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Yesterday I went out to my sister from another mister's trailer in Bethany, La. where I used to live a few years ago. Got to fish for a few hours in the ponds by her trailer. They are the trailer parks ponds. They're not that big, but there's bass in them. Been fishing about 2 and a half hours before I found out she had a little john boat. Wish I'd known it was hers from the get go. I'd have probably caught more than just this one. Been out in the boat about 30 minutes casting chatterbaits, spinnerbaits and plastics with nothing happening. Tied on a 1/2oz green pumpkin Dirty Jigs swim jig with a Power Team Lures(guess that's the name brand) black and blue craw type trailer(one of the packs of baits that @A-Jay sent me, thanks again my friend). First cast with it was to the bank and I thought it had been hammered as soon as it hit, set the hook it was just moss or something. So I just started swimming it back to me and out of nowhere about 5ft from the boat this 1lb 6oz beauty did acrobats under the water and slammed it. I could literally see this happen. I set the hook hard, couple turns on my reel and it was in the boat. Not sure what the red reflection is in that one pic. My tackle bag is red, so I'm guessing it was a reflection of it in the glistening tail. It wasn't bleeding. Took my pics and set it free to go get bigger. Heard there's a 6+ and a 7+ lber out there. I'll definitely be back out there again soon. Next time I'll be in the boat the whole time...lol! ?

Bank fishing last night in the cool light rain before sunset. Six 3 to 4 pounders just like this one, a bite on every cast, over ten minutes, all from the same shallow spot in a little cove -- the most exciting ten minutes of bassing I've had this year. A passer-by stopped to watch and I was glad for a witness, even an anonymous one. Watermelon red Magnum U-vibe Speed Worm was the ticket.

What a terrible last few days. Thank you everyone for the thoughts and prayers, it really helps to know you have people pulling for you. Our 16 month old boy, Finn, has been kind of off and on fighting a stomach bug for over a week with really runny diapers and being fussy and clingy, not his usual happy, playful self. Well Sunday we were going to go around to the Miami County farm days, where you can visit local farms and see how they run and get to pet some of the animals, kids and my wife love it, I grew up working on my grandparents farm so it's not that exciting for me but it wasn't for me. Finn was really sluggish waking up and not interested in eating or drinking much, which also is really unusual for him, all he wanted was to be held but he was fussing and felt really hot. Turned out he had a 99.6* fever, but my wife was convinced it was a tooth coming in causing it so we went anyways. By the time we got to the second farm he was sweaty and really lethargic, he looked exhausted but kept fussing and not falling asleep like we thought he might to sleep off whatever was bugging him. When I picked him up I could feel his heart beating really fast and he was breathing funny. I told my wife we needed to take him to urgent care and she didn't want to at first but I kept bugging her about it so we took off on the 30 minute drive into town to urgent care. By the time we almost there, Finn was sort of crying but taking really fast, shallow breaths and choking up. I jumped into the back seat and pulled him out of his car seat to pat him on his back and his eyes were rolling around and he was really pale and drenched in sweat. We got to the urgent care for Children's Mercy and I handed Finn to my wife to run him inside while I gathered Lake and anything else we needed out of the car and ran inside too. They were already in the back with Finn, so Lake and I stayed in the waiting room, trying to keep Lake out of the room from seeing his baby brother like that. My wife texted me that they were in room 8 and he was getting put on an IV and having blood drawn and I needed to come back. It was rough seeing his tiny little body on the table with all the doctors and nurses around him. I've been in the hospital lots of times for work with people who had OD'd or were shot/stabbed and not doing good, there's always lots of staff in the room, it's never a good sign when there's lots of staff in the room. My wife broke down as soon as we got there so I told her to take Lake and get out of there so she could calm down. They had a hard time finding a good vein and the first stick didn't take and the second one was in his wrist, which was a less than ideal spot but it worked at that moment. Having to hold your child down when you know they're scared and in pain and want nothing more than for you to hold them is heart wrenching. Once they had the blood drawn and the IV going he was wrapped up tight so he couldn't pull the IV, it really sank in that it could be anything and that's when it got me real bad. The doctors and nurses kept funneling in, we did several test, Xray, blood, stool, sonogram. At the urgent care, the doctor suspected it was something I can't pronounce that is basically when the intestines telescope in on themselves, which tends to happen at the same time a person has a stomach virus. That's when we were transported to Children's Mercy hospital in downtown KCMO for more test, which eventually determined that it appeared to at least be nothing gravely serious. From the best the doctors could tell, he had gotten a bad stomach virus, which caused him to have the bad runny diapers, and also gotten a secondary viral infection that looked like a rash but was also on his tongue and throat that made swallowing painful, so he wasn't drinking or eating well, which caused him to get severely dehydrated very quickly. We got released Tuesday around noon and picked Lake up from his grandma's and had to stop to get some formula really quick so my wife just dropped me at the front of the store to run in and grab some. While I was inside he said his throat hurt. We had him open his mouth and saw this; Good thing is, we we're that far from their regular doctor's office and it was still walk in hours, so Lake and my wife ran inside real fast while Finn, Cassidee, and I sat in the car watched Daniel Tiger and ate Goldfish. Thankfully they got them in really fast and did a rapid strep test that was negative, he just had a viral infection of his own. We finally got home around 4PM, the wife and I a frazzled mess, neither one of the boys feeling great but neither was bad enough to be in the hospital so that was an improvement. After they got their baths and relaxed a bit, I gave Finn his bottle and put him in his swing, I'm not sure if it went back and forth 10 times before he was asleep. He didn't sleep maybe 6 hours the almost 3 days we were in the hospital. It was just after 8PM when he crashed, and other than a couple times he whined a little that I gave him bottles, Tylenol, and changed his diaper in the middle of the night and had him back asleep in less than 10 minutes each time, he didn't wake up again until after 10AM yesterday morning. He spent the whole day running around the house laughing and playing like nothing every happened, it really was great to see him back to his old self so fast. Lake's throat was still red but he said it didn't hurt as bad so hopefully he'll be better in a day or two. Sorry that was long winded, but there's brief run down of what happened.

I just got back from the third stop of the BASS college tour this year, which was held on Cherokee Lake in Tennessee. Cherokee doesn't have particularly large fish to begin with, and the entire lake was pretty much post spawn, so it made for a very stacked leaderboard at the end of each day, with ounces separating the places, and multiple three way ties. The event also had 263 boats in it, so there was plenty of pressure on the fish. We practiced for two and a half days, as usual, and it was TOUGH! We tried fishing for smallmouth with a ned rig on rocky points like we did last year, and they really weren't having it, which was surprising to me. We caught some fish, but there wasn't much size to them, and there is a 15" minimum on Cherokee. We spent most of our time looking for smallmouth. We caught fish pretty much everywhere we went, but most were 14"ers. I threw a jerkbait quite a bit, and we caught several fish on a 3.8" swing impact. We spent some time largemouth fishing up the lake in the dirtier water, and caught some fish flipping bushes, and on a chatterbait, but still could not crack that 2.5lb mark. A third bite we discovered was a floating dock bite. We could catch largemouth and spots fairly consistently down the lake in the clear water on a senko once the sun got up, but still not much size. All we wanted was one or two 3lb bites to tell us which technique we needed to focus in on. During practice, our buddies from Virginia Tech had been sending us photos of 3lb+ smallmouth with astonishing regularity, and saying they were on a really solid, EASY bite! My old high school partner Ethan fishes for Tech now, and he didn't get to practice until the last day, when we were only allowed on the water until 1:30. That morning at 8am, he already had caught a nice 3lb+ smallmouth, and every time I talked to him on the phone, he said they were catching them pretty well. Around 11am, we still had not caught a keeper smallmouth, and finally Ethan called me, and came and found us on the water to show us what to do, and what he showed us definitely saved our tournament. The way they were catching them was on a 2.8" keitech on a 1/4oz jighead, casting it at the bank, letting it sink, then starting a SLOWWW retrieve back to the boat. The fish either hit on the drop, or within the first three turns of the handle. All you had to do was find a 45 degree bank with chunk rock or boulders. I had TWO 2.8" keitechs sitting in the bottom of my boat, and a couple 1/4oz heads small enough to fit them. I tied one on, went and found what he said to find, and had a keeper within 10 minutes. My partner Casey put a 3" swing impact on a drop shot, and had a 3lb smallmouth fishing behind me about 10 minutes after my fish! We ran to one more spot, caught another 3lb smallmouth, and then just started running around marking waypoints, we didn't have enough practice time left to do much fishing. I tried a 4" swing impact, I even cut it down an inch, and they wouldn't eat it. I still can't believe how small of a bait they were keyed in on. That night, we went and bought more 2.8" keitechs, and I found the last 2 packs of the jighead I was using in Bass Pro. My partner was looking for 3" swing impacts, but the smallest we found were 3.5", which I figured would work too, because stuff like that is usually in our heads and not a big deal to the fish. Back at the hotel, we scrounged around for any 3" swing impacts we could find. I had half a pack of them in my boat, and one of our buddies from Kent State had three 3" easy shiners on an a-rig in his truck, so he took them off the jigheads and gave them to Casey. We had a very late boat draw on day 1, boat 236 out of 263. We knew we wanted to be in the creek where Tech was, but decided not to start there, because they showed us the bite and the fish, so we went to a couple of islands and one point that had produced fish in practice. In our first hour and a half, we had one bite and didn't boat any fish. We then headed to the creek and prepared to get in line to fish behind people, and that's exactly what happened. Despite the crowd, the only people really catching anything were us and Virginia Tech. We got a limit, and my buddy Ethan also had 5. I caught two of them on the 2.8", and Casey caught three of them on the drop shot, all of them were on the 3" easy shiners from my buddy's a-rig! Due to bluegill, snags, and keitechs falling apart because that's what happens, Casey was out of 3" baits once we got our five fish, and had to use a 2.8" and a 3.5" for the rest of the day. I made one good cull, and he didn't catch any more keepers. We started to realize that the necessity of a tiny bait probably wasn't just in our heads. We didn't have to check in til 4:45, but the last hour of our day got very interesting when I received a phone call from my buddy who had broken down with five fish in his livewell, wayyyyy up the lake. I made a 30 mile round trip with the pedal to the floor and got their fish in with 30 seconds to spare for their 4:15 check-in. We already qualified for the championship this year, but they had not, and I knew those fish would be crucial for them so I didn't think twice about giving up the last hour of our day for them. Day one had us tied for 55th place with 11-14. Big fish out of 263 boats was 3lbs 14oz, if that says anything about what we were dealing with. There was no "looking for a kicker" at Cherokee, you had to fish hard for as many bites around 3lbs as you could get. Casey went to a couple stores that night and found some more 3" swing impacts, so we were feeling a lot better going into day two. We ran straight to the good creek after takeoff, and I put one in the boat within minutes. We started to realize that even though we were fishing long stretches of rock, the bites came on the same places every time. Knowing that, we bounced around in the creek, fishing very small areas, and catching fish almost every time. We had five fish at 7:40am, four smallmouth and one spot. I jumped off a 3lb smallmouth, which I knew was going to cost us, no matter how positive we stayed or how well we fished! We kept after it, and made one cull, getting rid of the spotted bass with a smallmouth. We had two around 17/18", and three around 16", very similar to day one. We talked to our buddies from Tech around 10am, they only had one fish, and said the bite had completely died once the sun got up. We hit a couple more key areas, and after not getting any bites, got out the flipping gear and made a run way up the lake to look for some largemouth. We ended up getting on a really hot bite flipping bushes in the back of a big creek, and caught about 15 in the last 2 hours of our day, but the only cull we made was a 17" skinny largemouth for one of our smallmouth which was just under 16". In a game of ounces, it was definitely still important. After the scales closed we sat in 35th place with a two day total of 23lbs 11oz, we missed the final day top 32 cut by 2oz. Like I said, I knew that smallmouth jumping off was not going to be good for us. We were still very pleased with how things turned out. We had a terrible practice and pretty much had to start from scratch once my buddy showed us that weird 2.8 keitech stuff. The good news is that another WVU team qualified for the championship! They were in 42nd place, but there were 10 double qualifications ahead of them. The guys we gave a ride in on day one had to fish with no big motor on day two, and they put up 11lbs 8oz, which will be sending them to the championship in combination with their points from the events held at Toledo Bend and Pickwick this season. Casey and I are sitting in 4th in points for Team Of The Year, and at the end of this week will be hopping on a plane headed for Clearlake, California, where we have somehow secured a boat and truck to borrow during our time there. We are gonna have to bring our A-game if we want to take this thing home, but who doesn't like a little challenge? Thanks for reading guys, I'm having the time of my life doing this college fishing stuff, and I love writing these and reliving the experience!

