I was able to spend the whole day on the water.  It was a slow, but steady day.  I had my first bass before sun-up on a jig/craw trailer in some old railroad trestle pilings.  Moved locations and fished a Ned Rig on an ultralight spinning set up.  What fun!  I caught several White Crappie, a small Channel Catfish, and a 3 lb. 9 oz. largemouth out of the same small area.  Another move got me more crappies and one more decent largemouth.  Seems like there's never a shortage of action with the Ned Rig.

 

By afternoon, I was looking for a spot to fish that was out of the wind (it was very windy all weekend here).  I found a nice calm spot and started working a long rip-rap bank, hoping to find a smallmouth or two.  No luck.  I did find two lures in the trees along the bank, though.  One was a Strike King Red Eye Shad lipless crank in Bleeding Shad color.  The other was a square bill crank bait in some sort of Chartreuse Shad color.

 

I tied on the square bill to see it if ran OK.  At that point, I came to an old tree trunk laying down the bank and into the water, partly submerged.  I threw that square bill over the submerged part and as soon as I started winding, a big bass ATE it.  I couldn't even see the lure when I got the bass next to the boat.  I went to work with the pliers and hemostats and got her unhooked fairly easily.  I hung her on the scale to find she was 4 lbs. 4 oz.  That made me smile!  A free lure caught my biggest fish of the day!  I never tried throwing the lipless crank I found... what was I thinking?!!

 

I moved to a long patch of weeds that are still up and threw a lightly-weighted T-rigged Pit Boss.  After two pike and a pickerel, I gave up.  All in all, it was a decent day; not many bass, but a couple of good ones. The sun was shining and the fall colors were looking good.  And it may be the last 70-degree day we see in my neck of the woods for another five or six months!

 

I hope everyone got to enjoy the long weekend.

 

Tight lines,

Bob

I spent 4 hours out on the pond today enjoying this great weather here in MA. I knew I needed moving baits and tied on the senile action first lipless seeker I got from MTB like 4 months ago and haven't gotten around to tiring it on. Great finish and the bait sounds awesome, even on a long bomb cast you hear that rattle all the way back to the boat. I know that you want subtle rattles during the fall, but gave it a whirl. Ended up with 5 fish. 3 on this bait. Great action, great paint, and fat out catches fish. Will be getting more of these. 

Well written report, Bob. Thanks.

Well written report, Bob. Thanks.

 

I'm glad you liked it and I hope you're finding the time, and having the right weather, to get out and fish!

 

Tight lines,

Bob