Only had a few hours to fish this weekend with the holiday and soccer game. Went to a normally really busy park lake Saturday morning in the kayak. Water was dirtier than I hoped and honestly wasn’t expecting much but they started biting right away. I caught a couple dinks on a Ned rig, but the red homemade bladed jig was really doing work. 


 

Caught quite a few pitching a Texas Rig on the Okuma X Series with Smackdown and a 15lb Pounce Leader also.

 

 

@TnRiver46 you sure get into some dandy white bass. Yum. 

@Dwight Hottle, Way to put together a monster bag in tough conditions. You da man!!!

First good fish of the year coming in at 6lbs. Caught her on a bait someone must have broken off that I found floating around. Their loss was my gain.

 

Awesome fish.....are you saying you found a DRT bait?   That's like finding a floating $100 bill 

36 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Awesome fish.....are you saying you found a DRT bait?   That's like finding a floating $100 bill 

Yup… to be fair I’ve donated my fair share of baits to the abyss so the balance is still negative.

Jake had spring break last week and to say it was insane would be a big understatement.

 

I'll spare you all the 1-4 lbers we caught all week because it's not even worth going into - just know there were more than a few.

 

We decided to do a trip out on a chilly Friday afternoon and I almost immediately nail a 7 on the missile baits d bomb.

 

 

She spit up a golden shiner and had a bloody tail from recent spawning.  Caught her near a bed area in a very secluded wind protected pocket.

 

We catch a few more nice ones and then Jake shouts, 'BIG ONE!' and up comes something we have never seen on our lake!

 

A real long and girthy chain pickerel!  Jake's first and he's fiercely proud of himself.  🙂

 

 

I catch another nice one in the 4 range and Jake catches a couple nice ones and we end the day with a near 20 lb best 5.

 

 

Jake caught a nice 6 lb channel cat that he made into dinner for us!  Another one he was fiercely proud of!  🙂

 

Sadly no major bass activity on this boat trip.

 

We decided to hit the small retention pond near Jake's soccer fields and catch 30 fish - a mixture of bass and sunfish and crappie and as the sun sets - Jake tied on a rebel Pop R and proceeds to nail a GORGEOUS near 5 lb slaunch!

 

 

Before going to Grandma and Grandpa's for Easter - we hit the lake one last time and I get my first frog fish in a good while and it's a chunk!

 

 

We catch a few nice bass and the wind picks up - we head back into a wind protected sunny pocket and on the first cast back to a grass line Jake sees a big golden flash on his D Bomb and yells 'BIG ONE' and he wasn't lying - after a wild fight I net him his biggest of the spring so far - a LONG spawned out 6 lb 3 oz toad.

 

 

 

We have another fun night at the little pond before leaving town with no major fish and then after visiting with family and having a nice weekend out of town - we hit the lake today for a few hours before they close just to unwind and I'm sure glad we did.

 

 

I nail a 9 lb 3 oz bass on the @Siebert Outdoors 1 oz grass jig in Pat's Gizzard with a green pumpkin speed craw on the back.

 

One of the biggest fish of my life!  Completely spawned out MONSTER fish.

 

 

She had incredible features including an upper lip that seemed to have been broken at one point And the white rings around big bulging eyes.  She was unreal.  She peeled a lot of drag and jumped making me think more than once she was a goner but Jake was real good with the net and I got to hold her and return her to the lake.

 

We had an awesome day with a few great fish and on the last stretch of the day I see a pale spot 100 feet off the bank or so in Crystal clear 4-5 ft deep water.  Jake gets his bait hung in some brush on the bank and we go shallow to retrieve his bait and I remember the approximate location of that pale spot and cast my trusty 1 oz gizzard jig past it and slowly swim it up to where I think it should be and feel a *thunk* and my line goes limp - I reel down and pound the hook on ANOTHER drag screamer to end the day - a beautiful bug eye'd 6 lber!

 

 

Putting us over 20 lbs for our best 5 for the day - one of my best days ever!

 

Katy definitely must have started catching bass because my fish got the memo this past week!  😂😂😂😂☝🏼☝🏼☝🏼☝🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🎣🎣🎣🎣

 

Hoping the madness continues!  Happy spring fellow bass heads!

Holy green bass, Patman! You and Jake should dance a jig!

 

 

Congrats to both of you. So many massive water buffalos!

 

 

You really do bass whisper, Pat. So does Officer Clayton. And Fried Lemons. And....

Today's donkey from the yak in the rain. 

 

Those are some awesome fish Pat and Jake, congrats guys!  

@Rockhopper love the golden coloring on that one. 

 

@Pat Brown you sir, are on a roll. 

Got some ham on Easter Sunday 

Great bass being posted here recently.

Congrats

I can't get on the water here - ramps are all closed with no end in site.

Not sure I will make it before going completely Postal !

