I wasn’t loving the forecast.  89 degrees, bluebird skies, no wind.  Sure you’ll can catch fish in that, but it isn’t my favorite. I didn’t feel like going to my usual favorite lake.  My other usual evening small lake was going to be inundated with people.  The last time I was at the semi big lake I wasn’t enthused about the bass fishing.  I normally have a pretty good idea where I’m going 24 hours in advance and have rigged rods.  Today I hooked on the boat and ran an errand first.  I still didn’t know where I was going when I got into the truck again so I went to the first one that came to mind.  

 

This is the lake I hit the smallies pretty good when they were on the beds back in May.  But it’s now July and this lake is big, deep, and crystal clear.  Tonight it was a solid 20’ visibility when the sun was high (look at the color of that water!).  This is also the lake that has a TON of submerged timber since it was 25’ low for a couple years and a lot of shoreline brush and trees grew and now submerged.

 

 

My plan coming here was to learn the lake.  Catching fish was secondary. I figured I would graph around a bunch and mark things out of the ordinary for future reference.  However, there is so much solid timber and brush out to 25’ bottom depth that it was a losing effort.  I decided to scope around the wood a bit and just fish really fishy looking spots or isolated cover.  There was too much to try to fish it all, so I was selective.  Anything that was ‘different’ like a lay down instead of standing timber, thick tullies (which were growing from the bottom in 12’ to out of the water in spots), etc.  I was using live imaging a lot and staying way back to make long casts.  A few times that I let myself drift into the cover for a look I could see a cruiser here or there but they had no interest when they saw the boat.

 

I tootled around doing that for a while and picked a few dinks.  It was a mix of largemouth and smallmouth, all 10-12” or so and all caught on either a 6” finesse worm Nero rigged or a 3” Mooch minnow.  With the water so clear, you had to stay 60’ back and make LONG casts past the fish, but the benefit of being so clear is that some of the fish would come up from 10’ deep to crack the mooch minnow almost on the surface.  I considered putting a topwater on at that point, but decided not to.  

 

                                                                                                                                                                                   

 

I eventually found a nice isolated rock/brush pile that I didn’t see fish on, but there were smaller fish nearby (I think 3-4” perch).  I figured there should be something on it and sure enough there was.  This beautiful, fin perfect 3# smallie (just over 18”) was hiding in the clump and ambushing anything coming past.

 

 

I kept working my way around until I saw some much more significant fish on FFS.  The fish (there were 2) were about 15’ deep in 30’ of water, perfect suspending fish for a minnow.  It took a cast or two, but I managed to swing the minnow what must have been right onto the fish’s nose when it hit.  It wasn’t an aggressive hit, more like a whale that is just swimming along, opens its mouth to inhale some krill, and just keeps moving.  I felt it and set the hook.  That’s when the fish reacted.  I’ve not fought a fish like this in a while.  The 5# striper a couple weeks ago was similar- that fish had shoulders and attitude, but I could tell it was coming to the net after the first 30 seconds.  I had to work it, but I knew I had it.  This fish was a whole ‘nother ballgame.  It made a run for the open water, turned, and dug for the shallow brush.  It circled the boat twice.  I should note that I’m fishing a 6’9” ML spinning rod with 8# fluoro leader so a fish like this getting into that rabbit hunting thicket of cover would be a bad thing.  I eventually managed to get the leader knot to the waterline and saw a flash of the fish.  It didn’t like the boat so stripped off another 20 yards of drag.  It was touch and go for a while still but I eventually managed to slip the net under it.  For sure the biggest fish I’ve landed in a while.

 

 

 

 

What you were expecting a bass?  A 10# fish in NJ?  Get real. Yeah, this channel cat surprised me too.  Big clear mountain lake, suspended and cruising where it was.  I didn’t even know they were in here.  I need to get better at figuring out the size of the fish relative to the size on the screen.  I knew it was a good return on the screen, but returns can be finicky.  I watched a 15” largemouth earlier in the day that I could visibly see 20’ from the boat.  On the screen the return showed up tiny and light to the point you wouldn’t have thought it a fish if you didn’t see the actual fish.  It was most probably because it was swimming dead away from me.  Then some of the dinks I caught had beautiful hard returns that looked like panfish (I almost didn’t cast to them).  This channel wasn’t huge on screen, but was a solid dark return so I knew it was a good fish, but I was thinking 3# smallie not 30”, 10-08 channel cat.

 

As it happens, I caught another channel (about 8#) and after I knew what I was looking at I saw a few more.  That was a new one for me but they were fun on an otherwise slow night for bass so I’ll take it.  23# bag of 5 fish?  Sure why not….

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Hey, wanna hear about my twenty-pounders? 😉

 

Congrats on those big cats!

 

26 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

Hey, wanna hear about my twenty-pounders? 😉

 

Congrats on those big cats!

 

 

always!  Like my dad says, "Anything that stretches your string!"

5 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

 

always!  Like my dad says, "Anything that stretches your string!"

 

I caught this big girl on six-pound test while fishing for smallies. I'd already landed a 20-lb. bag of smallies (19", 19.75", 20.25", 20.75", and 21") when she hit my surface lure with such force that flew out of the water and landed on a rock. Then she flopped back into the water and came hard at our boat. Here's a 19" wilderness smallie to give you and idea of their girth and then the 43" pike, which the In-Fisherman length to weight chart lists at 20.52 pounds:

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting read and congratulations.
 

I thought I'd hooked a huge bass the other day, until I saw my line rolling. I didn't weigh him, but it was 5-6 pounds, on a Roostertail!

Not gonna lie.  I saw the title of the thread and knew you were in NJ.  Quickly scanned it for that new state record largemouth.  Fool me once...

 

I usually catch several Channel cats a year that I take home for dinner.  IMO they fight equal to a bass.

I was fishing my home lake few weeks back. There are some good LMB's and Pike in that lake.

 

Just before sunup I had a swirl and miss behind my buzz bait.

 

Dang, missed a Pike I thought...

 

Few minutes later a monster hit! And I was sure a Pike was on the line...

 

Nope, eleven pound cat

 

 

Great story cbf!!

 

I'm getting to where I can guess it is a catfish these days.  they have such a unique strategy to get free...

1 hour ago, Darth-Baiter said:

Great story cbf!!

 

I'm getting to where I can guess it is a catfish these days.  they have such a unique strategy to get free...

 

I was pretty sure it was based on how it was fighting.  After setting the hook and that first run I knew it wasn't a bass.  The other alternative is a lake trout.  There are a bunch of lakers and big trout in this lake.  The first flash of the fish I saw (15' deep) I saw a flash of white belly and a forked tail.  I thought for sure that's what it was on the first look.  I'd have never guessed catfish.

 

The other cool thing that I didn't mention was that I was on the phone with my dad the whole time.  When I go out, I'll send him a picture when I start fishing and of any notable fish.  He'll usually give it a little bit and call.  I've learned to take my airpods and I just keep fishing as we're talking.  I told him what I was doing (scoping around) so he got to hear me talking right through the "there's one, that cast is on him, there he is, oh man that's big" conversation.  I even called my shot on the bigger smallie- "there's an isolated pile.  Don't see one, but there should be one there.  There he is!".