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Over 27 pounds of Indiana largemouth. Caught them within 45 minutes of each other, all on a magnum rage bug, pitched dirt shallow.

1st trip out on a little electric only lake down an abominable dirt road the other day. Pretty good trip caught 6-7 this was the biggest

This was my second trip out this season. First one (two days ago) was a brief afternoon trip that was more of a shakedown cruise. I did ‘fish’, just didn’t catch. Well that changed today– Big Time. Got on the water just after Just after 7 AM. It was calm & cool to start. Both the water & the air temps were in the low 40’s with virtually no wind at all. Air temps warmed nicely, and thankfully the water did not. The morning started off a little slow. Despite the calmness, I was trying to force feed the local smallie population a jerkbait. Often touch & go. After a bit I had my first fish of the year. Very happy. Then a few more 'keeper size' came to the net. Although, I’ll admit, despite my stubbornness, I expected more. Then the wind came on; nice NW’erly breeze. And the bite was on . . . . and on . . . . . and on. Pretty much all day. Once I found a couple spots that held fish (and seem to be reloading), I’d bounce back & forth between the two. It was wide open a few times - back to back to back and more. Jerkbait & a drop shot did most of the damage though I did get a few smallies on a Rage bug & a Menace; both on a swing head. I ended up with quite a bit of video. I’m sifting through it and will post up ‘the best of’ once it’s done. No way I can put it all up – too much. I’m not a fish counter, but I may fish all season and not have a numbers & size day like I had today. Pretty crazy & totally killer. Best fish went 5.00 lbs on the nose. No doubt it seemed like a fairly looooooooong winter – but it's hard to say today was not worth it. A-Jay

Had our Thursday night tournament at the dreaded mudhole this week (which I love). The lake that I caught a 5.74 pounder at on Tuesday. @gardnerjigman had to bail on me to be a good son-in-law in install a sump pump for the impending monsoons that never happened (thanks weatherman!). My boat is still in the shop (I pick it up Monday), so I was in the tin can, by myself, with no gas motor, on a 5k acre lake, in 20mph winds, odds were not in my favor. So 5 minutes into it, I stick a 3.64 on a spinnerbait, which is enough to win on this lake at times, so that's a good start. 10 minutes later I miss and then catch a 1.19 on my next flip. 15 minutes later I add a 1.59, then I have a fish hit my bait 3 flips in a row but keeps pecking at it but not committing. A bedding fish for sure I think. So next flip I'm prepared and the instant I feel the bite I swing and a poor spawning male crappie flies out of the water over the boat. Untangle the mess, release the surely shaken fish. Next flip was much different as my line jumps immediately as it lands next to a tiny clump of dead water willows, slam the rod back and a big fish is just as quickly airborne into a bush, tailwalks to the boats, wraps the line around the end of the end of the dead hedge tree the boat was next to and proceeds to try just as frantically to relieve itself of the hook as I am to get the live loose from the tree. Thankfully, I was able to free the line and lip the fish, finding the hook had all but worked itself loose. Fish was about 100 yards down the bank from the 5.74 on Tuesday, in the same cove, same side of the cove, and went 5.80. Me thinks it was the same fish. I caught 2 more in the back of the cove to finish out my limit, and it wasn't even 7 yet, we launched at 6. I was flipping a YUM Bad Momma so I picked up a 1/2oz jig to see if I could pick up a bigger bite on the same little bank I'd just fished. Pulled my jig over a limb and got whacked. Fished charged to the boat, never really got caught up to it and when I tried to flip it into the boat it just popped off. I'll make a confession, I was 100% certain I'd won already at this point and everything from this point on was just icing on the cake, so I was fishing relaxed and really only trying to break my personal record for my best Thursday night weight, which was just a tenth of an ounce shy of 15 pounds, and I was already over 14. I ended up culling 3 more times with very slight culls, but putting myself over 15 up to 15.69 when what turned out to be disaster struck, I dropped my scale in the water, making it so it wouldn't turn back on so I couldn't weigh the last few fish I caught, which at least 1 or 2 of them would have helped, but like I said, I was positive I didn't need them. Get back to weigh in, feeling great, first boat to check in has 15.72 pounds, .04 pounds more than I had, all I could do was laugh and shake my head. I had a great night, caught a bunch of fish, set 2 personal records and 2 club records, but fell just short of the win because my scale got wet. Wouldn't have taken much to get that tiny little bit I needed. First video was from Tuesday, when I prefished and had just shy of 14 pounds. Then the tournament, I should have included the part where I hook myself in the leg with a spinnerbait but left it out for anyone that's squimish. You can tell I thought I had it in the bag.

