Picked up swimbait fishing this year after a long hiatus in 2018. I had sold off most of my old gear so I figured I would start fresh with my limited options. 
 

I started in March and had immediate success on prespawn fish along deep drop offs.

This was my first fish of the year, my first time throwing swimbaits. Not a huge fish, but a huge confidence booster for me knowing that the bass in my state would still go for the big stuff. 

My second fish of the year, caught a week later. The fish was just shy of 7lbs, a very rare catch in my waters. This was the catch that cemented my confidence in swimbaits.

May, June and July were pretty tough for bass. I branched out into hard baits like the s-waver and mattlures hardgill and caught several 2-3lbers but could not seem to find the class of fish I was after. 

This was the one notable fish I caught in the early summer, waking an MS Slammer by a beaver hut. 

By August I finally had a solid pattern. My main producers were paddle tailed soft baits and topwater rats. The best days were extremely hot and humid with bluebird skies. 


These two I caught on one of the best fishing days of my life. My heaviest one day limit of 20lbs from a spot I thought was fished/dried out. This midday heavy wood cover pattern persisted through August.

These fish were caught in identical conditions a week later. Weedless swimbaits and topwater rats.

 

Once the summer pattern died I really struggled to catch any decent bass. To be fair I had less time to fish and got sidetracked by multi species fishing which is typically better in the cold months.
 

Various other species.

 

Overall an exciting season, definitely made up for 2018. The goal next year is to focus more on bass and catch the 5+lbers with more consistency.
 

Congrats on a great season... definitely caught some nice ones and that snakehead is crazy looking!

Good luck

That was a great write up.  I fished a lot of the same places as Fried Lemons and had no where near the same results fishing mostly conventional tackle.  

Very good report, productive fishing. 

Thanks for sharing. 

Congrats.  I want to move just to catch fish like that.