The best of yesterday. Hated having to leave as the bite finally started to really turn on right after dark. Ended the sesh missing something large that violently smashed my Beast Coast Miyagi while fishing along a ledge. Folded my heavy rod and shocked my elbow. "Get the net!", immediately followed by "Noooooo". This place holds oversized monster Pickeral too, so it might've been one of those. Who knows? Next time.

 

Saturday was brutally hot, and the fishing was tough at a different lake, but we beat the skunk.

I think Pat and Jake caught their very first bass at a pond today. Not sure though. That guy FishTax found one flopping in the bank and grabbed it for a photo, too

@Pat Brown how was my report this time? 😁

Those are some slabs, @PhishLI.

 

 

I’ve been having horrible luck with big fish recently. Dumped 3 in the last week that were in the 5-7lb range. I think it’s the hot weather softening their mouths so that it gets nearly impossible to keep them pinned on a big treble hooked lure. Anyway here’s two that I managed to land. Probably because they weren’t on treble hooks.

4lb 7oz on a jig

 

5lb 11oz on a swinging jig

 

@Fried Lemons: Gosh, you catch big fish! You're one of BR's top anglers. 

I tried to go to a lake I haven't been to this year on Sunday. Should have stayed away. By about noon, I'd caught 5 little ones. Moved to a nearby lake and felt like I knew what I was doing again.

Biggest one was 20.75" and 5.26lbs. Also had one just blast my Besotted pencil popper.

 

3 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

@Fried Lemons: Gosh, you catch big fish! You're one of BR's top anglers. 

 

Ditto for @Bluebasser86.

Nothing like a sunrise over the Delta when you’re able to see the Sierras in the distance. Best fish of the day was a 3lber dropshoting a Roboworm in sparse tules. While landing the fish, I was surprised by what appeared to be a very healthy fish also had numerous lesions on one side.

After an incredible week last week fishing with @Pat Brown, @FishTax, and @LrgmouthShad, I drove home with the family Sunday. Didn't get out to fish again until Tuesday morning (yesterday) but got skunked at the pond. 

 

This evening, I had a friend cancel plans we had, so I had a few hours to fish, and decided to try wading the river for smallies. My wife's grandfather gave me his old set of waders, so I figured I'd try them out, and old tho they be, they kept me dry as a bone. 

 

I caught four fish total, three on a little H2OX crankbait, and one on a white Jawbone popper, after I lost the crank on a laydown. 

 

The third fish was a new PB smallie at 17 inches long. My previous best had been three separate fish all at 16 inches. 

 

All the fish were super healthy, all gave incredible fun fights, leaping, thrashing, and generally causing mayhem. It's good to be back home. ❤️

 

 

 

 

Nothing too exciting, but for July I'll gladly take it.

Went for a sunset paddle with my wife, dropped the boats in at 7 . Got one little smallie that was stuck in a brush pile up against a cliff. Took forever to get it free but he was still on there. Got to watch several small planes land right over our heads too 

@TnRiver46: You could be a life coach because you really know how to live well.

Thanks @ol'crickety, I had made a boo boo at work and she insisted we go paddling instead of me stewing over it 😂 

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

Got to watch several small planes land right over our heads too .

I'm really trying to figure this one out

 

J/K Bud...looks you had a great sunset night with your wife.

24 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Thanks @ol'crickety, I had made a boo boo at work and she insisted we go paddling instead of me stewing over it 😂 

 

SHE COULD BE A LIFE COACH TOO!

A little pre-work fishing. All very average bass, but any size is fun. 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Jigfishn10 said:

I'm really trying to figure this one out

 

J/K Bud...looks you had a great sunset night with your wife.