A-Jay

@Susky River Rat I'm out of likes but MAN I need some smallmouth action in my life!  Gorgeous fish!  @Dwight Hottle - speechless as always!

I'm reposting Susky's fish because it's just that pretty:

 

 

@A-Jay, can you fish like me and launch your canoe where there's no ramp?

@Pat Brown thank you very much sir!

 

@Swamp Girl thank you! That was one of the most beautiful smallies I have ever had the privilege of catching. The pictures do not do it justice. 

1 minute ago, Susky River Rat said:

@Pat Brown thank you very much sir!

 

@Swamp Girl thank you! That was one of the most beautiful smallies I have ever had the privilege of catching. The pictures do not do it justice. 

 

It's vertical banding is so dark and thick, plus its dark all over. I believe that she was even more beautiful in person, but she's so beautiful in your pic too. I don't just measure bass by weight and length. I also count their beauty and power. In 2024, I raved about a couple ordinary, 18-inch bass because of their extraordinary strength. It's a pity there isn't a bass numbering for beauty and strength, so let's just say that your girl compares to another perfect 10:

 

@Swamp Girl @Susky River Rat We found some dark fish out in open waters with good visibility down to 20 fow. We were fishing 20-25 fow. Conversely we caught some light washed out looking fish in dirty water over a sand bottom in shallow water 5-15 fow.

@Swamp Girl in person there was a lot more contrast to the bands. When she ate I thought I was snagged everything stopped. I was fishing a barely submerged island. Than I felt her pull. I thought oh man this might be a 30”ish musky.  I was super worried because I still wasn’t in the strongest of the current. When I got out to the strong current I backed my drag off a lot. Finally got her landed but, was a nail biter.

10 minutes ago, Susky River Rat said:

@Swamp Girl in person there was a lot more contrast to the bands. When she ate I thought I was snagged everything stopped. I was fishing a barely submerged island. Than I felt her pull. I thought oh man this might be a 30”ish musky.  I was super worried because I still wasn’t in the strongest of the current. When I got out to the strong current I backed my drag off a lot. Finally got her landed but, was a nail biter.

 

Thanks for the tale. I love the stories of catching bass as much as the pics!

Had to cut grass and clean the gutters after hanging out with mom in the morning. Got the canoe launched around 4:00 pm.  I embarked near a marina and decided to pull up Deep Dive to check on the wind, as that’s typically the limiting factor in a canoe

 

it was blowing right into the front row of boat slips but nothing crazy. I tried a huge glide bait along the outside edges and in the first ten minutes a huge brown fish is following it. I naturally freak out…… he follows it all the way to the canoe and it’s a carp….. then a second carp is following the first one…….. what? I round the first row of boat slips to the back side that is more protected from the wind and I can hear carp beating the pontoon boats to death with their tails and see them everywhere splashing. They do this every year, I just figured maybe it was beyond that time already. 
 

so I pull up the map again and paddle to a protected area to try sight fishing 

 

Where all the yachts pontoons and jet skis had been coming in, the water near the banks was clay colored. Sight fishing was out of the question but I caught some largemouth anyway dragging a worm near a dock

 

 

 

Made my way over to some riprap and that was the ticket! I got constant bites all evening, especially after the wind laid down. Smallies and largies , couple decent ones. All on the purple worm (and a bonus green sunfish)

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I suppose it counts -- on the board for 2025 with a little tiny guy from the riverbank:

 

 

Got another good one this morning. Is there a way to tell or get a general idea on if it is male or female? Sitting on that table it kind looks more like a male from what I understand. Mature females have a fuller looking body whereas males look more slender and more like a torpedo shaped body. But there just what I've heard so I don't know if it can be ascertained by that. Either way, good fish and good fight, lots of jumps and a couple digs towards the bottom.

19 minutes ago, BluegillsTightlines said:

Is there a way to tell or get a general idea on if it is male or female? 

 

You can tell for sure by cutting them open. Only way to guess is probably by size, male LMB usually aren’t much over 4 lbs but there are exceptions. Maybe you could squeeze them and see what comes out? 😂 I don’t know, sounds a little personal 

Went the other day and I started off giving the boys pole a try.

 

Then worked a lizard in a new color.

 

 

 

Still learning flukes... 

 

 

The boy went worms only that day.

 

 

I launched at 11:00 and fished for 2.75 hours. It was windier than forecast, but manageable. I had to hunt protected water.

 

I fished a big fish bog. I didn't catch a big fish, but I did catch an 18-incher on a wacky worm thanks to @AlabamaSpothunter's suggestion. Thanks, Alex! 

 

I saw something chasing bait and hoped it was bass. It wasn't, but I caught three pickerel. 

 

Look at the size of this beaver lodge. There were two like it:

 

 

I saw a couple beaver dams too:

 

 

This bog is the second prettiest body of water I fish. It has no buildings and several, long, narrow bays:

 

 

Here's the one bass I caught: