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Ned rig gets big numbers in a pond full of dinks ?. This one was the second biggest at a pound and a half but I got one that went 2.6 later in the evening on a 3’ wacky senko but didn’t get pics ?

Had 2 firsts today. 1st first was catching a bass with the 110 Whopper Plopper(also first fish of the day) 2nd first was catching a fish with four different baits/lures. 1lb 4oz on the Whopper Plopper, 1lb 1oz on a weightless Texas rigged bama craw Rage Craw with the pinchers dipped in chartreuse Spike It Dip N Glo, nonscorable bass on a wacky rigged double header red Strike King Ocho and a 2lb 3oz bowfin(not pictured because it took up too much space on here) on a 7/16oz bluegill Storm Wildeye Swim Shad. Not a bad day of bank fishing at Caney Lakes lower lake side. ?

Had a club tournament today and although I hadn't planned on participating, I'm glad I did. Headed out this morning with my wife and daughter and conditions were terrible. Wind out of the east, bluebird skies and crystal clear water. I hooked and lost two nice fish on a Red Eye Shad and the girls headed home just before noon. I heard the tourney started at 10:00 and weigh in was at 4:00 and figured, since I hadn't participated in the last three years, I'd see how I stacked up against the young bucks. I lost a nice fish on the RE and decided I had their location figured out, but needed to keep 'em buttoned, so I switched to a swim bait on a 1/2oz. jig head. Short story, five fish (including big bass 4lb.11oz) bag 19lb. 2oz. for the money. I likely won't enter another for a while, so the points don't really mean much, but a first place finish on that lake is the best I've ever done. The old guy's sill got it. I'm at home with ice packs on both knees and my left wrist, but with a smile on my face.

Most animals will try to steal food as that takes less energy than hunting and chasing. Even pets will try to steal food , as will some office workers.

Got to be careful confronting people. Next time just call DNR. You can never underestimate the stupidity of the next man. So for safety reasons just call DNR.

A person who chooses to do that is either ignorant or unreasonable. In either case, they have no interest in hearing a dissenting opinion. Save your breath & call Fish & Game.

I took two 5" yum dingers and joined them together to make a 10" stickbait and I'll tell ya what, little fish like big worms too! The 2nd fish I caught was even smaller than this one!

We had a front punch through east Texas yesterday afternoon. It left behind about an inch of rain here on Lake Athens. So, with temperatures depressed to really comfortable levels from the earlier part of the day's mind-melting high 90s, I jumped in my Meyers Sportspal canoe and took off with a single rod/reel, some Keitech shad-like plastics and fished for a few hours. Late afternoon fishing in the summer, in Texas (elsewhere, too!) is so very nice. I particularly like conditions when the sun has dropped down very low or the ambient light that remains for a while after sunset. Texas is windy but there is almost always a significant drop in wind right about the time. I ended up with 6 LMBs and 1 nice bluegill, not certain how that gill managed to grab the 4/0 hook I was using, but it did. One bass was in the 4 pound range, another in the 3 lbs. area, the others were the 1.5 to 2 pounders. I used both the Shad Impact (soft jerk bait) and the Shad Easy Shiner (with the paddle tail) and both worked about the same. I just grabbed whatever fell into my hand when I plunged my hand down into my soft tackle bag. Yes, I still GREATLY prefer a traditional worm hook with a straight shaft to either an offset or an EWG hook. I like the way the hook comes flying out of the plastic on a hook-set, the angle. For me? I get most of my strikes on the fall, the others after I jerk the plastic a bit with a lifting motion so that it essentially re-falls over and over. My retrieval and depth is much closer to a T-Rigged worm than it is to the way most people fish swimbaits where they are fished faster and I guess a bit higher in the water column. This has been a very good presentation all the way back to the pre-spawn months. I rarely have gone out and not caught a 5 bag limit with it. Some pics! Cheers! Brad

Wanted to fish a tournament with daddy so I took him to the $20 entry fee Friday night derby. Ole ned came through for him. Only time the lure touched the bottom all evening I'm pretty sure. Lol

Pier pressure (at least around docks)...

