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Ice. A-Jay

Biggest Smallmouth ever on this particular river. Throwing the Ned Rig off the dam. It doesn't just catch dinks! I was shaking for awhile. My buddy gets credit for it too because he climbed down the wall and lipped it for me and raised it up to me so I didn't have to horse it up the wall and risk breaking it off. And then we waded down to some islands and this behemoth ate his Ned Rig. My buddy down the wall doing me a solid.

[August 06, 2018] It's been 17 long days since Jeremy & I last fished. There was a bass tournament held last Saturday (4th). It's the summer season and temps are now reaching into the 90's. The past weekend saw a lot of pressure from both tournament & weekend anglers as well as recreational boaters. All in all, I was just happy to finally get back out and get some casts in, and thought even if I only caught a little 8 incher to stay consistent, I would consider that a bonus. Well I caught that little 8 incher... As well as a few upgrades... WolfyBrandon

Sometimes just being along is rewarding enough. I also find that when alone my I fish different. I stop for a coffee, hit spots many don't consider, and don't feel like I have to put people on fish. I can target larger ones and today was a great example. Compared to what many post, these are minnows, but 4 that were between 3.2 and 4.1 is a great day.

My Nephew came for a visit this weekend. I took him and my son for a fishing trip to a local spot for some Smallmouth action. Everyone caught fish. It was a good trip. We got them on Ploppers, Dingers, Berkley Atomic Tubes and Ned Rig TRD's

That fish looks bigger than all of @EGbassing's 10 pounders!

Got out for a couple hours to a new lake, to me anyways, Ivan Lake in Cotton Valley, La. It has lots of potential plus lots of bank and 5 fishing piers to fish from. Wasn't there long enough to really figure anything out as it was too hot. Didn't catch any bass. Did catch another bowfin. No pic of it because it shook my bait as I got it on the bank and disappointed it wasn't a bass just pushed it back in the water with my foot. It was a cool catch though. It slammed my 110 Whopper Plopper. Sounded almost like a whip cracked when it hit. It was a pretty good sized one too. Almost as big as that 6lb 11oz one I posted earlier this year. After being back home for a while I was checking the line on the rod I caught it with for any nicks or abrasions and happened to notice the teeth marks it left behind. Some serious grooves in my 110. Glad I didn't have to deal with unhooking it! ?

He won fish of the day! Sad, really sad...

Yesterday evening was breezy and heavily overcast. Went to my private lake in Virginia and got an 8 pound 3 oz. bass and then 15 minutes later, an 8 pound 13 oz bass on the frog!!! Also landed a 3 pounder on frog.

Shoulda used a trailer hook .

Yep same here, can't let the yaks, canoes, and AL/Jet boats have all the fun

Got 7 this evening , all on 5 inch senkos. Stayed up at my end of the lake again and fished eel grass pockets. Had a couple on that felt bigger, but gave me the slip. I did get this one anyway. Tried the frog again awhile, and nothing again. Frog bite has been almost non existent for me this summer. Im not sure whats up with this weather but its been a very rainy but relatively cool summer . The fish have never slowed down this summer. It felt almost like the early fall out there this evening.

you can buy a digital scale(luggage scale) on ebay or amazon for around $10 and theyre very accurate. be prepared for a hard dose of reality when that monster you would of sworn to be 5 lbs turns out to be 3.8 lbs.

caught 16 spots and 2 largemouths in the little johnny this morning from 6:30 til 10:30. this 20” porker hit a Zoom lizard in 12 fow. dadburnit it’s hot!

Seldom do I catch 4 in a row over 3 lbs, must be good karma The 4th jumped ship before I could get his mug shot

As some of you know I had an issue with my Garmin Echomap Chirp 73 ( See Garmin malfunction ). They asked me to send it into them, which I did. Tracking shows they received it yesterday. I called this A.M. to see if they had looked at it yet. The customer service rep put me on hold while he checked into it. He came back and said this unit was not considered repairable, and they would send me a replacement, but as they didn't have any more of the non plus units to send, they would replace it with one of the newer plus units. From what he said these use the same transducer, power cable etc. so all I have to do is mount the new cradle, plug everything in, and I'll be good to go. Even better, they are overnighting it so I'll have it tomorrow. Can't ask any more than that. It's nice to see a company that still has good customer service.

