On 12/31/2024 at 4:03 PM, Fried Lemons said:

Pair of smalls on the last day of 2024. Caught on the shade line of a bluff. Bite died once the sun got too high in the sky.

 

Those are not small! This is small!

@Blue Raider Bob I'm out of reactions today, but I definitely chuckled. ^^^

 

Took the canoe out on the 30th and ended the year with a slow morning and a good afternoon bite.  The water was discolored from the rain the 2 days prior, but it warmed up to 40 in some spots.  I found the dozen or so bass on the remaining green milfoil in 15 ish fow and caught them on the bottom with a jighead minnow and weirdly blanked on a jig and blade bait.   Only a few that got pics...

 

scott

 

On the public lakes I think I am up to about 40 hours with no fish

17 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

On the public lakes I think I am up to about 40 hours with no fish

Git'n yourself a little taste of muskie fishing. 😂

4 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

Git'n yourself a little taste of muskie fishing. 😂

Building character one skunk at a time lol

Just now, LrgmouthShad said:

Building character one skunk at a time lol

Atta boy!!! Keep grindin. They gotta eat sooner or later.

1 hour ago, LrgmouthShad said:

On the public lakes I think I am up to about 40 hours with no fish

That's pretty crazy brother, but there's something very commendable about your patience, and ability to not give up.  

 

Mark my words, in the near future you're going to have some electric days.    

 

It always works like that, just when you're about to give up and find a new hobby, the dam busts.   

2 hours ago, T-Billy said:

Git'n yourself a little taste of muskie fishing. 😂

NC Winter Bass Fishing ain't for the faint of heart.  😎😎😎🎣🎣🎣

 

But I reckon we gonna find one this weekend.  Snowy front hitting Sat-Sun.

2 hours ago, LrgmouthShad said:

On the public lakes I think I am up to about 40 hours with no fish

You sir are dedicated 

38 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

You sir are dedicated 

 

Yeah, he is. He's the John Wick of Bass Resource.

 

On the board in 2025 😎 Beat the Arctic blast by hitting a local stained reservoir with 46-48 deg water. Pulled out a jig and actually fished the bank, focusing on treefalls and docks. Paid off with 3 keepers, and also snuck in a few crappie - I couldn’t help myself - lol.

 

 

Thought about not going out today, but we’re getting close to having a 2 week period of no fishing with the multiple Arctic fronts supposed to come through - so I went. It was 50 degrees when I launched, but that fell to 45 when I came in 3 hours later. The winds were why I almost didn’t go - west at 15-20, gusting 30-40 mph. Made a lot of the lake unfishable, but I was just hoping for one bite…and I got four. Lost one, but landed 3 on a combination of jigs and blade baits. Water was 46 deg., well stained, and 2 ft low.

 

 

 

On 1/2/2025 at 3:55 PM, LrgmouthShad said:

Building character one skunk at a time lol

I once went 16 YEARS without a muskie. Talk to me in 2040.

Had an incredible yesterday and caught a 9lb 12oz absolute beauty of a fish.  Also had close to a 26lb bag with another beautiful 5.5 fish.    I was so in a hurry to let her go; I didn't bother with a cellphone pic because I had the Go Pro rolling.     

 

Get home and my computer corrupted the MicroSD card....... my best friend does IT for a living and tried some things last night to recover it but no luck yet.    I'm praying and willing to pay or do whatever to get back those files.     If anybody knows someone who can recover my data, I'll make it worth your while.

 

Absolutely heart broken and gutted is an understatement, but hopefully I can recover the data 😰😱

 

 

OH NOOOOO! @AlabamaSpothunter, that’s awful! 
 

Hope you get it back. I’ll keep my fingers crossed 

1 minute ago, Jigfishn10 said:

OH NOOOOO! @AlabamaSpothunter, that’s awful! 
 

Hope you get it back. I’ll keep my fingers crossed 

Thanks friend!   

 

The worst part is that I'm debating whether I wished I didn't even catch her yesterday, went from being on cloud 9 at the top of the world, to feeling like I want to vomit since last evening.    

 

Hopefully this serves a purpose and helps others in the future.    Take pics from multiple sources, don't rely on technology.  

A 9 lb 12 oz is one heck of a memory even without pics. Cheer up buddy, I’m certainly happy that you caught that fish  

 

I spooled some reels yesterday, a 9.12 oz fish would have been thrilling for this iced out angler  

 

Wanna trade? Hahaha

Really appreciate the good vibes @Jigfishn10 !

 

There's a little backstory to this fish, and the current obsession I've had for 30 straight months now.     I grew up fishing a lake that I dreamed about catching a DD on.   Then I moved out and went to college, did the adult thing for years, and somehow the universe brought me back to that same lake where I could try to fulfill one of my true lifelong goals.      Few things in my life have I ever pursued as much as this goal over the last 2.5 years.  

 

@Swamp Girl is best aware of the madness, frustration, and sometimes incredible highs I've had during this process.   She's helped mightily along the way keeping my attitude in check, and showering me in positivity.    At many points along the way I've felt there wasn't a DD in the lake including hours before I caught the 9.12 yesterday afternoon.    

