Predict your 2024 biggest bass

[A-Jay]

17 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

Welp.  Look like I might have gotten it taken care of tonight 🥹🥹🥹

 

Just a Giant Man.

Congrats 

A-Jay

[FryDog62]

5 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

But,..But....Chris - you're missing hard-water season 'back home'.

I know, I still have this ear flap hat and feel like someone needs to tell me to take off like a hose-head..!

[gimruis]

20 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

Welp.  Look like I might have gotten it taken care of tonight

 

Not sure how I missed this since I was the OP and you were the first one to post after my initial start of it.

 

Regardless, you predicted an 8 pounder.

 

It took you a grand total of 2 whole days to full fill your own prediction.

 

[Bankbeater]

I predict I will catch a bass this year that is between 1 and 10 lbs.  It will come out of either a creek, river, pond, or lake.  I will be fishing with either a topwater, bottom contact bait or a bait moving through the water column.  Finally, this bass will be caught sometime in 2024.

[Swamp Girl]

7 hours ago, Bankbeater said:

I predict I will catch a bass this year that is between 1 and 10 lbs.  It will come out of either a creek, river, pond, or lake.  I will be fishing with either a topwater, bottom contact bait or a bait moving through the water column.  Finally, this bass will be caught sometime in 2024.

 

Nostradamusish.

 

 

[Bazoo]

I feel like I'm going to get into something huge. For me that will be a 6-8lb largemouth. It'll be a new PB for me. I beat the bank pretty hard at my local lake, and learning all of its ways, I just have more and more success.

 

Only thing will make it better is if my fishing buddy is there and we can weigh it on 2 scales. He'll have his phone for pics too; I usually don't carry my phone with me while I'm fishing.

[FishTax]

6 lb LM is realistic. Would love to nab a PB which would be over 8lbs. They're definitely swimming around me, I just gotta get better and lucky. Lucky is easier than better 😎

[MIbassyaker]

I predict that if I make such a prediction, it will only lead to disappointment.

[TOXIC]

On 1/24/2024 at 4:05 PM, TOXIC said:

Not so much a guess as a hope….the same hope I have every year.  I’ll be gunning for my best largemouth soon because we leave Friday for headwaters in Florida for a week.  My goal is a double digit.  We’ll be heading to Michigan and lake St Clair at the end of May and my smallmouth goal is one over 6lbs.  If I get 7 or above, I’ll get a replica made.  For the majority of the year fishing here locally in Virginia, it’s more about the fun times and the variety of freshwater fish we catch.  

Well, the first part of my prediction is a bust.  Not a bad bust mind you but a bust nonetheless.  Just got back from Florida and the weather really messed with us on Headwaters.  40 degree nights, 50 degree days, and 30mph winds made fishing tough.  We got a lot of numbers but not anything in the double digits.  I’m totally good with it when we were doing just as good as the shiner guides and a lot better than most of the local talent throwing artificials.  Best I could do was a 7.  Sounds like we should have ventured down to Okeechobee and rubbed elbows with the pros in the open.  Roland was up on Headwaters while Scott was setting records.  I see he made it down for the final weigh in.  On to the next goal which is my Smallmouth trip to lake St Clair in May. 

[gimruis]

2 minutes ago, TOXIC said:

Well, the first part of my prediction is a bust.

 

Its not a complete bust, yet.  2024 is only a month old.  You've got almost 11 more months to fulfill your own prediction.

[TOXIC]

@gimruis you are correct but my odds just went waaaay down for the largemouth.  I’m not complaining and will be giving it my best shot. 😉

[Bluebasser86]

As bad as the year has started, I'm going to go with 5.75lbs and 21.25". I'll go out on a limb and say it'll be on a jig. 

 

Smallmouth will be 3.75lbs 19.5" and I'm going to catch it next month in Oklahoma on a crankbait. 

[papajoe222]

Catching a LM over 5lb. has been extremely tough the past few seasons, mostly because I haven't been targeting waters known for better than average fish.  I plan on hitting a couple of power plant lakes in March and have a feeling that is when (if) I break the 6lb. mark this season.

[LrgmouthShad]

Tough to think about an entire year and the possibilities. Work-related this will be my busiest year by far so finding time to fish will be difficult. I will set my prediction at a conservative 7lbs +/- 0.5lb. I am still in TX… albeit central TX, so anything can happen. 

[A-Jay]

On 1/23/2024 at 1:02 PM, A-Jay said:

I'm optimistic but also realistic ~ and perhaps even a little superstitious.

Can't put out a number now. 

IMO, each and every season is a totally separate deal from the previous ones.

So it could be the best ever or the complete opposite.

I like to believe that past behavior is the decent predictor of future behavior, and the same is true of success.  At the beginning of each season, any small victories help build confidence for me as well as the desire & momentum to keep it going. 

There will always be some struggle, and I can & do drive through most of it.

But it seems that in the 'better years' there's less of that.

Might all just be in my head.

Either way, I'll continue to work hard at 'being ready' for whatever happens my way.

Because preparation = performance.

Best case scenario is I hook up, and say "hope this is a bass" . . . .

and it is. 

Fish Hard

A-Jay

Even though the bass fishing season is still relatively young up here,

when it comes to the basic premise of this thread,

I'm ashamed to say that I pretty much chicked out.

Being a closet superstitious basshead, I didn't want to jinx it by making some wild prediction,

only to fall flat on my face. 

I do enough of that already. 

So I can't make any claim to 'calling my shot'

for what size fish I might catch.

About the only thing I did get right was hooking up into a decent fish,

and saying "I hope it's a bass" and it was. 

It's a little hard to hear with the crazy wild wind blowing in the back round.

And I say it all the time, and it's always a big pike;

except when it's not. 

A-Jay

 

[gimruis]

I forgot that I even started this thread.

 

I am not going to go back and cross reference people's own predictions.  You'll have to do that on your own.  If you didn't make any predictions, well, then there aren't any goals to achieve or fail with.

 

I went with 20.5 inches for largemouth and 21 inches for smallmouth.  Season still isn't open here for another 12 days though.  

[Swamp Girl]

My prediction is that I already caught my two biggest bass, largie and smallie (I don't target smallies and the ones I catch are NOT @A-Jayish), for 2024. Maybe not. I think I'll hook bigger largemouth this year, but whether I can wrangle them out of weeds is the key. 

 

[Zcoker]

I'll be gunning for those 25 inchers. Already have a few 24's and with only an inch more to go, shouldn't be a problem. I've already tangled with a few that have fit that range, so I know it's only a matter of time. Just gotta keep 'em pinned. They have really BIG mouths! 

[Dwight Hottle]

Well I got semi close. Still a fall trip coming so I'm not out of it. 

[Zcoker]

Gettin bigger and bigger. These everglades bass at night are insane! 

 

 

[steve carpenter]

Largemouth Shad. They have DD in Stillhouse Hollow. You might surprise yourself. The private lakes I fish with probably give me at least a 7 pounder. The are some 12 plus in some .

[Woody B]

In my original post I "predicted" an 8 pound Largemouth.  I caught one last weekend that was 7.91 pounds.  (an ounce short)  I also said I'd get a replica made of an 8 pounder.   7.91 isn't 8, so I'm holding off on the replica.  However, (I hope I'm not jinxing myself) I've got a new goal for 2024.   At least one Bass 5 pounds or larger every month.  5 months down, 7 more to go. 

[casts_by_fly]

On 1/24/2024 at 3:45 PM, casts_by_fly said:

I'm planning to get back to PA with my dad at prime time this year for both smallies and largemouth on his waters.  The lake we caugth so many 4-4.5 lb fish last year has had them growing at 1.5 lb per year.  They will slow down, but there are going to be a lot of 5's in that lake this summer.  I don't know the exact weight on my PB largemouth as it was 25 years ago before we truly weighed fish but it was a 5-something.  My recent PB (since 2020 when I restarted bass fishing) is a 4-15 and that's getting broken this year.  At minimum with a 5-08 with him.  I lost a 6+ last year locally with him in the boat, so... maybe I should just predict my PB will come in my dad's boat.  Its going to come on a texas rigged something, maybe a rage bug, maybe not.

 

Same for smallies.  My PB is a 4-03 on a local lake 2 Marches ago.  I plan to hit another 4+ from that lake this year which may or may not break that PB.  However my dad's lake is good for plenty of 5's a year for him.  Last year he got a 6-08.  Almost all on topwater (sexy dawgs).  I'm going to go out on a limb and say I catch a smallmouth bigger than my largemouth PB this year.  I'm going to say 5-03 on the smallie.  Almost certainly on a sexy dawg, maybe on a small keitech.

 

Well, smallies are out of the running.  Went with my dad this past Friday and we missed it.  There is an early bite in April where the big ones have come in, a volume bite in mid may when the biggest have left but there are plenty of 2-4 lb fish, and a summer bite in June where (under the right conditions) you get a 2 hours window and can catch a limit of 4-5 lb fish.  This year the early window had 20' high water.  Ordinarily the second week of May would be a ton of fish, but the water warmed quickly and they had almost all pulled back out (plus we had poor weather for it).  And the June bite is too temperamental for me to be able to plan a trip.  Short of a random miracle fish, big smallies are pretty done for me now.

 

Largemouth are looking up.  He hammered them on Monday at the lake I predicted above.  He didn't give me the weight, but from the picture I see a couple that are well over 5 as I thought there would be.  That will be the one the plan around.

[TnRiver46]

I’d guess this will be my biggest LM caught Saturday, don’t get them often 

 

[Zcoker]

Getting harder and harder to predict and actual size to shoot for this year. They gettin bigger and bigger every outing.  This big girl hit right at the yak--combat fishing all the way!