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Went out river fishing in my kayak today and caught this 18” beauty!

Only one good bass bite this weekend, but it was one of my favorite ways to get them. The shad are spawning and the big girls are just getting done spawning and are hungry. A Savage Gear Shine Glide off a dock corner brought this one screaming out and hit it so hard going away from me that I couldn't even set the hook, just cranked like crazy.

My wife and I spent 3 days at Table Rock Lake last week. We caught over 60 bass in 10 - 25 feet of water on gravel points and gravel spawning banks, but nothing huge to speak of. I saw some beds but all were empty, which was kind of surprising with the full moon and surface water temperatures ranging from 58.5 to 62 degrees. I caught a 19 inch largemouth that weighed in at 4 lbs even. My wife had the biggest smallie at 2 lbs 11 oz.

Whacked a bunch of dinks today on the jig, not much to brag about, but it sure was a good time ?!

It was warm out this week, but I didn't think it was warm enough to play in the water, Finn didn't agree with me.

spinning rod with 8lb mono

another nice evening here in southern Indiana. went out for about 3 hours, caught 16 mostly 1 to 2 lb range, only one worthy of showing you monster slayers.she fought nicely.

Enjoyed an excellent afternoon of sun & fun today. Waters are warming fast but the Jerkbait is still a major player for me. A-Jay

Down sizing ? A-Jay

My buddy and I had a great day on the water Sunday. Could have done without the rain mid day, but we expected it and decide we needed to fish anyway. Between the two of us we put 30 bass in the boat. Handful of dinks and the rest 1-2lb males that were buried up in cover on the banks, right where they should be. Didn't ever hook into any big girls, but we definitely saw some. Saw one that was 4-5lbs cruising on a shallow flat. Saw several other BIG females rolling and crashing on bait on a super steep drop-off bank that drops straight into the channel and 35FOW. 2 were easily 5-6lbs, saw one other that was 8-9+. But couldn't get any interest from them on any of the bluegill or shad colored baits we were throwing. Biggest for me was a 2.5ish that came on a spinner bait in the middle of the first rain storm. We had been running moving baits and spinners and a few top waters early then I decided to slow down and get way shallow with slow presentations. Wacky rigged senko got most of my bites prior to the rain. Got two on the spinner bait while it was raining, but after the rain stopped I fished it off and on the rest of the day and got one other hit which didn't get hooked. The rest of the day was weightless worms and a few on Keitech swim baits.

Nothing . One of the things I do that most anglers dont is hold a casting rod in front of the reel then gently squeeze the line between my index finger and thumb . Been doing this since I was a kid , jigging crappie jigs along river banks with zebco 202's .

Was it the weather change? Maybe. I had higher expectations for the 7th of May, thought the smallies would be more active. What the 5 medium sized smallies ate were baits dragged along the bottom. The first took a TX rigged Hula Grub and the rest picked up a Ned rig, (3/32 oz. mushroom head with Z-Man Finesse TRD). Pics of 3 of the 5 that made up the slightly under 12 lb. limit:

WolfyBrandon

Bigfoot is the hide and seek champion.

4# spot fought like she thought she was closer to 10...

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

Had my Pixy open last night to swap out the pinion and main gear, as well as, clean & lube the spool bearings. I've been servicing my reels for longer than I can accurately recall and have not lost a bearing retainer spring... until last night! I heard it ricochet off several walls and the ceiling into a dark corner to my right. Somewhere in that dusty space behind the door where I pile a few empty boxes, lean a couple dozen unused rods and hang my waders. A muffled primal scream echoed through the house as I grabbed a nearby flashlight and began to fight my way through the layers of accumulated dust under and around everything. After several minutes of combing through the carpet pile with my fingers I sat back in my chair and tried to choke back the growing swell of tears, partly from disappointment mostly from anger at myself. Oh Lord no... in walks my wife of 40+ years to see what I'd done now and most certainly remind me I should have been more careful -- AGAIN! Yep, I've got to explain the entire excruciating ordeal. With THAT look of superiority radiating from her face (again), she asks if I would like her to look. Of course I said there's no chance in hell of finding that tiny piece of wire, but she closed the door revealing the mess behind it, look intently into the shadows for 3 or 4 seconds, bent over to retrieve something she'd spotted and nonchalantly handed me the missing spring asking "Is this what you're looking for?". I'm here to publicly express... I LOVE MY WIFE! oe

I got the new model Shimano Engetsu 101HG. This is a JDM Curado 70 that is on steroids! Micromodular brass gears, clicking drag, 102mm handle with oversized knobs.

You should have long armed them.

I blame all ya'll JDM, BFS, "I'm gonna use a bait caster come hell or high water" guys for this. Spinning with light mono or braid and a leader is the correct answer here.

Doesn't look like a Northen bite, could be a prop scar.

Baitmonkey made me get it.

