8 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

I did something weird this morning.  I quit fishing at seven a.m. Why? Well, I hope to fish my pal's pond this evening and I only have so much energy in a day and my hands were soooooo cold. Plus, I caught as big a smallmouth and as big a largemouth as I've ever caught at my pond, both on the surface. I didn't measure either and neither was willing to sit still for a photo, but both are north of 18" and maybe nudging four pounds:

 

 

 

When I decided to quit, I trolled back to my dock and caught this fine solid fish:

 

 

I caught seven total, giving me 1,032 for the year. 

 

I know that @Joedodge can understand why I quit early. He caught his PB this year and has been less driven. Well, catching my PB smallmouth and largemouth for my pond this morning sent me home happy...and early. 

53 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

I did something weird this morning.  I quit fishing at seven a.m. Why? Well, I hope to fish my pal's pond this evening and I only have so much energy in a day and my hands were soooooo cold. Plus, I caught as big a smallmouth and as big a largemouth as I've ever caught at my pond, both on the surface. I didn't measure either and neither was willing to sit still for a photo, but both are north of 18" and maybe nudging four pounds. The largemouth had a big head that doesn't really show in the photo:

 

 

 

When I decided to quit, I trolled back to my dock and caught this fine solid fish:

 

 

I caught seven total, giving me 1,032 for the year. 

 

I know that @Joedodge can understand why I quit early. He caught his PB this year and has been less driven. Well, catching my PB smallmouth and largemouth for my pond this morning sent me home happy...and early. 

Solid fish! Obviously you were fishing by the Bass buffet, cause those brutes are stuffed! Wonder what they are eating to stay in such prime condition. You may not reach two grand like last year, but you are netting super high quality! That smallie had to have made your morning. I'd be tuckered out too, if I were on the other side of the line. Good luck this afternoon!

Nice fishing Swampy, I wouldn’t complain either when you can get green/brown together! This may seem weird, but I can almost tell by the way your largemouth look…they fight well. Bass in northern latitudes seem to consistently have great color and markings 

1 hour ago, Blue Raider Bob said:

Solid fish!

 

Thanks, Bob. The few smallmouth I catch in my pond are typically thick. I've just never caught one as long as this morning's smallie. I think they're eating mostly crawdads, yellow perch, and golden shiners. My pond doesn't have bluegills, white perch, or gobies. It does have big eels. A Maine guide said he's caught them up to three feet long, but I don't expect to catch one because that's night fishing with bait. 

 

16 minutes ago, JonB2 said:

they fight well.

 

They wear me out, for sure! I'm glad I quit early. I think I have enough gas still in my tank to launch, paddle, and fish some more this evening. 

19 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

I think I have enough gas still in my tank to launch, paddle, and fish some more this evening. 

 
You think eh? Something tells me there will be multiple 16-18” green mean bass posted tonight. You know it, I know it, bass resource knows it lol! Be safe little lady, and “have” luck

3 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

I did something weird this morning.  I quit fishing at seven a.m. Why? Well, I hope to fish my pal's pond this evening and I only have so much energy in a day and my hands were soooooo cold. Plus, I caught as big a smallmouth and as big a largemouth as I've ever caught at my pond, both on the surface. I didn't measure either and neither was willing to sit still for a photo, but both are north of 18" and maybe nudging four pounds. The largemouth had a big head that doesn't really show in the photo:

 

 

 

When I decided to quit, I trolled back to my dock and caught this fine solid fish:

 

 

I caught seven total, giving me 1,032 for the year. 

 

I know that @Joedodge can understand why I quit early. He caught his PB this year and has been less driven. Well, catching my PB smallmouth and largemouth for my pond this morning sent me home happy...and early. 

Congrats!!! Those are some gorgeous fish!!

15 hours ago, gim said:

It’s been absolutely stunning here for the past few days too. It’s cool at night and in the morning, and daytime highs around 70-75. Sweltering humidity is gone. No more Canadian wildfire smoke either.