Meh......Do what I do......fish lakes that look like this. A pleasure boat would be sunk in 5 minutes on this lake. All those trees in the fog are IN the water. And where there is still a tree standing, there are 5 stumps around it that you may or may not be able to see. No gas motors allowed...not that you'd want to use one anyway.

Megabass really has a knack for getting the day started with big topwater fish. Today it was the Pop X. First cast yeilded this 21 incher. Really wish she could have munched on a few more perch before I caught her...21” and barely tipped the scale at 4lbs. Topwater was the really the only thing they wanted today. Couple small ones around docks with the senkos, and spinnerbaits couldn’t buy a sniff unless from Esox. Fine by me, I have no problem feeding them the topwater all morning!

When I read this thread I can't help but think of some old guy yelling "Get off my lawn!"

UPDATE........I am a proud owner of a Curado DC. Shop owner called me last night to come out after work so I did. Shimano rep was there earlier in the day and said there was a unit of 250 reels that left the factory with the brakes not installed properly and they have in narrowed down to a distribution facility in Michigan. Rep fixed all the reels at the shop and left. This would be why the complaints I seen where on local forums. I tested the reel out as I did over the weekend flipping and light sidearm casting and it worked beautifully, no thumbing required at all.

All are welcome, Brother. It ain't a big lake but it's my happy place. In my info down at the bottom it says Happy Holler....out in the boonies. This is the place. About 100 acres.....has stumps, flats, shallows, creeks, points, cover, structure, etc. It's got it all, including some nice bass. I've been going here almost exclusively for about 10 years now and am still not tired of it. It's not a big numbers lake but it has some NICE bass in it. Best part is it's out in the middle of nowhere so not a lot a of pressure. I'd say at least 65% of the time I am there, I am alone. The rest of the time there might be another boat or 2 on the lake and it's almost always just another one of the regulars that all respect and like each other. It's my little paradise on earth.

The question is - for how long though ? A-Jay

Downsize

Last I heard, graphite is a form of carbon (the element). So are diamonds, btw. Shallow cranks should work well on it, not that I have any first hand experience with the rod.

Bagged a couple 3's, a 4, and a 5 yesterday. I don't remember which one this was. I don't think it was the 5.

I too enjoy getting up the creeks in search of those less pressured fish.

A-Rig bass! Caught three in about 20 minutes, this one was my biggest of the day. 3.5ish The day started out a bit slow but we found a spot where bass were crashing shad and spent a few hours floating around there picking off a few bass. If we could throw a jerkbait into the school when they were breaking the surface it was almost guaranteed to catch a fish. I caught a few on crankbaits and rattle traps as well. But they were keyed in on small shad and didn't want anything if it was bigger than the shad they were chasing.