1st topwater bass of 2018!!! Using a Rebel Pop-R at sunrise in small subdivision pond and this 5lb, 21 inch football slammed it in about 1 & half feet of water. Some good ol RVA Bass Fishing!!!

Nothing too big, but had a rare day where we could do no wrong. Caught fish all day. Here's a couple of them.

Found a Whopper Plopper 90 the other day and promptly lost it in some brush an hour later. However, I loved the action and bit the bullet and bought one yesterday(I’m rather frugal when it comes to lures). Took it for a test drive this morning and it didn’t disappoint. 6 in a few hours. Wasn’t the size I was looking for, but the topwater strike is fun regardless.

Nobody was having any luck last week until I landed this big badbass out of Rockland Lake, Congers, NY...

I haven't seen any actual beds, but they're definitely shallow here. After failing to convince anybody to chase a chatterbait, I took a hint and switched up to a a plasmatail worm on a shakyhead. Found this one chillin' under a dock:

The Bass are starting to bed in my area. For the last few days I have seen shallow bass over the telltale circular patterns. First day was easy I was able to cast a floating crankbait past the bed and retrieve it through to get a Bass to swipe at it. Second day not so easy. Crank didn't work, Wacky rigged Dinger didn't work, weightless Fluke didn't work. Last thing I tried was a Berkley powerbait Pogy Swimbait firetiger color. When I swam that past the bed the Bass would grab the tail then spit it out. There is an exposed hook near the head of the bait but the Bass wasn't choking it. I stayed at it, casting and retrieving over that bed for an hour with swipes but no hookups. Finally I changed my angle and casting from the side rather than straight out and the Bass choked it! all in all I worked this fish for about 1 and a half hours with different baits before landing it.

This is my third video of some highlights from April including my Fiance's first bass. Took some of yall's comments on board and found a software program that will work on my laptop (kind of).

At that $300/combo price point, you simply cannot make a bad choice. It's such a competitive price point. Okuma is a site sponsor, and I've been real pleased with what I've been sent to test. The EVX are very nice, light, and crisp rods to fish with. Daiwa is packing heat with the Tatula line. Shimano might be a little pricey for what you get, but they last forever. You can always mix and match reels and rods, like above with St. Croix rods, and Okuma reels, just never put a Daiwa on Shimano rod. The earth will reverse it's rotation, and the poles will flip their polarity.

Before I got off work tonight, I picked up a 1/2oz black and blue Strike King Hack Attack Heavy Cover Swim jig, a pack of Okeechobee craw Rage Tail structure bugs and my first pack of Rage Menaces green pumpkin. Bugs and Menaces both 4". Cant wait to use them. I'm off Friday, Saturday and Sunday so it shouldn't be long. ?

The worst thumb burn I ever had was casting a live mackerel that was about 2 lbs to a feeding Marlin and managed a slight backlash or over run with loops that needed to be pulled out. Put my thumb on the spool, started to pull out the loops when the Marlin took off with the mackerel pulling my thumb under the top cross bar, It still hurts thinking about the burned flesh before getting the reel in gear and pulling my thumb out loosing all the skin to the flesh. Never never try to stop big salt water fish with your thumb on the spool! Tom

Vanish needs to vanish off the market...

Made a run to Lacassine again this morning, in the boat this time. Me, my youngest son Scotty, & his friend Wesley. We caught 20 tighteyes with maybe 5-6 around 1-1/2 to 2#. Not a single picture! We all 3 powered our phones off thinking the other would take pictures!

https://lakerecord.net/2018/05/16/new-state-record-and-possibly-world-record-crappie-caught-in-tennessee/

I never looked forward to catching one of these things, knowing they have teeth, but when I finally did a couple weekends ago it was very exciting - a new species. I was targeting crappie (hoping for bass ) with a 6'6 L/F and 2-inch paddle tail grub on a 1/16 oz jig head, in the kayak. Netted him and he took a while to settle down in the net, kept flopping around, loads of energy. Used the fish grips, barbless hook popped out easily and released him. I love how the chain link pattern on the body matches the mesh of the net. I'd guess this one is about 14 inches long - didn't measure him, just wanted to get him back in the water. And his teeth away from the vicinity of my fingers Beautiful fish.

Now if we could only figure out which one of you is the evil twin.....

He couldn't pull line out, and you couldn't pull line in? But the handle was turning on the attempted retrieve? Open the reel and look at the gears. Keep in mind that upon reassembly the thumb "switch" has to be in the correct position or the reel will not work properly. Maybe the side plate came loose, you tightened it, but when it was loose the thumb "switch" moved to the wrong position? If a gear has failed you should be able to see it with the side plate off, if I remember correctly. The earlier post about braid is asking whether the line is slipping on the spool, which can easily happen with braid since it is so slippery. But, the fish should have been able to take line if this were the problem. In your last post you say the drag is not allowing line out. Which is consistent with the fish not being able to take line. So the problem is simply that you cannot retrieve, the drag is OK and the line is not slipping on the spool. so take the side cover off and make sure a gear is not stripped and the thumb "switch" is in the right position before reassembly. I respectfully submit that the lousy spelling done on purpose is not helpful.

Yeah and that's accurate as this is a Catch Weigh Release tourney. That's a nice fish! Basstrak is not going to be "Fake News" this tournament.

