On 12/7/2025 at 9:00 AM, TnRiver46 said:

Lucky loon at the boat ramp always leads to success. 

We have more loons this year than the past several years.  But our loons lie.  Every day I check out the areas they are congregating.   I have caught exactly one bass and found few bait balls.  Cormorants and otters are a little better, but they both seem to scatter the bait and put the bass on guard for a while.

On 12/7/2025 at 9:00 AM, TnRiver46 said:

Lucky loon at the boat ramp always leads to success.

That lucky loon forced my state in a lead jig and sinker ban back in '11 or so. Let's hope it doesn't affect you

12 hours ago, FLYING HIGH said:

Those look amazing!!   How much they weigh?

  
Weighed 8-11 on the scale but the battery died the next time we tried weighing it. I think it was probably 9 something. Didn’t weigh any of the others. 

Forgot to add this photo from yesterday. Bison feeding out in the water in Lake Kissimmee FL. And before you ask yes it’s real. Apparently some rich sob owns that island & stocks it with exotic game for people to hunt for a fee. 

Found a nice one yesterday at sunset after a long cold snap where I struggled a lot.  Two nights ago it rained and went up to 50 all evening and the following day.  Yesterday was windy and in the 50s with bright sun and they were up and about.  Caught her in 2 feet of water pumping a lipless!

 

 

basically ready to pop with eggs here in late December on the new moon at the grass pond.

45 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

Found a nice one yesterday at sunset after a long cold snap where I struggled a lot.  Two nights ago it rained and went up to 50 all evening and the following day.  Yesterday was windy and in the 50s with bright sun and they were up and about.  Caught her in 2 feet of water pumping a lipless!

 

 

basically ready to pop with eggs here in late December on the new moon at the grass po

 

Nice Bass.

And it's a little funny that you can write 'pumping a lippless' here and everyone knows exactly what you're talking about.

With zero people being offended.

A-Jay

Maybe give that lipless Botox and you might be on to something 

Got a 5 pound 3 oz fish out back just now. It was a little “long in the tooth” at 23 inch. 

 

Mike, are you catching more of your bass from shore or a boat? 

2 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

Mike, are you catching more of your bass from shore or a boat? 

It’s been all shore lately…

2 minutes ago, N Florida Mike said:

It’s been all shore lately…

 

That makes your success even more impressive. 

Lucky loon strikes again! 
 

Took my wife’s kayak down to the lakehouse but my buddies were already on the water testing out a new fancy trolling motor and just said to hop in their boat. They had already gotten one smallie prior to my arrival, an 18” er

 

I jumped in and it was slow for maybe an hour but got a nice hit on a fluke/jighead, turned out to be an almost 20” SMB

I then tried hopping a rattle bait deep on bottom and got a 13” crappie, he got barotrauma in the livewell so he now resides in my freezer

The offshore bite got really slow so we hit the bank and Craig picked up a small one , but even that got slow. 

Tried offshore again but only caught a pretty sunset. 

 

Swung back by the house to snap a few pics for my construction advisory team of @Jigfishn10 and @Bird, here’s what it looks like standing under the deck 

@N Florida Mike, keep waving that magic wand buddy!

 

@TnRiver46, just saw this, I notice the pics in the activity stream. Check your mail. No need to hijack this thread 

@TnRiver46

That deck is missing a ledger board, it's what the joist hangers should have been attached to.

Instead the builder skipped the ledger board and attached the hangers directly to the siding, strange.

Here you can see what I'm talking about. Edit..... zoomed it up, looks like siding was cut around joists so not what I originally thought.

Meagan actually did a quick edit of the biggie a couple days ago and here’s the catch!  Gotta love when they make a nice run right when you got them in range!

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/O3cO3PfP_Ew?si=vF1p1VxvZ7SbTXUV

Long skinny fish 22” 4.8lbs. Also got a snot rocket and a few smaller ones in the same area.

 

Went canoeing today after chores, took a while but I got a 21.5” SMB!!! And of course a drum 

 

 

got em on spot lock the old fashioned way 

 

with this lure

 

28 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Went canoeing today after chores,

Yeah, right Tom Sawyer. You had someone else do it while you went fishing. A tiger doesn’t change his stripes haha

 

JK buddy! Oh the good ol days 

 

Beauty of a fish !

Russ, that's two big smallies in a row for you. You're showing us why you love winter fishing so much.

December and September are always the best for SMB ! 

i used to get the week between Christmas and new years off work and had some crazy good fishing excursions . I have to work now but still try for an hour after work or weekends 

 

days are getting longer now ! 

Beautiful day out on the water. Got in 2-1/2 hrs of fishing this afternoon. Water 45-46 deg. Ended up catching about 20 fish, mostly crappie. Best bass went 2-3/4 lb.; best crappie 1-3/4 lb. Supposed to warm up a bunch more for the rest of the week. Hoping for a couple more trips.

 

 

 

Good report @Team9nine, weather has been quite nice. It seems odd to me since you’ve moved that your water temps are consistently lower than mine, I’m guessing that’s a result of smaller bodies of water ? Or maybe that’s you’re just on the shady side of the hills 

45 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Good report @Team9nine, weather has been quite nice. It seems odd to me since you’ve moved that your water temps are consistently lower than mine, I’m guessing that’s a result of smaller bodies of water ? Or maybe that’s you’re just on the shady side of the hills 

 

Probably some micro climate stuff too.  I feel like the weather in Greensboro is often different from Durham or Charlotte for example.

3 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Good report @Team9nine, weather has been quite nice. It seems odd to me since you’ve moved that your water temps are consistently lower than mine, I’m guessing that’s a result of smaller bodies of water ? Or maybe that’s you’re just on the shady side of the hills 

 

2 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

 

Probably some micro climate stuff too.  I feel like the weather in Greensboro is often different from Durham or Charlotte for example.

I rotate around on 4 lakes, but all are small, between 300-800 acres, and 2 are pretty shallow (<25 ft max). Elevation could play into it, too, as we sit at nearly 1,000 ft in the foothills.

@Team9nine, those crappie are lucky it's you catching them instead of @TnRiver46 and I. 

 #RELEASETOTHEGREASE!!! 😋

@Team9nine, I think most of our highland lakes such as Norris and Cherokee are at 1000ft elevation and stay much warmer but they are massive and have long retention time. We also have chilhowee and tellico that stay fairly constant temp in winter because they are fed by the water coming out of the  bottom of Fontana dam which is like 400 feet deep. 
 

Douglas is a wildcard because it’s the first dam on the French broad, lots of untamed water comes into that massive reservoir, I’ve seen it frozen thick enough where people were driving ATVs on it 

 

ironically the highland lakes typically stay warmer than the TN river in the bottom of the valley, the shallow swift waters cool faster than the ultra deep still waters