I began the day by utilizing a beautiful morning to finish a significant field day on both the GMC and the Pro-V Bass. 

They did need it.  After choking down a quick lunch, the natural move at this point was to get that rig right back out on the water.

Launched onto local Lake Menderchuck a couple of hours before sunset. 

I was not alone.

While waiting for the pontoon patrol to head in for the night, I spent a while throwing a spinbait 80 around the end of a long point. 

Surface water temps were still right at 70, which is sort of warm for mid-September. 

Well, the little spybait got no love so it was time to break out the big guns; Rage Bug on swinghead. 

The local brown bass population has been gagging these things for me for a long time and this trip was no different. 

I fish it with the reel, use a stop-and-go retrieve, and hold on tight. 

I caught a few and dumped a couple I'd like another shot.  

Even finished the night off with a last cast topwater fish.

This is always a pleasant surprise. 

All in all, I had a nice time fishing in some very comfortable conditions. 

Fish Hard

A-Jay

 

Great video! Those are some healthy looking bass. They look pretty fat to me. I guess Gobi fish are just morbidly obese

 

I pretty much always have a spy bait tied on one of my rods and a swinghead (wobblehead) on another. I love the way they thump a wobblehead, and generally the fish seem better sized for me. All the fish you catch seem good sized but for me it helps weed out the dinks 

 

How is the durability of the rage bug? I mostly use a Zoom zcraw which is kind of soft. I can usually only get a few fish per bait. I have lots of bags of them but when I finish those off I might look for something less fragile. 

Awesome 

13 minutes ago, pdxfisher said:

Great video! Those are some healthy looking bass. They look pretty fat to me. I guess Gobi fish are just morbidly obese

How is the durability of the rage bug? I mostly use a Zoom zcraw which is kind of soft. I can usually only get a few fish per bait. I have lots of bags of them but when I finish those off I might look for something less fragile. 

Thanks ~

I do not consider durability as an important characteristic of ANY soft plastic bait.

I want bites.  If the bait gets 'used' - It's working!

Durable baits are awesome and last a long time  . . . . .

but the tradeoff comes in the number & size of fish landed.

Perhaps think of it this way, a brown bass has to be able to totally crush a crayfish in it's mouth to kill it before it goes down the hatch.  A rage bug is considerably less durable than a crayfish shell.

So I have to expect the bait to get trashed just about every time it's consumed by a decent fish. Duability for me means, does the bait survive repeated casts. 

After that, all bets are off. 

That said, I carry 'several' bags of Rage Bugs with me. 

As for goby fed fish - see if you can spot the difference.

These fish are close to the same length.

One weighs very close to 6lbs,  the other barely sneaks over 3lbs. 

A-Jay

 

31 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

I do not consider durability as an important characteristic of ANY soft plastic bait.

I want bites.  If the bait gets 'used' - It's working!

^^ THIS! ^^

Nice work! Do you think the water still being warmish at 70 is why you are just now getting into the smallies? I know you’ve gotten them earlier in past years. Also, I’m with you on soft plastic durability. That’s why all my worms are plastisol, I’m not paying extra for one they cut in half and it melts in the sun. 

13 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Nice work! Do you think the water still being warmish at 70 is why you are just now getting into the smallies? I know you’ve gotten them earlier in past years. 

Thank you very much. 

Cannot say why; maybe it's because I went fishing. 

Beyond that, I'm done trying to guess why I did or did not catch fish.

I'll just be happy when I do.

The entire 2025 fishing season has been very unusual in my mind. 

Hope it's a one off.

A-Jay

5 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

 

Cannot say why

An honest man! 
 

Truly none of us ever can, but we like to anyhow 

I just have to say wow at the shape of the goby fed fish.

 

I hear you about the plastic baits. I would not use a plastic bait I did not have confidence in. My thinking is that if I can have excellent performance and reasonable durability that's a win in my book.