When I was starting out learning a T rig, I fished a green pumpkin Trick Worm with a 1/16oz bullet weight on a spinning rod and 8lb mono and slayed the fish.

Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Worm Texas Rigged 1/8 oz bullet weight 2/0 hook

A second job! ?

Tule Dipping: Found a lot of decent bass today hanging out under matted grass in one corner of a small cove. It's a good spot most of the time once the water warms up a bit, but today was ridiculous. Caught a couple and lost one in three casts pitching a plastic on a jighead. So I beached the yak, and decided to do a little tule dipping from the banks. You know, stealthier, and all that. Plus I needed to stretch a little anyway. It seemed like half the bass in the whole reservoir were congregated in that 20 ft X 40 ft space, and they had never seen a bait in their lives. Find a hole, drop the bait in, and if a fish didn't eat in on the fall, another would pick it up off the bottom. Think I caught about 10 in as many dips/ flips/ pitches, most of them solid 2-3 lb class fish and a couple estimated 4#. I kinda stopped taking pics after the first few and was laughing uncontrollably. Even started checking their mouths for holes from hooks because I wasn't convinced that I wasn't catching the same few fish over and over again. It was that crazy. Two guys were hiking the trails and stopped by to give me some company. Well I put on a show for them too, and caught 8 or 10 more. One of them remarked that he didn't know "fishing was so easy". I didn't tell him that I wasn't aware of that either! I picked up half a dozen more decent ones from here and there. They were biting really good. Admittedly, I didn't weigh most of the fish (measured some of them); I know I caught a 15# plus limit, probably over 17#. By far the best day I've ever had here. Called it a day an hour or two early, and as luck would have it, 5 minutes after I reach the ramp, the wind picks up and there are whitecaps all over. 10 minutes after that it starts raining hard.