Had a tournament on Brookville last Sunday, prefishing on Saturday went well but there was 2 tournaments on both Saturday and Sunday, and the fish just didn't hold up to that much pressure. I expected bedding smallmouth given water temperature in the mid to low 60s, but we didn't find a single bed and all of our fish were still prespawn. We put together a very predictable pattern of running steep dropping, mainlake areas on the lower end where the channel swung in close to the shore with large rock bottom transitioning into gravel, throwing keitech 2.8s, deep jerks, and neds in 8-20 feet. Caught several limits of smallmouth prefishing, as did most people that day. Come Sunday morning, we launched as boat #126 out of 129 boats, and just barely squeaked together 2 keepers (one was luck, we saw a group of herrons on the shore and figured they had a shad school, and it turns out they did and some smallies in pursuit). Had 3 fish less than a 1/4 inch short, one literally a hair breadth short, but that's how it goes. The fish shut down and pulled off of the shoreline for the most part, some suspending and some on the bottom. Ended up in 22nd out of 129 boats, only about 30 boats weighed fish with the winning bag weighing 12.8 pounds, caught flipping largemouth in the backs of coves. The other local tournament going on Sunday only had 6 boats out of 30 weigh fish, dunno what the winning bag was. came out with a decent finish, but was a bit disappointed for a day that we expected to be culling some good smallies instead of only 2 keepers. Can't seem to shake sitting at the roughly 20% mark, guess we're consistent though lol.

Got out on the boat for the first time this year and had a great day on a lake where we commonly get skunked. The two nicest fish of the day were a 3 1/2 lb largemouth and a little tiger Muskie! Largemouth was caught on a jig, the Muskie was caught on a senko of all things.

First Whopper Plopper Bass of the season for me. Sent pic to a buddy, who said “That little guy is fighting outside his weight class.”

I got 30 LMB in the Everglades yesterday, but none of them were as big as this 3-plus I nailed tonight after dinner from the bank just a mile from home. I caught half the fish yesterday and this one today on the Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Worm -- my new best friend.

Was rigging up the night before i took my kayak out and put a strike king rage swimmer on my chatterbait and it just looked too nice for me to wait. so since i live a block away from a pond i decided to use it. this was 4 and change, biggest of the year for me. too bad it wasnt a sign of things to come. i pretty much sucked it up on my kayak for the next two days.

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.

How is it we have the technology to send automated remote control submarines thousands of feet below the ocean surface to discover new microscopic organisms smaller than the tip of a ballpoint pen, but with modern technology we can't get solid evidence of an 8 foot tall gorilla man which lives in the forests of America ? Just some food for thought

Are you doubting my paper? ? It was a real assignment! Lol. Well it was an odd topic for English class, professor told us to pick some obscure topic and give our opinion on it. I actually did a very elaborate job on it, going all the way back to old Celtic legends. She was expecting an answer in the end as to whether I thought it was real or not... I left it open for the reader to decide because I didn't feel strongly enough either way. I doubt it's real though... but it was a fun topic all the same.

Fred Young's hand carved balsa Big O was the original as I recall. Young's Big O were sold in egg creates and selling for unbelievable prices before Cotton Cordell made the plastic version. I still a few Bagley original square bills and Fred Youngs Big O's. Tom

You can never underestimate the stupidly of the next man.

SON ! Good job Roland. Er , uh,, Lonnie.

Well guys....I had another hour to waste away before work. So why not try Byrd Park again since I did see some pretty good size fish swimming around last Thursday. Pitched a lipless crankbait 1st this time in some of the clearer water without so much gunk. The wind had blew all the pollen and slime to the corner pockets of the lake. After about 30 minutes.....nothing! Switched out to my Z-Man Candy Craw chatterbait with candy trailer and walked to other side of lake scanning with my glasses. Saw a whole bunch of bluegill beds, so I tossed the Z-Man about 15 yards passed the beds and this baby just crushed it......sorry I couldn't get a better picture (I fish by myself mostly) and didn't measure, but probably around 20 inches

Went on out Saturday I got a hit went to set the hook and my line snapped brand new Spiderwire Ultracast Invisi-Braid Superline 125-Yard/15-Pound had a 1/16 bullet weight and a Gamakatsu 2/0 offset shank worm EWG and worm lost because the line failed, I have some rubbish stock line that came with my Walmart Combo rod and reel called a Booyah 3000 ain't even really anything online about it but so far it's caught me all of my Bass. And I've yet to pop my line fact I've snagged into Lily pads and managed to push through without snapping the line Bass below is what I caught on that Booyah rod and reel. I'm not sure if the maker of Spiderwire will replace my line or if I'm just gonna have to cut my lose on $15 line and never buy another Spiderwire product again. Gonna call them today and talk to them, about it. I've lost two Bass because of this line snapping and I've lost tackle... Good thing I brought my Booyah reel that day. Anyways this is the Bass I caught on Sunday, Saturday was a bad day my only fish I would've caught I lost because the line snapped. For the size of this man made lake I think it's a decent size.