 

My kind of weather

 

 

Been really nice here too, and of course I'm buried with other obligations.  Labor day weekend coming just in time... 

Caught a couple on glidebaits this morning.

Well, I had another quick fishing trip. I was going to fish my pal's pond, but then a forecast of lightning sent me to my pond for a short trip. I caught five bass in a flurry, four 17-inchers and a 16-incher. Then the sky grew darker and darker and I scooted home just in time. @Bazoo started a thread about the effect of fronts. Well, this cold front killed the fishing. I caught the first five in 45 minutes. I caught nothing the next 45 minutes as the sky darkened. The five bass give me 1,037 for the year and the bass were caught on an underspin with a purple and blue Keitech or an underspin with a black crawdad. 

 

 

 

Old school Bomber bounced off wood caught a few.  Off course froggin' paid off too!  Ol' Monster rounded out the day.

Mr. Clicker said 23 bass!  Water temp had dropped to 74!

38 minutes ago, Lottabass said:

Old school Bomber bounced off wood caught a few. 

 

Love it!

 

38 minutes ago, Lottabass said:

Mr. Clicker said 23 bass! 

 

Quality plus quantity! Your bass are so beautiful, Al. 

 

 

@Lottabass Nice bite my man! I always have so much respect for you old hats that still have that drive and consistency. When I was a kid and learning fishing, aside from my dad…I wanted to be like the old boys I’d see on the river always catching fish lol

As a Northern smallmouth guy - I’ve been trying to get my arms around the Spotted Bass thing here down south… 

 

Caught my first 20 inch Spot - on BFS even. Don’t even ask me what fights harder SMB or spots ?!?

4 hours ago, Lottabass said:

Old school Bomber bounced off wood caught a few.  Off course froggin' paid off too!  Ol' Monster rounded out the day.

Mr. Clicker said 23 bass!  Water temp had dropped to 74!

Very nice ones, contragulations.

16 hours ago, FryDog62 said:

Don’t even ask me what fights harder SMB or spots ?!?

That's a really nice spot 👍 

The ones I've caught fight harder than Smallmouth. 

21 hours ago, Lottabass said:

Old school Bomber bounced off wood caught a few.  Off course froggin' paid off too!  Ol' Monster rounded out the day.

Mr. Clicker said 23 bass!  Water temp had dropped to 74!

Looks like you got another bad case of "Noodle Arms"! I think 23 hogs like that would do me in! Nice to see an old timers lure like the Bomber catching 21st century Bass. Those are some really quality fish.

18 hours ago, FryDog62 said:

As a Northern smallmouth guy - I’ve been trying to get my arms around the Spotted Bass thing here down south… 

 

Caught my first 20 inch Spot - on BFS even. Don’t even ask me what fights harder SMB or spots ?!?

I've caught lots of Spots but NEVER one 20"! Congrats! I can only imagine how that water rocket felt after the hook set! What a beast!

Nice fish @FryDog62! Ive  caught some 20” spots and thought I was gonna have to go to the ER or physical therapy they whipped me so bad 

 

great day on the water @Lottabass, love that old bomber. I used to confuse them with hellbender until @Team9nine set me straight. That’s the plug that captured the world record smallmouth bass on dale hollow 

Wes and I were at it again on Wednesday.  We wanted to chase Lake Ontario smallmouth, but the city owned launch/marina in town has started charging $22.50 to launch (used to be free).  So we headed west to the next launch, which doesn’t have much parking… and found not only was the launch full, but the church parking lot next door (which doesn’t allow parking) was also full and it dawned on me this was guys prefishing for the big CISA tournament this weekend.  There were lots of trucks covered in sponsor decals and Wes recognized Cooper Gallants truck.  So we headed another 15 miles west to the next launch… and found it also beyond full with trucks/trailers parked all down the shoulder of the road.😒  So, we switched gears and decided to try fishing the east end of Hay Bay for largemouth since we were already halfway there.