^Previous [May 03, 2018] After our last fishing trip where I had great success catching 5 Bass and 1 Pike, I really thought the fishing was going to get even better as the water continued to warm. Jeremy and I planned another fishing trip the following Thursday of that week (today), which would be a shorter after work fishing trip. Got off at 2:00pm, arrived at his place shortly after and loaded up the boat with our gear. We both decided to retie baits after our last trip and decide on a plan for today. Somehow all that took an hour, and we headed toward the lake at 3:00pm. Launched the boat and were headed out at 3:30pm. We had decided to go to our furthest location first (which was a new area) and depending on the situation we could work our way back to the area we had fished last Sunday which was closer to the ramp. When we arrived at our first location, there was a heavy west wind. As we were fishing west to east, the wind was really pushing the boat faster than we wanted to fish. We couldn't really fish that area effectively, but as we continued on it was more protected from the wind. Things were pretty uneventful, until about the ~20th cast with the new Zman Jack Hammer Chatterbait I hear a "SNAP" as the line breaks at the knot and I watch as it sails through the air and splashes out in the middle of nowhere... R.I.P. Uhhh, didn't I just retie everything earlier? Must have weakened the line when tying that knot I guess... Oh and of course I only had 1 in that color because of price... We continue fishing and get back into this area that just looked great. Water is warm ~62F, Stained with ~2ft Clarity. Lake level is a little high so lots of shoreline cover, some rocky areas, vegetation, some matted debris... It had a little of everything. We both figured it just had to hold some bass... Two hours later, not a bite. Had some pike chase our baits around which wasn't the best sign when looking for bass, but we covered so much water by the time we finally accepted that this was not going to work it was already 5:30pm. We only had about 30 min left to make something happen, so we decided to head back to where we last caught them on Sunday, as that's about all we had time for anyway. When we arrived we noticed the wind had calmed down a bit as it was becoming evening, and the water temp had jumped from the previous ~53F the last time we fished it to ~55-57F. Things were looking pretty similar to the area we had just fished... All day we were throwing a mix of reaction moving baits and finesse soft plastics. Nothing was working, until about 30 min into fishing our second location Jeremy makes a cast up shallow over a log near the flooded brush and watches as a small Largemouth follows his bait out and takes it... We both had been throwing soft plastics up to the flooded brush all day in both locations and nothing until now. I tried focusing on the flooded brush for a while, until I got a bad loop knot in my line and didn't want to spend the time to fix it and retie as we were already fishing overtime. Basically I locked a Spinnerbait in my hand, and Jeremy locked a soft plastic in his hand, and we fished till 7:15pm and had to call it. I swore earlier I had a hit on the Spinnerbait but just didn't connect. In the end I don't think it mattered what I was using as neither of us had another bite that evening. So yeah... I Zeroed. Not since 2015 have I zeroed after I started catching them as I've made consistency my #1 goal. Mistakes were made this day, first of all being busy / lazy I forgot to look back on my weather logs before fishing, where we had a day with a high of 58F / low of 38F. Then I might of thought it was possible the bass pulled out. A lot of time was wasted fishing unproductive water in a situation were we didn't have a lot of time to begin with, and fishing two areas that were similar to each other and both unproductive. If I could have a do over I would only fish the first location for 1 hour, then completely change it up, like head to the northern part of the lake where the water is a bit cooler, clearer, and deeper. Fish an area completely different to what we were currently fishing that wasn't working... - - - - - [May 14, 2018] The day after I zeroed - I spent some time looking over my fishing log for that day to learn from it, and that's where I came up with the last part for the day above. 10 long days later... Jeremy and I are able to schedule another fishing trip for today Monday the 14th. It's part of our weekend so we had a good 6 hours to fish (~8:30am - 2:30pm). I arrived at his place early and started gearing up. It's been quite a few days since our last trip, and I believe "every day is a new day", so in my mind we were starting from scratch. Documented the weather over the past week and it's been a mix of overcast days with rain or thunderstorms, with a few partly cloudy to clear days with the average temp hovering around the low 70's. Today's forecast was said to have high bluebird skies, with high pressure - falling as the day progressed, and a high of up to 82F. It's also the day before the new moon, and two days before an incoming front said to consist of two days of thunderstorms. We planned to head up north to the deeper, cooler, clearer water in search of some smallmouth after the results from our last trip. I wasn't opposed to giving the south end a try as it's been over a week since our last trip, but it was more of a decision just to mix things up, try something new, and get information on other areas of the lake during this time. I recently put together a new combo, so now I can rig up to 5 baits at one time, here is my starting bait selection for today... When we arrived at the lake the first thing I noticed was the lake level was now about 2 feet high from normal pool. Stained with ~2-3ft clarity, and the water temp at the ramp had dropped from 51 on our last trip to 49. The warming weather and rainfall is melting snow still high up in the mountains creating runoff that is dumping into the lake leading to the current conditions. This makes fishing the south end of the lake tricky as during the early season we can get a good warming trend yet the water temp will remain either the same or drop a few degrees in temperature. They also release a lot of water from the lake to prevent flooding during the early season - so there is a constant dynamic of releasing warming water only to be replaced with new cold runoff delaying the lake from heating up (years past I've caught bass off beds in late June). The decision to head north will put us in an area with more stable conditions. We arrive at our first location around 8:45am, water temp 53F. I begin with tossing the deep diving jerkbait, and 5 min into fishing I hook into a 4 lb 07 oz, 22 inch Northern Pike Minnow... Not the target species I'm looking for, but it felt good to hook into something of size after my last outing. 15 min further into fishing I make a cast with the grub to the shallow part of a dock (as the lake level is 2 ft higher than normal pool) and within seconds after the grub hits the bottom it's fish on. Bass 01 - 16 & 1/4", 2 lb 07 oz I actually boat flipped that bass, and right when I got it in the boat it's sharp sandpaper teeth cut my 10 lb Trilene Sensation line... Covering water, we fished around our first location for ~1 hour 30 min, and that was the only bite. We decided it was time to move, so we headed a bit further north. Second Location has more depth to it, Water Temp was 52F. Fishing with the grub again, making casts to the flooded shoreline cover. 25 min into fishing I notice the tail of the grub got hooked on the open hook of the jig which I find suspicious as that doesn't happen often. I make a second cast to the flooded brush and it felt like I had pulled it over a limb or something but wasn't sure, so I make a third cast and let the grub sit, next thing I know something's swimming with it so I set the hook, fish on... Bass 02 - 13 & 3/4", 1 lb 05 oz Fishing our second location for ~1 hour 30 min, again that was our only bite. It was now 12:00pm, I had boated two fish, Jeremy had nothing, so I let him decide where we should try next. It was mid day, hot, we lost what little wind we had earlier and it was looking like tough conditions. We turned the boat around and ended up heading back to a location south of our first location today. Third Location, Water Temp 60-62F. After fishing for 20 min, we get to this big dock that isn't normally there, and is just temporarily positioned near the shoreline. We both cast all around it and no bites. When we get to the other side and just as I'm about to give up on it, I'm reeling my grub back to the boat and see a little smallmouth under 12 inches follow it out from under the dock and turn away. That was our first clue that there are fish here, they just might not be committing to our baits. I give Jeremy a chance to fish it, as I take some time to change baits. Since we have high skies, low wind, and I want something weightless I can fish slower, I decide to swap out the Spinnerbait for a Wacky Rig. We gave it some time but nothing resulted from it, so we continued on. There was a shallow flat with clumps of vegetation in about 5ft of depth we gave a try, but only managed to see two pike, one which followed Jeremy's spinnerbait to the boat and nipped at it but didn't get hooked. We both were totally junk fishing during the mid day lull, just trying to make something happen. I even swapped out the chatterbait for a buzzbait just for the fun of it. We actually seen a few fish bust the surface but couldn't tell what they were. At this point in the day I was just fun fishing hoping Jeremy would hook into something so he wouldn't get skunked. We fished the third location for just over 2 hours, when Jeremy said he would take the loss as it was now time for us to head back... Pulled the boat out at 2:50pm. Tough day for us, covering water was key just to catch the two as they were miles apart. We fished shallow, deep, slow, fast, finesse baits, and reaction baits. This is the time of year I struggle, that late pre-spawn to early-spawn time. If the water is between 48F-55F the fishing is good, but once it hits 56-62 its a struggle. It's still early for the spawn in my area, at least a few weeks out, need the water temps to increase a bit and the conditions & weather to stabilize. I did talk with someone who I trust that also fished on this day as well. They had better luck than us, and mentioned the best fish seemed to come very early in the day (like before we were even on the water) and seemed to shut down after 11:00am, which fits with when I caught my fish. Maybe with the new moon they are feeding early then shutting off during the day, or maybe it has something to do with location and we just haven't found the right area yet. All in all, I'm more than happy with the two I caught. WolfyBrandon