Ribit Ribit! I stayed away from the Senko finally. I picked up my other crutch a frog. After the sun went behind the trees they started slamming the frog. I got 6 in probably 45 minutes. There's nothing better than 65lb braid and throwing a frog into the thick slop! This girl went 4-5

Took the kid out for a few hours trolling on the bay this evening, I literally just set the first rod in the holder and this guy smashed it. Got one other small laker that we released, this guy will go on the bbq tomorrow.

I find it odd that you had thus experience. I have returned numerous rods to Cabelas. Some, for no other reason than I didn't like the way they fished. Never had a bit of trouble. Matter of fact, the staff at my Cabelas bend over backward to give good customer service. Never doing business with any company because of a single bad experience may be a tad premature, unless of course that experience was with the owner.

A week straight of 90+ degree days, today was the second day after the cold front, off the charts high barometric pressure, lows in the low 50's last night, zero wind or cloud cover.....................and Silver was on fire....go figure. I fished from 7am to 4pm, and had my best numbers day in a while, and even caught a few big ones. A 5-1, 4-14, 4-4, 3-12, and 3-10 were the best 5 out of the 30+ bass I caught today. They bit really well from 7-9 this morning, then had a long lull until about noon with only a few small fish caught, then from noon-3 they bit well again. I left at 4 after going 30 or so minutes without a bite. It was kind of a junk fishing fest today. Neko rigs, wacky rigs, and drop shot on the deep weed line, jigs + weightless plastics under docks, creature baits and t-rigged worms in the grass....all caught fish.

Went on our yearly trip to Minnesota , hooked into a 7lb giant , broke the lake record by 2 lbs . Local guy at the tackle shop said it was the biggest bass he has seen in 30 years . The lake we are fishing is the home of the state smallmouth record . People up here don’t fish for the green carp lol . They don’t know what they are missing ! Fish bit a bubba shot with a Texas fogged 10 inch brown worm . Released to make some more beautiful northern monster bass !

I like to buy my favorite reel grease in bulk.

I've been known to break into song when the bite is tough or really good. I figure you're in the boat, either have to listen to me or swim to shore. I've seen some longing stares towards the shore, but nobody has made the leap yet.

When your trolling for salmon and it’s a bit of a slow spell, might as well dig into a good book.

Not quite as good tonight. I boated 3 LMBs in an hour or so of fishing going out in the late afternoon to avoid the heat again. Again, I just really love the straight shanked worm hooks for solid hook-ups! Brad

With a high pressure system parked over the West, our temperatures spiked following the 4th of July. It hit 113 here on Friday and will be in the triple digits again today, with lows never dropping below 75 in the middle of the night. So I flipped my sleep schedule around late Thursday and scheduled to go out from midnight to 8 am this morning. The trip went well, the weather was perfect for shorts and a T shirt with no concern of sunburn or exposure. My familiarity with both the lake & my gear made casting in the dark not as bad as I had been concerned about. Lure wise, the bass had no interest in a topwater, which is not unusual for this lake. Instead, the bait of choice was a Rapala Scatter Rap shallow, which stayed high in the water column around the docks & weedlines and had a little erratic action without any thing to run the bait into. Jigs & worms didn't produce much, except at one dock that had a minnow light submerged in the water. I caught a few bass that were hiding on the outside edge of the shadows and would dart into the light to feed, including the largest for the night, a 4 lb 2 oz one on a Ned rig. One thing I found is that fishing before dawn sure prepares you for when the sun gets ready to rise. Not only do you have a good idea what to do instead of having to spend time trying figure them out, now being able to see where you are casting seems like cheating. Of the 41 bass I caught, 26 were in the 5.5 hours of darkness before dawn while the remaining 15 were in the 2.5 hours following it. I believe the difference probably had to do with execution on my part, making more precise casts to fish I might have missed in the darkness. The only negative is that I left them biting. On the positive side, I had the boat back in, cleaned & all my tackle put away as the temps hit 90 degrees. Took a nap to get my sleep schedule back to normal and popped in to give this report. I like having this as an option to avoid getting hammered by summertime heat.

Interesting - Did I miss something ~ Did July turn suddenly become January ? And for a change of pace - when the word Fish or Fishing is replaced in the text above with the word Sleep or Sleeping, The whole thing seems to go in a totally different direction . . . A-Jay

Never argue with success. Different things work for different folks in all sorts of endeavors. The trick I think is to get enough data points to figure out what works and what doesn't, and ignore what one should be using or how. Sure there are general rules and themes that make sense, but the fool and the sage are often difficult to distinguish, and the difference between the two can be razor thin.