 

I’d been wanting to try Hay Bay, but it was a lot shallower than I thought, just a huge expanse of 2-5ft. deep and sparse weeds in the main bay.  We ended up finding a few on floating docks out the neck of the bay where the water gets deeper, our best a 3.5#.  You can see from how Wes is suited up in the first pic that we’ve got cool temps recently, it was quite chilling running across the bay.  Water temps are already down to 69-70F.  And the bass are starting to fatten up, and were aggressively hitting a bladed jig.  I also forgot where I was, and donated one of those expensive bladed jigs of the name we cannot say to a pike 😕 before adding a leader.

 

Wes wanted to drive back along Lake Ontario again on the way home to maybe see some nice bass boats.  Wouldn’t you know, as we were driving back by the launch we saw Cooper Gallants truck backing down to the ramp.  Wes was pretty excited about that, so I wheeled around and parked, said let’s walk down and say hi.  I’m not sure Wes believed me but Cooper was checking his boat and I just walked up and introduced us.  Cooper was very friendly, we talked about how rough the lake was and how much pressure the Lake Ontario smallmouth are getting now.  Then I asked Cooper if he’d mind taking a photo with Wes.  He was happy to, and Wes didn’t stop talking and smiling about it until he went to bed hours later.😊

@The Baron: What a great day! How big is Wes???

 

I fished my pond this morning and gosh, quantity-wise, it's fishing tough. I only caught seven again, giving me 1,044 for the year, but quality-wise, it's fishing great. This was my first bass:

 

 

I didn't measure her, but she was big-headed.

 

Then I caught three eighteen-inchers. The first was caught on a skinny, minnowy Keitch on a weighted hook (open water), the second was caught on a thick Keitech on an underspin (narrow river), and the third was caught on a Whopper Plopper in a mid-pond weed field.

 

 

The smaller bass represented too:

 

 

And here's a couple of the 18s on the bump board so that you can see they were thick too:

 

 

I didn't bump board the first one, which was the longest, and regretted not measuring it, which is why I bump boarded the other two. 

 

I'm fishing with the kid this evening and he's got a friend, so I've got to put the boys on bass. 

So a little backstory, Earlier this year I moved from Orlando to the Tampa area for work, and have yet to find any bank fishable waters that aren't private/gated as well as non stop thunderstorms that plague us in the summer. I have not fished a single time since February and it's been eating me up inside, gong from fishing an average of 100+ days per year to not fishing in 6 months has been....an adjustment.

 

Yesterday, there was supposed to be a break in the weather back in Orlando, so I made the drive over and hit one of my old spots. Still ended up getting caught in a thunderstorm after 2 hours of fishing, sat in the car for an hour, then got another ~1.5 hour window before the lightning rolled in too close again and called it a day.

 

End of August, heat was brutal at first with no wind and the bite was tough. After the first part of the storm rolled in the wind picked up enough to give me a slight surface chop and the temp dropped down to 80 and the bass were a bit more active. Picked off a handful on a Booyah One Knocker, lost a couple but nothing crazy.

 

No giants, but the biggest one was decent at 4.14lb, which I will gladly take this time of year.

@Aaron_H! So happy you fished again! You're too good an angler to not fish. I have always been amazed at the size of your bank bass. 

2 hours ago, The Baron said:

 

great pic! 

58 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

What a great day! How big is Wes???

Big enough to chunck me in the river so I'm keeping my trap shut!

50 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

@Aaron_H! So happy you fished again! You're too good an angler to not fish. I have always been amazed at the size of your bank bass. 

 

That's very kind of you! It's Florida, though, those big bass grow on trees down here 😅

28 minutes ago, Aaron_H said:

 

That's very kind of you! It's Florida, though, those big bass grow on trees down here 😅

 

I watch YouTube videos of other Florida bassheads. You're exceptional.