Well you want fishing advice but I'm going to give you financial advice also. Spend $100 on gear and put the remaining $200 in a savings account . When you get another extra $300 dollars , do the same thing. Spend $100 on gear and save $200. Do this for the rest of your life and you will be a happy man !

Best fight of the day

So this is the first year I have a canoe to be able to fish out of and I’m lucky to be 5 minutes from one of the best small mouth areas good ole Lake Erie! So I went out todsy and omg it was s blast. Got tons of hawgs and even a surprised northern who almost took me in. New PB smallmouth at 5.1 pounds and for sure my Pb northern, round two for tomorrow .. hoping I get some luck like @A-Jay with the 8 pounders ha. So excited for this pre spawn. Also should add any pointers would be great. This is my first time ever fishing smallmouth like this. I been using lipless cranks and jerkbaits with luck so far. Around docks etc , 3-9 ft of water. It’s currently 55-57 degrees depending where I go.

These are the guys that are such a nuisance in a Lake St Clair smallmouth tourney but really fun to catch just fun fishing!! Beautiful Tiger muskie

We can find a man who doesn't want to be found, hiding underground under a rock, in the middle of desert, full of nothing but sand and rocks, but a giant animal/s that doesn't know it's being sought after, living who knows how close to humans for who knows how long, and there's never been any clear pictures? No bones? No positive proof? I guess some folks never stop believing in fairy tales.

These do it all for me. E6x 7’ MHF MBR Curado 200i Imx 7’ MHF MBR Chronarch ci4+ 150 Planning to get get into some more technique specific stuff of this quality. A swimbait, cranking, and finesse setup should complete it (said the bait monkey).

Tree Trimmer Shears, are you a landscaper cause I got a backyard that needs some work. Knitting Needles??? Knitting Needles??? My mind is reeling with thoughts of you knitting a tiny sweater for a bass.

Labbos is ready for her maiden voyage. The structure is in and the deck cut out. No hatches yet or covering, though I have painted the ply with polyester resin as it dries quickly and does a good job of waterproofing the wood. Tomorrow morning I'll give her a run and see how we're doing for weight distribution and general stability.

Figured I'd throw swimbaits for a while yesterday and had some pigs follow and dinks commit. Pretty surprised to see the little fella absolutely hammer the Slammer. After losing a Gan Craft AND Deps last week (serioulsy, same trip) I gave BlueBasser's Shine Glide a shot and have to admit I was pleasantly surprised with the action and draw power. First double on a Plopper and it was a spot/LM combo. Really cool if you ignore they're both under 12".

If big foot is a hoax then how do you explain this picture ! And no joking the thousand of reported sightings every year.

finally got back home to Indiana. 1st day fishing's 3lb. day. caught five of them 3 lb. ,one 1.5, one 2 , three dinks, and one 4.5 feels good to be home!

Took a day off and headed to the lake. Caught 11 total. One n a War Eagle spinner bait and the rest on a 3/8oz. Z-Man chatterbait. They were crushing the chatterbait all day. Used a pumpkin w/ green flake Chigger Craw as a trailer.

4lb 20", 1/8 jighead,2.8" paddletail, 7' M/F Smoke rod, Daiwa SV105, 16# sniper.

Are Binoculars the new smallie spotters? Bet he catches more bass than you!

Regardless of the species, all individuals require a supporting population. So even if they are rare, where there is one there are others. I still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, but not so much in Big Foot.

