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Stopped by what I call the "smallmouth crankin' spot" this afternoon, it usually holds a pretty good school of aggressive fish. Was hammering them, a fish on every cast, and then as I was retrieving my bait on my fourth cast, I felt my feet starting to slip. The slab of concrete I was standing on had some goopy algae stuff on it even though it wasn't submerged. As my feet start to slip, my brain goes into slow motion and I try to plan my crash landing, as this is happening I feel a thump and set the hook, then I'm in the water chest deep trying to get back up on the slab of concrete. Whaddaya know, my first twofer!

Lake Kissimmee on White Terminator Spinner Bait silver and gold willow blades, white twin tail grub trailer. 7 lbs according to the scale. She was released right after. I do hope I see her again on a Tournament day.. like this Saturday would be just great!

It's very unlikely you're the reason that fish has gotten skinnier. Bass have no problems finding food in water so muddy they can't see the end of their noses or in the pitch black of night. In those conditions they rely heavily on finding food through vibrations using their lateral line. If a fish's eye is injured, they'll switch to using their lateral line as their main way to find food. I've seen fish that were blind in both eyes and still feeding effectively. It's summertime, fish get skinny this time of year. Most likely it's a female that you caught prior to the spawn when she was still fat with eggs. 21" and 4.5 pounds is a little light but nothing crazy.

Speaking of big fish.... this thing put up one heckuva fight. I have never caught a fish this big before. Didn't even know a cat like this existed in the small lake I fished. The NRX handled it very nicely. Hooked in the lip with one treble, on 14 lb line. Didn't even bend the hooks out!

If the label says Vanish, its all a bad batch.

July 13, 2015 YYYYEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! 21 & 1/4" - 4lb 12oz WolfyBrandon

21", dragging a jig in 20FOW. Fun stuff.

Why would you want to take the "uneducated", fish out of a lake and how do you tell the difference?? If it wasn't for the dumb ones I might not ever catch anything. Most limits are put into place under the assumption that only a certain portion of anglers will catch and keep fish, so if everyone did it every time I'm assuming you're going to see a reduction in the fish population.

One of the lakes I fish has this sign posted: I caught this one at that lake Sunday:

First & Worst - Everyone would post up their avatars sideways! After that, the end of the world would be upon us.

Had a decent day numbers wise, still can not keep a big fish stuck this year for some reason, unless it has whiskers of course

Looks like you've got a new place to fish for crappie tho hahaha

That's a little bogus ~ And I thought you were going to tell us you got it on a Drop Sh@T rig . . . . A-Jay

Probaply somebody's weave fell out...

Not to worry, none us can catch a limit every time out! Tom

it would be bad, i would much rather catch them than eat them (i let them all go.. even crappies ). i usually go catch a bunch of fish and stop on the way home and get an Italian beef and fries.

Feeling a worm/jig bite requires keeping a certain amount of tension on your line while at the same time keeping a certain amount of slackness in your line. To the average angler this makes no sense at all but to the experienced worm/jig angler it makes total sense.

Good food, expensive liquor, and cheap women.

During the mid-summer period, the drop shot is an important & effective part of my arsenal and I use it quite a bit. A 10 lb braid main line & a 6 lb mono leader have been the standard for the past three or four seasons. Allows for long casts, (a must in the very clear water), great bite detection & solid hook ups from a distance, especially with a small Tex-posed presentation. I consider this set-up as fool proof & reliable as any technique I fish. A-Jay

Dayum. I hope you don't get to meet the Cardiologist Monkey.

Couple of solid fish from yesterday: Nothing better than seeing a bass explode on a top-water in a thick sea of lily pads!

Did you take that fish? What else are you catching in this lake? As for me, if we all had to keep our limit, every time we fish, I would stop fishing. I don't like to eat fish. I fish for fun, not for food. But I wouldn't take out a bass unless I planned on eating it. Maybe one day I'll develop a taste for smaller fish fillets, and maybe one day I'll develop a taste for game and start hunting, but today is not that day.

Im interested to see how they are, but I thought you would have picked these as beaters

If everybody who fished took their legal limit, limits would drop to 2 or 3 with a min size. But it could be good for size. DNR's don't necessarily want a trophy lake with few small fish. To keep the most people fishing, you need a mix of dinks and bigger fish.

12.8#

By Mudcat, I'm assuming you mean flathead, which in that case I used to target them with cranks on occasion with a Storm Deep Lightning shad grinding it through riprap during spawning season. Never caught any big ones, but a bunch up to 17 pounds. Catfish in general, there aren't many trips once the water gets above 60 that I don't catch a catfish. There is no bait that is surprising for them to eat, they're very predatory just like a bass. They'll hammer a crank, spinnerbait, trap, jig, worm, but the best are topwater cats, they put a bass blowup to shame. I've caught channels over 10 pounds on buzzbaits and on a frog in the slop. My bladed jigs are catfish magnets. I had a day last fall I caught 13 channel cats in a day on them, at one point I'd caught 4 on back to back to back to back cast. If you really want to catch some catfish on lures buy some Gulp plastics. Here's one that destroyed my bladed jig over some milfoil last week and really had my hopes up for just a second. Catfish on lures is nothing out of the ordinary. 14lb on a Baby Brush Hog under a dock My wife catches a ton of channels on a Ned rig. 21lb on a power minnow and 4lb test. 40lb on a homemade casting jig another Ned rig channel 12lb on a Craw Fatty 14lb on a homemade casting jig piebald blue on a Gulp minnow 23lb on a homemade finesse jig Homemade finesse and a pretty typical flathead that I catch lots of each year. Slab Spoon jigging spoon Ned rig flathead bladed jig fattie 8lb flathead on a brush jig I don't even take pictures of most catfish I catch on lures