Hahah! We live right next to an airport on an island, constant air traffic all day long and they fly low over the boats on the takeoff/landing . They have landed in the water dozens of times! 😬 

 

one crash landing I believe was the inspiration for the movie “cocaine bear” but I haven’t seen it. There was a guy that tried to parachute out of his plane with a backpack full of cocaine in the 80s and his parachute failed and he went splat 

 

https://www.wate.com/news/local-news/cocaine-bear-smuggler-knoxville-true-story-documentary/#:~:text=A documentary titled Cocaine Bear,untimely death outside of a

Caught these two bass this morning to lift my spirits. Last two times I fished two weeks ago, I lost SIX in a row due to a combination of poor hook ties, getting caught in weeds, and me not checking my equipment for proper functioning-- my Shimano Coriolis quit reeling and wouldn't do anything, ended up losing a couple fish due to that. I believe it has a bad gear, gotta open the chassis and check it out. But swapped my daiwa over to my new lews speed stick 7'0 and got these two out of thick grass. Tied a Palomar knot to the hook this time and there was no slipping. It felt good to get back on the board and get some confidence back. Also felt good that recognizing where I messed up and correcting it paid off immediately. Not giants , but they were both great fighters.

 

I LOVE that speed stick rod. Gives me some extra leverage to fish weeds.

We got quite a bit of rain yesterday, and it was still raining too much for me until late morning today.  I didn’t fish yesterday, so decided I’d go ahead and get a little wet this afternoon (I don’t like the idea of my boat carpet getting soaked - I need to get over that, as I feel it may be an irrational concern 🤷🏼‍♂️).  So I launched just after noon, with some off and on misty rain but the overcast and light wind were perfect for throwing a Whopper Plopper.  I started by letting the wind drift me along a 5ft. flat that drops off into 15-20ft. with weeds on the slope.  I caught a 2# smallmouth, then a 1.5# largemouth, and a short while later a 4.1# smallmouth.  I tried a crankbait very briefly, but there’s just enough weed for that to not work. I dragged a worm in the weeds a bit with zero success, then went off to try another offshore hump that rises quickly to 10ft. from 50ft. of water.  I threw the WP around there with only one small miss, then caught a small one on a dropshot.  This is the very clear water lake that I’m still learning (it’s called Loughborough Lake, if y’all want to check it on a map).  I went to explore a bay and found it too shallow, so started exploring and covering water again with the WP.  The shore I went down is also 5ft. deep flat rock with very sparse weeds for a good distance out, before dropping off into 15-20ft. of water.  I started catching a few, then the pattern finally dawned on me I was getting fish along the dropoff from 5ft of water - lmb if I threw more over the 5ft. flat and smallmouth off the deeper side.  Once the lightbulb went on I stayed on that edge and caught 1/2 doz. in about 20 minutes, including a pair on consecutive casts.  I would have liked to stay, but had to get home to help with dinner and prep for a family beach day tomorrow.

 

Side note, I picked up a Diawa cc80 off FB Marketplace recently, to pair with a 7ft. medium bait caster I have.  It casts like a bomb and I’m very impressed with it for a $100 CDN reel (I paid $60). 👍🏻

 

@ol'crickety - note that I took your advice and fished in the rain.🙂 Making long casts and covering water like @Pat Brown recommended… and yes I got a lot of my bites shortly after starting to retrieve, so more or less at the ends of the casts.  Good coaching, both of you. 😎  The best 4 fish from today… 

 

 

1 hour ago, The Baron said:

I started catching a few, then the pattern finally dawned on me I was getting fish along the dropoff from 5ft of water

 

I don't always discover a pattern, but when I do, it's the best.

 

1 hour ago, The Baron said:

I got a lot of my bites shortly after starting to retrieve, so more or less at the ends of the casts.

 

Sometimes I can cast a lure half of forever and when it lands, I hold on because I've caught so many on my longest casts. I'm glad long casts worked for you too. 

Nabbed another smallie after our weekly volleyball night. 

 

@IcatchDinks: You are most excellent at squishing fishing into all the other fun in your life. 

Squishing Fishing would be a fun YouTube series. It would be about an angler who doesn't have big blocks of time to fish, so he/she fishes on the fly, I.e. on the way to the grocery store or stopping to cast into a river by the road.

8 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

Squishing Fishing would be a fun YouTube series. It would be about an angler who doesn't have big blocks of time to fish, so he/she fishes on the fly, I.e. on the way to the grocery store or stopping to cast into a river by the road.

Welp. Now I gotta get a GoPro. 😆

 

 

2 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

@IcatchDinks: You are most excellent at squishing fishing into all the other fun in your life. 

I take my inspiration from the local crackheads who find all manner of ways to fit their addiction into their daily lives...

 

It's a problem... I may need help... 

 

😂