Most tackle stores that sell and spool bulk line have recycle bins available, check with your local store. Tom

Big, we are sitting ducks for those who wish to do us harm or steal our equipment. Ramp encounters can go very bad and as you know, a small number of bass guys have been injured or killed at the ramp. Sometimes on the water you will have an encounter with an angry or frustrated boater who want to challenge you; disturb your fishing; or chase you away from a specific spot. And you never know their mental attitude and if they need mental health help. The weapon is for security. There is no reason to show it other than to let the threat know you have some powerful backup. In all my years fishing I have seen one altercation. Two guys got confused on the Nottoway River regarding the "No Wake Zone" signs, which pepper the river. Instead of slowing down in the "No Wake Zones" they went fast and in the areas that you could go faster they slowed down. They had it backwards. A friend yelled at them to slow down and the guys came back and challenged my friend who was fishing the bank in one of the "No Wake Zones." The two guys running the river were very angry about being told to slow down. At the ramp after the tournament, the two guys in the boat running fast through the "No Wake Zones" approached my friend and wanted to fight. My bass club guys all chimed in that the two guys were running the river backwards and the signs made using the river confusing. No fight, but the two guys never figured it out. They took their boat and left. To this day I doubt they understood they were confused, as many of us can get on the Nottoway River, and had the "No Wake Zones" backwards. So what would have happened if the rest of the club members were not there and it was my friend and these two angry men? My friend would have gotten beat up and the two guys could have damaged his boat and stolen some of his equipment. There are situations where having a weapon for self defense is to your advantage. You have to know the rules of engagement; be licensed to carry; have a concealed carry permit; and never point the weapon at anyone unless you are ready to use it. At this time, I have never encountered a situation where I needed the weapon. But if I do, at least I have an equalizer to help me avoid problems.

Do y'all smoke peyote? Bones..Where are the bones ? We know of thousands of creatures that existed but aren't alive today. From bones and evidence left behind in things like Amber or rock... All the dinosaurs we know of... Bugs, birds and other animals that we know of but don't exist today and haven't for HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of years !?!?! Where are the bones ?!? NOT ONE BODY ? I'd rather discuss ghosts.

lucky slippers. best day of the year so far. got 9 in a couple hours. most on a denny brauer pp jig with yum christie craw. rest on res 2tap natural bream. biggest was only 2.5# but some big bellies and good fights.

A nice calm day on the bay with the boy, can’t ask for much more than that.

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

Today was... expensive!

Got my acadamy order, with the plopper sale and 20 percent off code I feel I did alright for 27 and change.

March 30/31, 2018 - After a trip on the struggle bus during the day before the tournament (forgetting suitcases and dead batteries), our 2nd tournament together, the Omaha River City Bass Club Spring Open at Twelve Mile Lake near Creston, Iowa is in the books! We improved a whole lot from the last one in September 2017 where we only weighed one fish! While we still didn’t catch a limit this time, we did end up weighing 4 quality fish for 12 lbs 3 oz, which was enough to get us in the money $$ (4th place)!!! The lake is loaded with timber and we spent pretty much the entire day tied up to the same tree. We got the fish dialed in on a 6th Sense Flat 75X Crankbait which was perfect for the chilly 45 degree water and the wind blown rock bank we were fishing near a channel swing. If I hadn’t lost my only Flat 75X with about 2 hours left, I’m confident we could have caught a limit and moved up at least a position or two, because they were CHOKING the Wild Lava Craw Flat 75X! It really gave me a new appreciation for “don’t leave fish to find fish.” Had it not been windy we would’ve just cruised around the lake and probably caught fewer if any fish.Nonetheless, we had a blast and are ready for the next one!!

Took my dad out Saturday and had an epic numbers day with 60+ in about 5 hours.

Caught this 6.15 pound girl today on a SPRO little John. Water was 56 degrees . It was a pretty slow day and was getting ready to head home but I decided to try one last spot before I headed out. I’m glad I did.

Today I tried a few new lagoons where my dad lives over at Sun City Hilton Head. There are 50+ lagoons there and many are connected by the stormwater system. Some of them are inaccessible - to me at least - because they are surrounded by homes or fully within one of the gold courses. But there are still plenty that are accessible for us to fish. The temp was in the low sixties today, but as it has been for the past week it was really windy. It didn't help that I've been battling a cold most of the week, but I was going stir crazy sitting inside and had to get out. Plus, my son had a rare weekend off from travel baseball and I wanted to take advantage of that. A neighbor of my father had showed me pictures of a few seven pounders and a twelve pounder caught in Sun City, and he gave me a general idea of what lagoons they were caught in without divulging the actual locations. We fished two of the larger lagoons in that vicinity for a while with no luck, then moved to a smaller 1/3 are lagoon. This lagoon also had one of those aerator fountains and the spray was blowing everywhere. Thirty minutes and a few lures later I put a Yum Dinger on the line and got my first and only catch of the day. But at 6.3 pounds I won't complain. But I did miss my PB by just 2/10ths. I could have sworn this one was over 7 when I landed it. Next time!

Finally had a nice(ish) weather day here in Omaha after what has seemed like endless winter. Air temps were in mid 50's, with water temps that are still cold. First fish of the year came in at 4.19 pounds and was a little over 18". Caught on a Z-Man chatterbait.