6 minutes ago, raggydoo said:

Went bank fishing on Sunday for a couple hours and ended up catching my PB smallie, 21” and 4 1/2 lbs. 

Congrats 👏 

Super nice Smallie 

Dang dude that's a tank!  And bank fishing!  Way to go!

Took my little brothers fishing yesterday afternoon. They must have caught every bluegill in the pond. The eight year old caught a nice bass. (Not posting his picture with the fish here because he's 8 and not my kid. Lol) 

 

I nabbed two bass as well. One of them just over sixteen inches. 

 

 

 

@raggydoo, that is an awesome smallie! Congrats on the new PB!

@IcatchDinks: Keep this up and you'll have to change your screen name. Cool that you took your little brothers fishing! 

Got home from work and was hanging out with my wife, but she had some business drama to sort thru on the internet and asked me if I was going fishing twice, don’t have to tell me 3 times! Haha

 

The water in Knoxville has changed drastically over the last couple weeks. The two reservoirs upstream have finally reached full so they are no longer holding back water. So now we are getting swift flows of chilly water from the bottom of the dams, maybe making the fish think it’s back to march. Water temp was 62 degrees!! 
 

got one on the big bait that looked pre spawnish and a few on a worm (including a ky spotted bass that people think are extinct) Also found a crankbait and quality inner tube floating down the river and scored a pair of channel locks someone left sitting on the ramp dock 😂 

13 hours ago, raggydoo said:

Went bank fishing on Sunday for a couple hours and ended up catching my PB smallie, 21” and 4 1/2 lbs. 

Congrats 👏👏

Couple lil guys before work and some much needed frog hookset resetting.  Delay is the way.  🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

 

Wait 🕜🕜🕜🕜 then set 🎣🎣🎣🎣.

 

 

There really isn't any advantage to swinging fast with a frog.  For one thing the fish learn the bait is fake in an area much faster if you swing on every nip.  Sometimes that first fish misses and you keep walking that frog and the next one isn't so sheepish.  Swinging pretty much shuts all of that down.

 

If they don't get it, they don't get it.  That's the cold hard truth of the frog.  This morning I hesitated and kept walking and saw SO many tail swats and pecks that would never have happened if I was just swinging.

 

The frog is the best when you lean into the subtlety of the lure.

3 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Also found a crankbait and quality inner tube floating down the river and scored a pair of channel locks someone left sitting on the ramp dock 😂 

 

The river is where you do all your shopping.

 

@Pat Brown: I'm terrible at frog fishing, so I appreciate your tips, Pat.

I caught my first Chad shad fish, just a tiny little guy but better than my first fish on a mag draft. I caught 10+on a weightless stick bait  after I was done throwing the glide. I had plenty of followers but no takers but it is all part of throwing big baits, I see my swim bait collection growing soon. A wake gill and a deps 160 bull shooter and a few more on the way maybe a real Chad shad. The tequila baccarat feels really good with the spro Chad shad and I like my casting distance with my tatula 200 and 50lb braid.

Making it a mission to break 4lbs on a smallie this year. Population density on this river is not great and fish tend to be lean from fighting current all day so this is easier said than done. Got this one as the only fish of the day after a 6 hour grinder. Ate a bubblegum fluke.

 

@Fried Lemons: You are a 10 on the QQ Scale!

Been busy with family stuff the past few weeks.  Finally managed to get out to the lake for 2 hours today.  

 

It was 71-74 degrees today and muggy from the showers that had just ended.  Skies overcast.  Wind was from the south at 9 mph with gusts up to 21. 

I didn’t have time for a complete circuit of the lake today so I just hit the crescent shaped weed bed that had been so good to me last month.

 

Started at the western end of the weed bed since there were active bluegill beds nearby and a deep hole just past the outside edge of the milfoil.  Managed two there on the UV Speed Worm and another on the Booyah Blade.

The spinner bait fish was smaller but had some gnarly battle scars.

 

Moved on to the opposite end of the weed bed and caught another with the swimming worm.

This one had already munched a hapless bluegill. I could hear the tail flapping in the bass’s mouth as I landed it.

On 6/3/2024 at 8:03 PM, raggydoo said:

Went bank fishing on Sunday for a couple hours and ended up catching my PB smallie, 21” and 4 1/2 lbs. 

22 hours ago, Fried Lemons said:

Making it a mission to break 4lbs on a smallie this year. Population density on this river is not great and fish tend to be lean from fighting current all day so this is easier said than done. Got this one as the only fish of the day after a 6 hour grinder. Ate a bubblegum fluke.

