Three biggest today out on Lake Ontario. All fish caught on a drop shot in 25-45 fow. Water temp at 57 degrees. 

Nice fish Dwight. Was it hard tying a jerkbait on that dropshot? 😂 

54 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Nice fish Dwight. Was it hard tying a jerkbait on that dropshot? 😂 

Your killing me. 

And he's all bundled up like an eskimo!

 

Nice fish!

@Dwight Hottle, look like monsters, 6+??

1 hour ago, FloridaFishinFool said:

And he's all bundled up like an eskimo!

 

Nice fish!

 Air temps 42-59. 15 mph winds. Water surface temp 57 degrees and I’m a FL boy now so yes it was cold to start.

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

@Dwight Hottle, look like monsters, 6+??

Nah 5-12, 5-11 & 5-6 were the three biggest for the day. 

3 hours ago, Dwight Hottle said:

Your killing me. 

Me too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Been having some luck with jerkbaits. The one on a bladed jig was the only one that day.

 

Today I got one on a trap at the city lake, but didn't get a picture. Then snagged a threadfin. Almost exact match for shape and size and color of the trap I used. 

Some REALLY beautiful fish and stories in here lately - too many to note them all but it makes me smile seeing all the hogs being caught and the numbers too!  Fall is really becoming my favorite season.  It seems like those “10 fish in an hour”moments we dream about are plausible here in NC during the fall transition.

 

I recently had such a night at the new pressured pond I have adopted.

 

Let’s preface this with an explanation - the previous pressured public pond I lived nearby was split into 2 x 5 acre ponds divided by a dam and inflow creek and maybe 200 feet of walking distance.  Over the years you have seen me catch many 8-9 lbers out of those two spots on frogs and lipless crankbaits and jigs and buzzbaits.  It is fairly flat and very clear water with very little cover and people mainly panfish and catfish because the bass fishing is extremely difficult.

 

The new pond is closer to our new house - 5 minutes away to be exact - why wouldn’t I just fish my backyard pond?  One word: Hydrilla.  The magical grass.  The more there is - the bigger the bass!

 

I am next door to a 10 acre grass lake - the pond attendant is my friend and she has been working for Parks and Rec for 50 years and she said her son caught a 14 lb LMB on a live crappie two years ago out of this spot.  I don’t doubt it for a second but my big bass have all been seen and not caught out of this pond - until recently that is 😎

 

I have been very eager to learn how to target bass in grass and this pond provides me with a fantastic arena for this - I have fished frogs and buzzbaits and done well but not landed anything over 4 at this pond for 2 years of trying but I’ve laid eyes on fish over 10 in wolfpacks.

 

This past week something finally clicked - I don’t know if all the YouTube finally kicked in or what - but I love fishing lipless crankbaits - I have heard for years they excel in grass but being that this pond is very shallow - I never gave it much thought.

 

Well - I’m an older wiser and often more bored fisherman now than I was then and I do all sorts of funky things now just for the heck of it - depraved, I know.

 

I decided to try fishing a lipless in the super shallow thick hydrilla.  At first it was pretty awful.  None of my usual stuff was gonna be working - that much was clear - but I pushed on - determined to crack the code.

 

and then it dawned on me that people say when the water is very clear you need to go extremely fast to elicit a reaction strike, and then I also thought about the fact that my Red Eye Shad rises up in the water column when I burn it so I decided to commit to really fishing a lipless very very fast. I mean Looney Tunes fast like people might think there’s something wrong with that guy fast.

 

Well it worked.  It worked so well I was giving away lipless crankbaits and lessons to the poor fishless souls watching in awe from the pier as I caught fish after fish after fish and they kept getting BIGGER.

 

I filled one gentleman’s cooler with healthy culls and caught some really nice ones that I released and proceeded to come back and do the same the next couple days but eventually they got wise and I could only do 1 or 2 fish during this wild bite window I had discovered.

I fished a frog over the main grass patch that I was ripping through to catch all the lipless fish and I got bit by a big big fish on the first cast- and the second and third and then finally on the fourth I connected with a BiG bass and instantly broke off.  65 lb braid.  She swallowed the frog - how can I be sure?  I colored 2.5 feet up my braid with black marker and only 8” of black braid remained.

 

Frustrated I decided to try something extremely weird for me based on ALL of the information I had taken in with the lipless crankbait and frog and I tied on my Strike King wake bait - a bait until two days ago, I had never caught a fish on.  I bomb it out and let it float back to the surface and start slowly wiggling it back over the grass and catch a 2 lber instantly.  Hmmmm. Sun is going down and new moon is just a couple days away - I see a HUGE boil 30 feet to my right inside the grass line off a point where I have scouted old bluegill beds and see fish get murdered occasionally.

 

I cast past the boil and slow roll the wake bait to the spot where it occurred and slow waaaaaay down and then stop it.   A HUGE wake shoots over and a sickly THUD happens and I’m unconsciously reeling and she’s stripping drag and thrashing and I’m like do I have a catfish!?!?  Nope.

 

My very first hydrilla gorilla from the 10 acre pond of wonder and mystery!

