I’m suffering from the summer doldrums also. I catch fish until 8am then nothing. I’ve got a tourney Saturday. What would y’all throw after 8:00?

C4 ! 

Squarebill. If it's overcast, top water. Sunny, deep diver or bottom bait.

I hate to give you advice after my last go around. I think if I said anything, it would be to slow down. Fish warm water like you would cold water. 

Fished the goons on sunday. Pretty dead. Got 1 bite yoyoing black chatterbait in deepnwater, but no hook up and connected with 1 fishing dragging jig and craw over timber. 

On 7/20/2020 at 8:27 PM, Mat_ski said:

Fished the goons on sunday. Pretty dead. Got 1 bite yoyoing black chatterbait in deepnwater, but no hook up and connected with 1 fishing dragging jig and craw over timber. 

Are you fishing from shore or a yak? Haven't fished the goons in many years

17 minutes ago, slonezp said:

Are you fishing from shore or a yak? Haven't fished the goons in many years

Most often the yak, but sometimes I detour after work for a shore quicky. Tough fishery but they all are around here. 

Another brutal day on the Fox Chain. Water in the 80's and the wakeboarders were out early today. Caught a short bass on a frog at the first stop of the day which would be the only fish of the day. Got bit off by a pike and lost a good smallie at the boat. 3 bites in 5 hours.

bass are biting good up in northern Wisconsin.  haven't bothered to fish around here lately.

Even the retention ponds near me have slowed down lately. Now that the temps are in the seventies instead of the eighties hopefully things will pick up!

RIght outside of Carbondale.   Anyone up for meeting up somewhere around here?  I also need some help learning how to use a baitcaster - iI have a spinning setup I can use decently.   Kind of new to it after a 40 year break lol.

Scenario: small lake, water temps low eighties, coontail and pads. Shallow end one to two degrees cooler than main lake. I’m only catching dinks on shallow end and very few to none on the main lake. Where should I fish for big ones? Shallow or deep?

 

13 minutes ago, Tracker22 said:

Shallow or deep?

Anything that looks like it funnels one to the other

Fished the kids lake this morning 5:30-9:00. Water temp 78*. Horrible algae bloom. Fluorescent blue and green film almost across the entire lake. Went 12 for 24 nice healthy fish. All but 2 were in the 2 to 3-1/2 pound range.

Braidwood water temps were 91 at the cold launch and 99 at the hot launch on Saturday morning.  Are they really starting tournaments there next weekend?  Wish the DNR would implement mandatory kayak-style tournament rules.  

 

Caught a bunch of small bass on plastics and swimbaits.  Had a 5ish lb catfish get me excited till I saw it at the boat.  Beautiful morning to be out on the water.  

Visiting my family for the long weekend. I'm a bank fisherman and looking for recommendations for lakes/rivers to fish for LMB or SMB. My folks live in Glenview, IL. Anything around 30-40 min radius would be nice.

Beck, Busse, Sterling, Independence Grove, Skokie Lagoons

Sterling is nothing but dinks. I heard that there was a big kill off due to the village idiots over poisoning the lake a few years ago.

Fished Newton this past weekend.

 

Water temps were 80-81 on the cold water side and 83 midway up the warm water side.  Great clarity.  

 

Fishing was slow overall.  Kept trying to get a deep water bite going but it didn't work for us.  Best fishing was the first 30-45 minutes after sunrise which is when we caught our biggest fish and had the most action.  Best fish was a 20"er caught on a main lake point.  Lost a hog throwing a finesse rig on a woody shoreline.  She broke me off in some wood.  It felt well over 5 lbs.  

One from a clear lake out on the burbs. Glide bait is on fire right now.

Very nice!

This bait is getting CHEWED out here.

3 hours ago, Skunked again said:

Very nice!

Thanks! Savage Gear Shine Glide has been so productive at this spot the last three weeks or so--gonna have to post the pics separately it seems, I can't shrink them enough to get more than one in a single post.

The Lund is for sale

 

Hit up Braidwood this past Saturday and it was tough with the big cold front and high pressure front.  I am happy with my day.  Caught a chunky 16”er and several others in the 14” range pitching weeds in the shadows.  Did not see a lot of other fish caught.  You can catch little guys there all day with finesse.  

Frog bite is still on up northern IL. Water at this spot is COLD now, so I wasn't sure. Glide bite has slowed over the past ten days or so, thinking it's time to start sending the softbaits. HUDD TIME!

Dinks were eating the jig overnight, couldn't find anything big.