sometimes. 

8 minutes ago, FishTank said:

Nothing too impressive with my paddling if you look at the fuzzy black thing at the end of my kayak. 😀

 

I saw the black fuzzy thing, but its meaning didn't register with me. I would LOVE SpotLock.

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

It's a bufflehead! What a name, huh?

 

Definitely a buffle bomber.

 

Used to bag one on rare occasion when I duck hunted on bigger water.  They are a pretty duck but they aren't fit to eat.  Trust me.