I used to have a Helix 5si on the bow, transducer mounted to the trolling motor. It was ok but kinda small, so this year I moved my Helix 9si up there from the console and installed a mega 10si on the console ( awesome units by the way). Both the 5 and 9 had terrible interference whenever I stepped on the pedal for the Terrova, only on the si though. I tried all the usual stuff, heavier gauge twisted pair wire to the cranking battery, all the recommended ferrite rings, moving wires around to separate graph from trolling motor wires, trolling motor choke etc. with no luck. Finally after digging around online I found and tried the method where you run an 18g wire from the Helix neg. up to the head of the Terrova, siliconed it along the channel in the shaft and attached it under the metal transducer clamp. First time out last weekend and all clear! It cleared up absolutely 100% of the interference on the side imaging. Just wanted to pass this along in case anyone else is chasing the interference demons to have maybe one more option to try. I know every boat is different, but I couldn’t be happier with this outcome for mine.

The Calcutta is one of the bestest circle reals ever maid. Tern the 5 pointy stary thingy forward sum.

Braid with no backer?

I find that i fish it better the faster i go. Rapid fire casting and trolling motor on high, covering lots of water. So with a buzz bait i'm always moving to the next spot. Works for me as i get into a better rhythm that way.

My father in law has lived with multiple sclerosis for many years, the last year and a half he’s been in a hospital, pretty much unable to move at all. This last week he finally turned for the worse, with bad pneumonia. My wife and her brother and mom have been taking shifts at bedside for a whole week, and were completely exhausted. I’ve been keeping the home at bay, working and staying with our 8 year old, and worrying for everyone’s total loss of sleep, I don’t know how they’re still moving. This afternoon I took my son out for a couple hours to try for some pike, and mostly just to get us out and our minds off of everything. Fished a few spots and didn’t see a thing, figured we’d try one last bay and on my second cast I feel a big thump on the jerkbait. After a good fight, my 8 year old did a perfect net job and some high fives, we slid her in the livewell for a few pics later. As soon as I closed the lid, I got a text from my wife that said dad’s gone. He was always out on the bay as a young man ( Georgian Bay), fishing, boating, even worked on the coastguard for several years out there. I couldn’t help but think, after being in a wheelchair for years and not able to get outdoors like he used to, maybe he was finally free again, and maybe, just maybe he sent a little gift our way to make the day a bit more special for my son and I. After a few pics, we sent the 38”er back into the bay and I said a silent thanks to him for everything he ever did for me. Thanks Dad.

I recommend something entirely different. Tuf-Line Supercast in 30 lb. size. It's a bonded micro fiber superline with a mono core, and a coated exterior. So, zero stretch, floats, casts smoothly acts like mono, and holds knots well. It's about twice the strength of mono per diameter, so 30 lb. is like 15 lb. mono. It's almost like it's made for topwater. No leader necessary. I use it for all my topwater plugs now.

Flukes. I know they catch fish, I just never seem to do that well with them.

Huge lures . I have tried Striper sized cranks , musky jitterbugs , large spoons not 1 fish on them .