If I didn't fish in the wind I'd never get to fish

Great post and story. We all have our stories of fish we wish would have hooked differently. Just last week I caught a nice four pounder fishing a pond. I was not paying attention and got a late hook set on my plastic worm. The fish had the 4 aught hook all the way down and was bleeding profusely. I put the fish in a cooler with some ice added to the water in hopes of stopping the bleeding. The fish lived only a few more minutes. I felt bad for the fish, but felt worse knowing this fish was never gonna grow to be a lunker to be caught by me or someone else. However,the fish was quite tasty that evening with some fries, cole slaw, and tartar sauce. My son and I talked about the fact that had we not been talking I would have gotten a good hook set and we would be eating something like spaghetti or pork chops for dinner. I think catch and release instills in all of us a healthy respect for our wary adversary. I'm never gonna cry over a fish, but I do feel a tinge of disappointment when a fish is injured or killed in the battle, especially one that has beaten the odds and grown to over four pounds.

I will say what I always say to threads like this: It is a sign of humane virtue to be disturbed when confronted with the fact that your angling activities have harmed a fish. Congratulate yourself for your ethical sensitivity, and consider making a donation of some of your time, influence, or money to a conservation effort or fund. Compensate for what you've taken by giving back.

My target (starting) depth when fishing Toledo Bend is 15' plus or minus 3' or 12-18', this puts me on the outside weed line. I'll throw a wacky rigged Trick worm at that depth, so I'm keenly aware of your problem feeling a 1/8 oz. I'm completely comfortable with Berkley Big Game, my strike to hookup ratio is in the high 90 percentile range. A-Jay is completely comfortable with braid, & I'm quite sure his hookup ratio is similar. What A-Jay describes he feels with braid I feel with mono because I've been throwing t-rigs for 50 yrs & the bulk of that at night. If you aint feeling your lure with fluoro, ya might wanna change to braid. To me "sensitivity" is wholly dependent on who is interrupting what's being felt!

Been a slow year for size this one was 6 & change.

I'm not very keen on fish anatomy, but I think I hooked a bluegill through the brain one time. I hooked him through the eye and it took me a while to get the hook out. Put him back in the water and he just swam around in circles for a few minutes and just floated to the top. I felt bad, but if I were super worried about the fish I wouldn't be fishing. I respect them, and I don't want them to die because of a foul hook, but you can't help it. I do my best to keep the fish I catch alive. Most of the time I don't even bother with taking pictures unless it's one of the bigger ones I've caught, I just try to get them back in the water as fast as possible.

Best bass is still my first fish of the year, from back in early May: a little over 4lb (best estimate, given the reliability of my old scale)

Well i went and looked at rods and bought a zodias

Not my most productive, but I always throw top-water early morning and evening during the summer. My favorite summer bait is a Culprit 10" ribbon-tail worm.

I have caught 4 channel cats from 10-17 lbs on jerk baits. Always catches me by surprise.

So Sad ~ What about The Get Well Soon Balloon Monkey ? A-Jay

I spend the vast majority of my bass fishing on smaller lakes. Love getting off the beaten path. And the predictable decent fishing just add to what is always a special trip. A-Jay

Mattlures Ultimate bluegill 17 pounds 2 oz

Hair jig w/pork trailer....19.3 lbs. Tom

4.73lb

You and I are still waiting on that 8-8 brown fish. When it happens you will be able to hear me yelling the whole way down in N Carolina.

Ok, ok... There's a particular spot where I've been bit before and the general area has given up a few good fish. It's a shallow shelf in about 4 FOW, steps down to ~11FOW with access to 22 FOW within 15 yards. There is sparse vegetation, about a 8" diameter log and good sized chunk rock all in the same location. I made a long cast, parallel to the 11' step and bumped the bait back to me. It hung on the log, popped it free. It hung up in weeds, popped it free. I crawled it almost the whole way back to the boat and popped free of the last patch of weeds. The fish ate the bait about a rod length away from the boat. My buddy was quick with the net and landed her pretty easily. She had both the jig hook and stinger stuck in the roof of the mouth. 76 degree water Low Down Custom Production XH Daiwa Lexa w/ Hawgtech 102mm and Winn knobs 20lb cxx Sheetz MTO ham sub Walmart bottled water Green underwear (I think) Beard That should cover it.

Rapala Shad Rap size 7 color Shad ( SR7SD ) 13.86 lbs

We see these threads all the time here - and I mean all the time. It seems like it's just the way it is now - there are a lot of people on the water and there's bound to be at least some occasions when anglers are a little closer than some would like. I fish in a place that is sparsely populated and rarely ever have anyone fishing the same lake as I do so I do not deal with this. Since Turnabout is usually considered fair play - I have an idea . . . . . What if every time another boat / angler comes too close or infringes on your water, you simply stop fishing, and go right over to the boat. And I mean right up to it. Slap on a Big Smile and start shooting the breeze about the fishing . . . . . And don't leave until he does. If you fish the same waters all the time and you do this enough - eventually you'll get the reputation as "The guy who comes over to all the boats he see's and won't shut up " People will no doubt Avoid You in the Future. Big Win right there. A-Jay

A nice 3.3 lb fish. Hopefully get some bigger fish, but my size of caught fish has gone up tremendously since last year so I can't complain. Finally seeing some improvement in my fishing! Keep those lines tight gentlemen.

My 2 for the year

The year started off great (Feb) with a 7.25lber leading the charge before falling dead on it's face sort of speak for me. It's been a struggle ever since.