 

 

Great smallies!  4# would be a PB for me too -- mine are all lean and mean fish from small to medium rivers...not so much "footballs" as "torpedos"

I used to live on the Wisconsin River. Clear. Sandy. Good current. Its smallies were also lean...and strong. The bass I caught in Ontario, Lakes Superior and Michigan, and the Mississippi were footbally. They were strong, but not as strong as fish that fight the current all day.

 

 

Nice catches, @bp_fowler! Good bellies on those bass. 

On 6/5/2024 at 4:14 PM, MIbassyaker said:

 

Great smallies!  4# would be a PB for me too -- mine are all lean and mean fish from small to medium rivers...not so much "footballs" as "torpedos"

Catching a 4lb smallmouth was a thing I will never forget, I hope you both get that experience this year 

 

This is that fish:

Managed to hit my favorite three times in 11 days now and have a decent idea what’s going on. I posted about my anniversary trip on Memorial Day. Two more trips (one early morning and one late evening) have yielded 9 and 15 bass plus a few more lost fish. Nothing over 16-17” but I’ll take the constant action in a time period I’ve struggled in the past. 
 

 

@casts_by_fly: Nice fish and an awesome boat.

On 6/5/2024 at 4:22 PM, ol'crickety said:

They were strong, but not as strong as fish that fight the current all day.

That’s my experience too. Lake run versions are thicker, river versions were leaner and stronger.

19 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

@casts_by_fly: Nice fish and an awesome boat.

thanks!

Recently decided to work on fishing the jig, both standard and swim jig, and am loving it. Soon as I caught a couple, my confidence went way up, can’t stop throwing them now!

@Dan N

 

Swim Jig is one of my all time favorites.

 

Some fun things to try:

 

Shake your rod gently with your rod tip high using some kind of chunk of craw trailer and a lighter Swim Jig like a 1/4 oz or 3/8 oz and try to keep it just in sight through out the retrieve killing the reel for a millisecond here or there at random and hold on tight!

 

BOMB a 1/4 oz swim jig with a lighter wire hook, thin out the weed guard or even remove it if there's mostly open water with a bigger swimbait trailer (4"+ pick your favorite) on lighter monofilament line (12-15 lb test) out on a flat or paralleling some rip rap or into a pocket etc and let the jig get to the depth the fish should be at and point your rod at 11 o clock and just reel sloooow and steady.  When you feel the thump, point the rod at the fish and reel as quick as you can and pull.  No fanfare with the hookset.  It catches giants even in clearer water with pressured fish.  Long cast and lighter line and hook and pressure hook set are the key to this technique.  @WRB is a big fan of this type of jig hookset and it works.

Had an ok day. I fished another new pond. Long, and narrow at one end and wide at the other with a small island in the wide end. Some weeds but apparently no algae. I only pinched a bit of algae off once. Zilch on topwater and a chatterbait, as well as a wacky rig. I caught two bass on a black Zoom Trick Magnum TR, two on a purple Zoom Mag II TR, and surprise! surprise! Three on a blue/black jig with a green pumpkin Rage Menace trailer. And I hooked three more that tossed the hook. That’s two trips in a row that I have been having success with jigs. 
 

Caught nine and missed a few so quantity was ok. Quality was lacking. I caught one nice 3 lb’er on the Zoom Trick Magnum. The rest were 1 lb. and under. I’ll try that pond again one day but it was a little disappointing as good as it looked. 
 

One thing that caught my eye was as I was working that TR, I saw a fish partially surface, very slowly, like a dolphin breaking the surface. It was very long, about 2’. I believe it was a gar but not 100% sure. But it was big. 
 

The second thing that caught my eye was the tip guide on my Falcon Lowrider. That’s the rod I was using for the jig. About 15 minutes after I started fishing the jig, I noticed my tip guide was no longer aligned with the other guides. I thought it was bent, but it wasn’t. It was loose. How or why I do not know. I was able to turn it into alignment, but I’m going to have to remove it and re-glue it back on. 
 

@ol'crickety The space in between the trees on the shoreline is where I caught the biggest bass. 

Finally got back out for a few hours after several very hot and humid days, along with over 4” of rain. Found a few keepers moved out into 15’-20’ of water, including my second smallie from a res that you almost never hear of one being caught from. Just a Menderchuck reject, but a cool catch for me.

 

 

 

@Team9nine: My smallies are all Menderchuck rejects too.

 

@BrianMDTX: I too would have cast between those trees. Bass love cubbies!

 

 

Another fun morning. Caught 6 bass, 3 dinkers and 3 normal (2-2.5) bass. Still on the weightless creature bait. Not only am I having success with it, but it's quickly became my favorite way of catching them. The 'tick tick', the weight on the other end, setting the line take off in one direction or another. That suspense gets me excited every time. So much fun. 

 

Been fishing one lake the past 3 weeks just because of the success iv been having. Think I'll switch it up tomorrow. See if I can replicate the success else where.