 

To me that fish represented 2.5 years, and it was finally a fish big enough that if I never ended up catching an actual DD from the lake, I could sleep at night knowing I did everything in my power to make it happen.    In some ways not having pics or a video doesn't erase that fact, but I'm the type that will absolutely stop fishing if I realize I don't have a scale or camera, so obviously capturing the memory is paramount to my fishing experience.   

 

Sounds stupid crying about catching a big Bass, but I felt I needed to vent to friends who actually understand what I'm talking about.    

9-12?

 

9-12??

 

9-12???

 

9-12!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Take comfort in this, Alex: Whether you can recover the images or not, the images inside your head are intact. You saw her. You touched her. YOU BOATED HER, my friend.

 

So.

 

Proud.

 

Of.

 

You.

1 hour ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Had an incredible yesterday and caught a 9lb 12oz absolute beauty of a fish.  Also had close to a 26lb bag with another beautiful 5.5 fish.    I was so in a hurry to let her go; I didn't bother with a cellphone pic because I had the Go Pro rolling.     

 

Get home and my computer corrupted the MicroSD card....... my best friend does IT for a living and tried some things last night to recover it but no luck yet.    I'm praying and willing to pay or do whatever to get back those files.     If anybody knows someone who can recover my data, I'll make it worth your while.

 

Absolutely heart broken and gutted is an understatement, but hopefully I can recover the data 😰😱

 

 

First Congrats on a great bass - and you know it's a great bass.

We all do. 

But losing the video is no doubt Such a GIANT Downer.

(and my worst nightmare and one reason why I run two cameras.)

Really hope you can get the data back somehow.

I would really enjoy hearing another basshead besides just me 'begging'

for the fish to stay pinned and go in the net.

And we both know you did plenty of that . . .

  😎

Either way Congrats again on a Great Bass . . . 

And it happened once. . . . . . . . . 

It could happen again.

#fishhard

A-Jay

 

Thanks Katie!  I really want to share the beauty of this fish with you, and all my other friends here.   There was a guy on a dock who saw me catch her, and I thought about motoring over to get him to snap a pic.    I don't regret at all how fast I released her though, she didn't have a single flaw on her, she's no doubt in the prime of her life.    I do feel incredibly blessed to have the interaction, but I gotta get at least a pic of her.   

 

God willing, I can find a data recovery company to restore the files.   

 

@A-Jay   Thanks buddy!    I know you really do get the pain of losing data from gopros.    I actually thought about you and the two-camera system last night.  You're a role model for us all on how to handle, film, and immediately release trophy caliber Bass.     

 

Really appreciate it friends, I already feel better thanks to you guys!

 

 

11 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

@A-Jay   Thanks buddy!    I know you really do get the pain of losing data from gopros.    I actually thought about you and the two-camera system last night.  You're a role model for us all on how to handle, film, and immediately release trophy caliber Bass.     

 

Really appreciate it friends, I already feel better thanks to you guys!

 

 

Thanks for the kind words my friend, I certainly appreciate it.

Any of us who puts in the time and effort into preparing to capture

once in a life time moments and then it doesn't work out well,

KNOWS 'The Feeling' - It's pretty brutal.

I say that to let you know that I do share your pain, so I hope you can get past this soon.

And let's Focus & Celebrate the hard work & effort you put into catching that awesome bass.

Revel in that success. 

btw- it's 3 degrees here.

🥶

A-Jay

Well, having goals is what drives us on the daily.

 

You should at least take away that YOU know that DD lives there and is only a cast away. The last thing I think you should do is calibrate you scale, I am almost positive that it's 0,88 lbs off  

 

I'm glad you have a friend on here who provides that positivity for you. I personally think it's rare, so that's a really nice support system you have.

 

Either way bud, again, I'm happy for you.

 

John

 

Well, you landed the fish, got a witness - that's the greater accomplishment. Two and a half years is a drop in the bucket of time, especially on a lake that produces the quality of fish for you that it does, so it's just a matter of time. I've gone 35 years without any picture/video proof of my personal best fish, not even knowing the exact weight, and wondering if it was a true DD or not. There were no digital culling scales or cell phone cameras back then. Got a close measurement, a partner with me who saw the whole thing go down, and said my fish was definitely bigger than the 8-12 he landed and weighed the year previous. I'll never know, but have lived with those thoughts bugging me for most of my fishing life, so I kind of get the feeling of having one little piece of the big puzzle missing and incomplete...but I DID catch her, and recall everything about that trip all these years later 

1 hour ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

I don't regret at all how fast I released her though, she didn't have a single flaw on her, she's no doubt in the prime of her life. 

 

You and me, my friend. We hear the clock ticking when the great bass are in our boats and for us, it's not a ticking, but a thundering. 

 

1 hour ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

God willing, I can find a data recovery company to restore the files. 

 

FWIW, I lost data once and a specialist company retrieved it. It cost me about a grand, but I felt it was money well spent.

 

1 hour ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Really appreciate it friends, I already feel better thanks to you guys!

 

I'm happy we're helping. I'm even happier you landed a bass that was a tiny perch away from a DD.

 

4 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

I'll never know, but have lived with those thoughts bugging me for most of my fishing life, so I kind of get the feeling of having one little piece of the big puzzle missing and incomplete...but I DID catch her, and recall everything about that trip all these years later 

 

If you were to ask me about any of my bigger bass from the past two years, I could take you to exact spot where I caught them. I could tell you the weather and share the details of the fight. Big bass memories are indelible.