In the middle of January when it’s -30 and there’s 3’ of snow on the ground, this is the only sight I’ll be thinking about.

I have become addicted to Topwater. There is nothing like that explosion on the surface for me. Last night I got a spectacular hit on a Popper the second it hit the water, literally... I cast out and the second it touched water, WHAM!. The fish smoked the lure, exploding through the surface. I was stunned. Almost didn't react which in retrospect was probably the best thing as it helped the set. Who else is addicted to Topwater??

After a week of super hot, humid temps, we finally got some relief. Of course the cold front came the night before I was taking the day off to fish. Tried some frogs, crankbaits and faster stuff for an hour in the morning but it wasn’t happening, so out came the pitching rods. Water was still very warm, and the fish were in the thick pads but suspended right under them. Was more of a reaction bite rather than feeding, as almost every fish bit as soon as the lure touched down. It was a real test of both boat control in the heavy north winds, and making sure I was paying attention at all times to not miss any hits. All fish came on a Berkley max scent creature hawg or General with a 3/8 or 1/2oz tungsten sinker and Trokar flippin book. It was a good day to have the Talon, without it I would’ve only caught maybe half the fish I did, just because I could lock down and pick apart every hole and point or irregularities in the pads. Managed about 12 bass and a couple small pike, not too bad for the conditions and the fact this was a fairly pressured lake that’s not well known for largemouth, of course the two big ones shook off right at the boat, both were over 4lbs, but I still managed a few nice fat ones. Average size Another

Guess who's featured in this video? Yup, our very own J Francho!

Purchased a new Fuego CT casting reel for a steal! ($52) A Dobyns Fury 663C on the way Ragetail Menaces

ICAST won't be the same without you. It will be better!

Down on the Gulf coast we deal with daily thunderstorms that have the same intensity of a tropical depression or storm. Right now we've had 2 or 3 of these storms daily for the past week & they'll continue for 3 or 4 more days. We're accustom to it, the bass are accustom to it, so it aint no big deal. In your neck of the woods it changes everything! I'm more concerned with wind & lighting than I am with barometric pressure.

Last night I took my cousin out for a casual dinner on the boat and dusk fishing. Within minutes of the sun falling behind the mountains, every time she threw her wacky rig she got hit by a 1.5 to 2.0 pounder. I was throwing jigs and getting countless 3 pounder. Changed to poppers over shallows and I had more fun in in an hour than had in 3 days. A well lit night makes all the difference for me. We quit by 2200. My body is still sore

I broke my PB sheepshead by several pounds today, and was very lucky to do so. My brothers and I have been doing very well on Jennette's Pier (OBX, NC) for the past two days. We are fishing fiddler crabs on spinning rods with light (15lb) leader, you use a light (1/4-3/8oz) weight and let the wind and current push the bait up under the pier to the sheepshead, it's a blast! I hooked this fish late in the afternoon on the end of the pier, and somehow managed to keep it off of the pilings with 10lb braid, 15lb leader, and a medium action spinning rod. Mind you that fish has the capability to snap a flippin stick like a toothpick! Landing fish with a pier net is nerve-wracking and takes so long, but that part came together too. A once in a lifetime catch I suspect. 8lbs is citation

Once, it is confidence. Confidence in your presentation, technique, line test, bait size, rod and reel. Actually, there are no rules in bass fishing. We think that there are rules, then we hit the water and find out that the bass can't read!!!

Can't speak for the other but I bought 1 Ltb two years ago and now own eight of them. Many times I feel my lure hit bottom on slack line with the reel disengaged. To me they are extremely sensitive.

I'd rather fish a jig for largemouth, but smallies on top is a blast, literally and figuratively.

I’d use the 7.2 and 7.4 for jigs and Texas rigs. The 5.1 for crankbaits and the 6.2 and 6.3 for everything else.