 

HUGE fall Prespawn belly on this gorgeous extraordinary bass.  She was getting ready to make babies on the new moon for sure.  That’s a 6 + lber that is all of MAYBE 20” on a good day - easily one of the fattest and girthiest bass I’ve ever caught - now I’m DESPERATE to catch the one that broke me off on the frog.  Can you imagine a 26” fish with these proportions!?!?!  Good NiGhT!

 

Here’s some of the madness from the past few days - thanks for listening to me ramble about bass fishing!

 

 

Decided to hit some of the other ponds that I’ve been neglecting of late.  Results have been somewhat mixed l, which is a nice way of saying I caught a bunch of dinks.  I did however catch a few decent ones pictured below.  A Crankbait (DT6) sandwiched by two underspin fish.  

The first two were caught in a small shallow dirty and weedy reservoir, one up shallow by some wood cover and the other burning a crank over the tops of dead and dying weeds in the lower end.  The third was caught holding tight to an outside weed line.

Quick after work session, this was too pretty to bury in other species

I got a bass too so it's an official bass trip  

@Bazoo, your threadfin is actually a gizzard shad 

^ Good catch there, Russ. Lot of people confuse them...it's the tail/fin color that makes all the difference.

The distinguishing characteristic for me is the blunt nose on gizzard vs the pointy nose on threadfin 

Threadfin also die if you look at them crosseyed - small gizzards are confused for threadfin around here all the time just because they’re small. I don’t think unless people stock threadfin annually - that they stand a much of a chance if there’s healthy populations of gizzards and golden shiners present (there usually are) and your winters get properly cold (ours do).

Thanks @TnRiver46 I did notice the mouth was downturned, but yes I got them confused.

 

There is some golden shiners I think in there as well as I've found one and researched and came to the as the species.

Glorius weather, great fishin'!

Water temp at 55.  Nabbed 4 over 4 on swim jig, the rest on a spinnerbait and Frittside.

Getting tougher for sure as fall goes along. Wind is really starting to be a pia! Though I can still sling fine with my casters, the wind is making them more annoying, so will be spinning rod mode likely to close the season. I can tell she’ll be wrapping in a week or so as we get colder. The telling sign is the bass are moving further out and away from the pier. Long casts were key for bass and letting it fall all the way down. They’re getting real picky and color conscious too
 

My bro kicked my assests running his MX spinning rod with 10lb braid. Hits are getting tough in the wind and swells, so time for me to get with it and make an adjustment. We both got a bonus fish in the form of FAT steelhead, and I also had a silvery late coho come in on my jig, swipe, then proceed onward. No big fish landed, mostly 16-17” with a couple 18’s for my bro

 

The boy had to get a picture of a flower.

 

 

X-Rap I found a couple years ago is building the jerkbait confidence one little guy at a time.

 

 

 

Boy done got him one at the river.

Starting to feel like Fall here with the fish grouping up and figured the $35 launch fee was worth a shot. Technically anytime I get to take my dad out is well worth it, so good fishing is just a bonus.

 

 

First one of the day on an underspin.

 

Solid one on a jerkbait.

 

 

Last catch of the morning on a senko.

 

9 hours ago, NorcalBassin said:

Starting to feel like Fall here with the fish grouping up and figured the $35 launch fee was worth a shot. Technically anytime I get to take my dad out is well worth it, so good fishing is just a bonus.

 

 

First one of the day on an underspin.

 

Solid one on a jerkbait.

 

 

Last catch of the morning on a senko.

 

 

That's for sure! It's a rare occasion that I get to bass fish with my dad so always a good day when I do.

 

Yesterday was coincidentally the first time in a long time I've been able to get my dad out fishing with me, along with my brother we decided to try out a spot we've been talking about hitting for the last ~5 years, a string of ponds in a golf course that shut down during Covid.

 

The bite ended up being very mediocre there, but we did manage to pick some off here and there. Brother got his on a bladed jig, my dad got a few on a senko, and I threw a few things but connected with this small one on a spinnerbait after I had lost two (one of which looked around 5lb):

 

 

Continued to struggle for bites, but right before dark I connected with two better fish on back to back casts with a lipless: First one just shy of 3lb hit like an absolute truck and ripped drag, genuinely believed I had a much better fish until it surfaced, very spunky and strong fish for its size:

 

 

And right after connected with this one just shy of 4lb hit right at the bank:

 

 

Not sure if I will go back, there is definitely a healthy fishery in the last pond and I could likely connect with some giants if I put the time in there, but years of neglect due to their closure have made the bank fishing access difficult and we had to be very careful about where we could cast. I did see someone with a kayak in the largest pond, he had the right idea for sure. Maybe I'll drag the jonboat over some day.

 

Also had a nice run in with a water moccasin, Came close to stepping on it, that would've been a bad day for both of us.

Looks like @Aaron_H is in compliance again with the haircut police.  And using less shampoo.

3 lb Spots make my day

Day two sucked. The guide called the trip after two hours because of wind & waves. We were both soaked with full rain gear on. Day three produced about a dozen bass with the biggest just shy of 5 lbs. Today was cold 42-51 but no rain & less wind with 52 degrees water temp. Caught a 5-12 first thing. Lost a biggie at boat side when she jumped  coming unbuttoned while fishing a shallow rock seam off a point. @gim she was a big 6 or 7lber as judged by both the guide & me. That one hurt. 
 

@Dwight Hottle, the way those goby eaters are built is a sight to behold.