Well, Six Mile Creek is muddy now after I drug a 1oz Carolina rig up and down it for a few days. Not a lot of catching. Managed a few keepers per trip morning and afternoon. Most keepers were near or on the main lake stuff I fished. I was excited to see some grass making a comeback. I found the fish to be everywhere but no where in particular. Never found a good group. Caught fish on spinnerbait, frog, worm, ole monster,brush hog,swim jig, jig, crank bait, senko, top water but not a lot on any one in particular. Tough trip, not much of a report, but good to get back up there.

My first siebert jigs purchase ....no complaints about the price , 4.10 a piece fo tungsten jigs hand wire tied. Probably going to order more if I like them .

I know, crappy picture. I took it earlier and what ever. It's a Curado K lol how bad can it be. Just picked this up for the Delta, 50lb braid.

Just back in from the test run. All went very well. The boat was stable enough, balanced fine and planed out easily. A great success. I can get on with building the hatches and putting in seats etc now knowing I'm not completely wasting my time! First boat trip for the black dog too. Petrified at first, but quite enjoyed it in the end.

Dipped my toe into the Diawa pool. Brent makes a sweet drop shot rig. A-Jay

It's Official ~ A-Jay

yeah, isn't that just perfect? It seems Kentucky Lake, but not Grand, was the event to pick Christie and Evers, while Grand, but not Kentucky, was the event to pick KVD.

Sounds suspiciously like my uncle Earle. Was he smoking Lucky Strikes and gumbling about politicians and the government? Those reflective eyes are cataracts. He's had them all his life. Might also be my aunt Bertha, Uncle Earle's wife. She also complains about the government but smokes Camels unfiltered.

Odds are those bluegill are spawning a couple of times per year on their own and adding more small bluegill will likely just lead to more big bluegill. Best bet may be harvesting a legal amount of bluegill each time you go and having some fish fries.

Since we were discussing the old Charlie Brewer slider in another thread earlier today, I decided to tie one on tonight and get an hour or two of "Do Nothing" in after dinner. Thirty fish later, the old slider worm still works as well as ever. This one sure didn't hurt my feelings any ?

Schools out and fishing's on! Planned ahead and planned a splake fishing pier trip for this morning's downpour. You can pretty much only catch them if its raining/windy/stormy in the short amount of time after ice out before the water warms up. Sunny days = no fish. It's a less than 2 week window after ice-out to catch them from shore. In the few short hours that it poured, I had a pretty good time. Countless hits, follows, and hook ups. As aggressive as these fish are, it's often difficult to get one in the net. I used everything from husky jerks, spoons, swimbaits, and dead smelt under a bobber. Was close on a couple occasions, but just couldn't quite connect. Then I helped net a guy's 9 lb splake. Literally 9 lbs!!! We weighed it on his hand scale. This opened my eyes a little. Insead of having the dead smelt sit 6 feet under a bobber, he had a bobber setup, but didn't have a bobber stop on, so his dead-bait would just be laying on bottom. This makes sense becuase splake are very opportunistic with their feeding habits. Before I could make the switch on my setups, the guy hooks up on another one! I help him land a 4 lb brute and quickly rig my smelt for the bottom. 5 minutes later and one of my rods gets hammered. I pick it up and set the hook, but the fish pops off right away. When they feel the hooks, they instantly spit the bait out so you have to be quick. 1 hour later and I see my bobber/indicator swimming in circles on the surface going crazy. I run over and slam the hooks. This time the fish stays on. A guy helps net the 5.25 lb beast just as the trebles pop out. Probably my most beautiful splake yet. Life is Good.

Today was... expensive!

Hey y'all smallmouth nuts maybe you already heard about this fish but I wanted to share it with you. I've caught a LOT of 5-6lb smallmouth bass in my day and even a 7 which was my personal best. But this fish was in a while other league. Eyes bulging the body just kept on going and the tail looked like a dang sail. Here are the pictures I hope you enjoy them as much as I do every single day lol. Thing had the mouth the size of a 7lb largemouth

Never gets old! YUM 4 incher TX rigged did the trick.