One set up and you don’t want to mess with leaders ....I’m voting 12lb Yo Zuri Hybrid...will get everything done for you just fine. Just make sure you hit it with KVD line and lure conditioner night before and you’re good to go

I use 12lb copoly on my frog / pitching rod. There just isn't much in my lakes that can get my line cut. Just vegetation, but not enough for me to really be concerned about snapping off. I just patiently pull em out. I let the rod do the work. If I was fishing tourneys, I'd be throwing 50lb braid for sure, but I'm not. I just like how the 12lb copoly feels and it's way cheaper than braid.

When I was 12-16yrs old my best friend's dad annually took us to their family land in Missouri to rabbit hunt. I loved doing that with them every year. Camping in a barn. Cooking over a campfire. One year my friend's great uncle came to hunt with us. I remember thinking he looked really old. I was sitting with him at breakfast watching him across the fire with a .410 pump action shotgun at his side. I wondered why he had it. I knew you can't hunt rabbits in open prairie and fence lines with a .410. My buddy had a 20ga and I had a 12ga. We headed out for the day and great uncle took the pump .410. I almost laughed. Later I stopped thinking it was funny. He took twice as many rabbits as us. And I don't mean we each had one and he had two. I mean I took 12-14 rabbits for the day and he took 25 by himself. He made kills from a distance so far that I didn't know it was possible. He hit them on a full run. I guess no one told him you can't hunt rabbits in the open with a .410ga.

I'm a buzzbait addict .

Original Rapala Floating Minnow, a classic that still works.

A few more months and this will be the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!

The Heritage just plain works!

About time I stuck a half-decent fish here.

Hit the stream early yesterday morning for some Independence Day brookies. The area I was fishing was mustly just mud and clay with hardly any riffles so was surprised to do quite well. Panther martin struck gold at one spot with a nice 12.5 incher coming from this open muddy stretch.

They eat hair jigs too, but it's a hair jig that is about 10x bigger and 10x heavier!

Where in the rules does it say the boater gets first shot at all waters? As long as you're not throwing ahead of or in front of him, you are fine in my opinion. It's a narrow space and he got to pick what side he wanted to throw to. If he moved slow enough, he could have fished both sides as he moved along. I would have kept fishing, limited out on his butt from the back deck and then sat down and ate lunch ?

WRB and islandbass, I did have something. I deliver auto parts part time for a small, family owned auto parts chain. I deliver only to dealerships and garages. It's not BPS management money but I really don't care. My wife and I are both blessed to have really good pensions after over thirty years each in law enforcement. BPS basically paid for my fishing. Sounds crazy, but at this point I really don't care about the money. For the guys talking about the time shares, it's only going to get worse except it's now credit cards. That's the main reason I walked. Since the Cabela's purchase, credit cards, excuse me, Club Cards are now the focus. All associate's, in each department, are required to sell c/c's. All managers are required to ensure that associates are selling c/c in addition to selling them themselves. All associate's have a quota. Before I left, customers were complaining about being asked 4 or 5 times if they wanted a c/c. I agreed with the customers. I had two problems, four actually. None of them will make sense to some of you. 1. I don't believe in credit cards, heck I don't believe in debt. To many people get in serious trouble with debt. Proverbs 22:7 speaks to it. I personally refuse to have anything to do with them. Sadly, people have to have mortgages and car payments, they don't have to have c/cs and BPS sells nothing that they have to have. 2. I absolutely refuse to make an associate do something that I won't. Even when I was in L.E., I wouldn't make my guys do something I wouldn't do or hadn't done myself. 3. I won't be given a quota. I never had quota's in over 35 years in L.E., believe it or not. 4. When I hired in, selling c/c was never a requirement. Gear guards were. When I spoke to my supervision, I was told it was non-negotiable. I guess I agreed. Before you say anything, I realize they are 100% within their rights to require employees to do things, including selling cards. I'm just not going to be a part of it. Thanks for the good wishes!

Night tournament where I fish are scheduled around the full moon phase. My first night event was fishing out of another freinds boat and it was his 1st night event, the blind leading the blind takes on a who new meaning. My partner fishes 3" reapers on 8 lb P-Line that is what he uses. I fished jigs and 10" Black Power worms. We got a very late draw time nearly the last boat out so all the top spots had boats on them, except 1 spot was overlooked that was a good day area, so we stopped there. Within the 1st hour I managed to catch 38 lbs for 5 bass, all jig fish. We didn't cull any of those bass, caught several more and had a wonderful time the rest of the night and won the event by over 10 lbs. Tom