Going pick up my boat today. Hopefully this will be the last time at the shop for a while. Next weekend isn’t looking very good weather wise. Maybe the following weekend I can get up there.

Med fast action spinning rod. 8lb line, zoom trick or finesse worms, 2/0 hook and 1/8 bullet sinker. Texas rig these worms. Use a slow pull and drop retrieve on the bottom.This is a general setup to learn on. Unsure what type of cover or water your fishing

I just saw this post and another post related to my favorite worm, the Biospawn Exostick, so I’m gonna jump in based solely on personal results. I fish western MA small lakes and have never had much luck with the small Zoom worms but seem to do well with the Biospawn. Funny thing is that when I use the larger Zoom worms, I have great results. Any Zoom product from the Magnum Trick worm to the Ol’ Monster has been productive for me. I wouldn’t normally even buy the smaller (under 7”) Zoom worms; however, I did get a pack of Zoom 4-inch Fatheads that I intend to try for finesse fishing. (Hope springs eternal ... ?) If they don’t work, I’m going back to snipping segments off my Exosticks.

Would also work well for catfish or carp.

texas rigged Zoom tirckworm with 3/16oz bullet weight. stand by is a weightless wacky senko.

Multispecies canal catches - don't know if there's such a thing as an invasive grand slam, but this might come close: Mayan ciclid: jaguar guapote: tilapia (quite a big one, took a worm...) Got a few snook also: Failed to land a decent sized peacock on the same day...

Oh - I'm trying this one ! A-Jay

If I was fishing tournaments I agree, you do what you have to get a check, including Flipping and Pitching. Since I don't fish for competition, I do what I enjoy, and roll the dice. I don't care what others do, its all about enjoying the experience, and catching some fish. Hundreds of pitches for one fish is not why I'm out there. Others can knock themselves out, that's great if they catch a few big ones. I throw them back anyway, and seldom measure or weight unless their over 8 pounds. I'm done by noon, don't go in high winds, because I don't enjoy fighting the wind. I'm not on a big fish hunt, It happens anyway, without flipping. Its all about being out with friends, and having a good time, and finding some fish. It doesn't get any better then that, for me! I will tell exactly where I'm fishing, what I'm doing, and willing to help others. I know people on this sight that will not give any accurate info, will post others pics from the internet and claim the pics are theirs. I am happy when others I take do well. Its none competitive for me, I spent 43 years in a highly competitive business, fishing was my relief from that pressure, and always will be. Do what you enjoy, and have fun. When it stops being fun, I'll stop.

It wasn't a monster but these things hit like a truck and don't stop fighting.

Weightless pink trickworms twitched around the surface like who knows what, I like to call it 4 year old girl fishing lol. I like to fish them tied straight to high vis braid, especially when fishing with people that are believers in line shy fish and "matching the hatch" lol.

Ahhhhhh Pike. Expert lure theifs and spinnerbait destroyers. ?

Biggest yesterday 11" crappie Today 13" crappie

I survived surgery and the surgeon is very confident that he got it. I'm in recovery now -- loads of pain etc but I should be back fishing within a couple weeks!

Glad that lake turned on. It only took 5.5 pounds to win our Thursday night tournament out there a few weeks ago and half the boats didn't catch bass over a pound. Me and @gardnerjigman never had anything that was for sure a bite I don't think.

Well I finally caught another bass today. Went to Richard Fleming Park on the west side of Cross Lake. Didn't get to fish very long but managed this 1lb 2oz bass. Caught it on a 1/2oz Mann's swimbait head with an underspin and green pumpkin Rage Swimmer on it. I was fishing it kinda fast and the bite was fairly subtle. I felt the weight and it tried to swim off and I set the hook. Finally one that didn't get away. ?

My buddy and I hit the same lake again as last weekend. Water temp rose 12° in a week. Last weeks water temp was 70°, air temp was high around 70° with clouds and rain. This week, partly cloudy in the Am, high of 96° and sunny afternoon. Surface Water temps bumped 82°. What a difference a week makes! We didn't expect good numbers like last week, but we had hopes of finding some better sized fish having narrowed down a few key areas. We put 9 in the boat (wont complain too much) but never did find a solid bite. I got a couple on bluegill squarebill thrown on the bank (if it didn't literally HIT the bank it didn't get bit). Couple on Texas rigged plastics. Bite totally died after about 1 o'clock. Finally got a 1.5 pounder on an S-waver 168 right before dusk to end the day. Found a couple places where bass were blowing up on bait, but they scattered if the boat got within 100 yards. They were crushing on huge schools of 1.5 - 2" bluegill, but they wouldn't even come near anything we could throw that mimicked that size/type bait.