Some pieces are injection molded, others are made from prepregs. Not all parts can be injection molded, because the cost would be outrageous, or the shape just isn't feasible. As far as rigidity and longevity, it all depends on the materials being used and the percentages of each respective material. Lower cost reels likely use powdered graphite, or at the most, maybe 20% of chopped graphite. They have around 60% e-glass, and the rest is polyurethane. They will have more of plastic feel and may have some flex, with a tensile strength around 20-30ksi. If you up that percentage to 50% graphite-reinforced compound, it will display a similar tensile strength to 7057-T6 aluminum, which is 80-85ksi. The zaion/ci4 compounds are likely on the higher end of the graphite scale. I wish we could get more information, but I know they want to hide their proprietary information to keep other companies from copying.

Get yourself a descent Rod & reel combo. Dobyns Fury FR703C and Daiwa Tatula CT reel. Tom

Music Roll ?

KVD is the only one . LOL . This sport is crazy .

I own both. Both are fantastic reels. I like the way the Metanium fits in my hand a bit better than the Chronarch, but I feel like the gap in performance between the two is so miniscule that it really comes down to personal preference.

Powell Max3d 775 Shimano Curado I 7:3 25lb sunline sniper main line 16lb sunline sniper leader 1 oz egg weight 2.5' leader Offset hook(this is the biggest key) Baits vary from a baby brush hog, big worm, lizards, and missle destroyers

It's a graphite-based material, just like zaion. There are numerous different ratios of resin:graphite, plus other materials, it could consist of. For people that think graphite is weak, I use it everyday to build airplanes that will take on FAR greater loads than a fishing reel could even dream of, and it holds up without fail. It's all about how it's implemented.

6" bass that weighs a pound . You're definitely a bass fisherman !

I was a boat captain for a high school team fishing the albc state championship yesyerday. We fished Thursday and Friday. Caught well over 300 fish Thursday, about half bass and half barfish. Got on a mega school and caught a fish every drop for 3 hours. Left when the 2 boys got tired of taking fish off the hook lol. We tripled probably 50 times. We then went searching for big ones for yesterday and found 4 spots that we caught 4-5lb fish on. Tournament day we started on a shad spawn, but the shad didn't show up. Left and went to our first big fish spot. The two boys caught a couple 3s, a 7.28, and a 5. Went and hit our other spots and lost another over 5 and caught alot of 2-3lbers. We probably caught 75 fish yesterday and went to weigh in. I knew we had a good bag but didn't want to get my boys too excited. They had never weighed more than 1 fish in a tournament before lol. They weighed in 28.93lbs and won the state championship. They both broke their personal best and had a blast. Number came from 15-25' on Carolina rig and size came in 4-7' on jigs and Carolina rigs.

Oh, they're real and they're spectacular.

April was a bust, zero fish. I finally got into a few on Wed. and got my first 5lb.+ largemouth tonight. I threatened Mother Nature earlier in the week and that worked, so I decided to carry my trusty Glock19 in case that skunk showed its face. Dang, it feels good finally do some catching.

another trip this morning yielded 23 spots, including this 3 pounder, caught by my cousin.....again. i hate his guts. ?

Dink city gave up a major non-dink this morning. Super shallow wood. Only had an hour to fish, so fished from the banks. Going to take out the yak there this evening and see if I can coax out another decent bite from one of the dozens of laydowns lining the shoreline.

My first trip and first fish of the year, and first fish caught on my homemade jig (if you call designing your own skirts and puting them on prepainted bought jigs homemade). Caught these guys off beds. Just pitching to bed looking spots a few feet back from the shoreline... Kind of fishing blind, but reading the shoreline. Not bad for a 1 and a half hours of fishing.

Hard to tell for certain, but the hooks look like short shank EWGs already. They would be better than round bend for coming through cover, but might also be worse for popping free of cover once snagged. You could go smaller, but you risk missing some fish if you go too small. Crankbaits coming through cover has a lot to do with design of the bait, and it might simply be a poor design for heavy brush. Might have to use a different bait in specific cover instances. Also, the bait only runs 5' deep. How do you lose half a dozen baits in this case? Are you simply throwing it into areas where you can't get a boat to it to retrieve when hung?