Earlier this week, I headed out with my buddy to chase after some schooling fish he discovered. (Some of you may recognize him from my high school fishing days!). We didn't find any activity til about 10am, and it took a while to figure out what was going on. The area we found was maybe a square half mile of water with fish eating bait everywhere, but it was very spread out. After observing for an hour or so, we learned that there were maybe 3 areas where fish would surface in the same locations repeatedly. This meant you could put a bait in the middle of the feeding frenzy, and also know that your bait is in front of them while they aren't "up", which is good for trying different baits, as schooling fish are often finicky. I spent a good chunk of the morning throwing a gunfish and spook at the breaking fish. I was able to boat one about 2.75lbs, but only had a couple other fish swat at my bait. I tried a flutter spoon around the depth of the thermocline (around 15') in areas with the breaking fish, but that didn't produce either. We also tried a jerkbait, and several types of swimbaits to no avail. Finally, as the action slowed, I tried the ol' super fluke. I have caught schooling fish on them in the past, but jerkbaits and walking baits have always produced way more fish for me. For whatever reason, these fish were big fans of a fluke. While a topwater couldn't even draw a bite during a frenzy, the fluke would actually "call" the fish up after they quit chasing, which I had never seen before with a fluke. I didn't think it made enough disturbance for them to notice from whatever depth they suspend at in between frenzies. I ended up catching 3 or 4 fish in the 2-3lb range before the surface activity came to a screeching half around 12:30. From then until about 3:00, the action was very slow. We couldn't get anything else going, so we just hung out and waited for it to start up again. I was frustrated that I didn't try a fluke earlier, because we were around some big fish, and the fluke was shockingly effective, even when the fish were not showing themselves much. At roughly 3:30, things picked up again. We had the flukes ready to go this time, and things got off to a hot start. By now, we had honed in on "the spot on the spot", where lots of shad and herring death was occurring. We could get the school of fish fired up just by throwing a fluke over top of them, it was incredible. Once one fish was hooked, others would surface and start eating baitfish, which is probably one of the coolest things to witness in bass fishing. Alongside many 2-3lb fish, I landed one close to 4, and my buddy got one close to 5. I did a little on-the-spot rigging, because I always have trouble hooking fish with a fluke on an EWG hook. I took a 2/0 VMC Neko hook, and trimmed down the weedguard. The short pieces of mono would act as a keeper (despite facing the wrong direction) when you pulled them down into the nose of the fluke, rigging it like you would on a jighead. This was a very effective rigging method, we only missed 2 or 3 fish between the two of us. The fish seemed to wise-up to the fluke within an hour or so, and we started to change things up. I was able to get one decent fish on a flutter spoon, but besides that we were having a tough time. I had a 1/2oz hairjig/underspin in my box that I had never used, and figured now would be a good time to try. I had several strong bites the first few times I brought it through the school, and bowed up on a big fish, but it came off. Since I didn't have any more hairjigs, my buddy rigged up a 4.8" keitech on a half oz underspin. He fished it just like I did the hairjig, with 3-4 fast turns of the handle and then freespooling it for a couple feet, for a fast drop. The fish were all over that swimbait! He was hooking a fish every 2-3 casts, it didn't even matter where he threw it. I tried a 3/8 underspin with a swimbait because I didn't have any more 1/2oz, but I assume the rate of fall just wasn't fast enough to make them react. He finally hung up and broke off the magic underspin, and couldn't get them to go on anything else after that. I rigged my hairjig up again, hoping I could get one of the bigger fish to stay pinned if I did hook one. I finally was able to lay into a big fish on the hairjig, which was our biggest of the day @5.9lbs! It was super neat to catch a big fish on a relatively unconventional method, particularly here in Virginia. It was almost 6:00 at this point and the fish began to slow down again, I was able to get a couple more hits on the hair jig but nothing got the hook. I'm not sure if they swipe at it, or just eat and reject the bait really fast. All in all it was an awesome day of fishing. I already have a good bit of experience with schooling fish, but I think my schooling fish knowledge may have doubled from that experience, I learned a lot! Oh yeah, we broke the 20lb mark too

Back at it this fine morning

Went Smallie hunting again with the ole Ned Rig. First picture is my first cast. Second picture is my second cast. It was on from there. Another 30 Smallies in about 2 hours. Had to make the second picture gray so it would fit on here. Sorry for the dumb face. My wife texted me and that was my reply back. We're weird.

Nice! That'll make you forget the O's are 40+games out.?

I wonder if my poppers feel like this when they get swiped at.

One of the last tournaments I won was WAY up a creek while everyone else was on the struggle bus looking for fish that didn't want to play on the main lake. Doubled everyone else's weights despite fishing poorly and losing a few big ones.

Well, what are you trying to fish? If you're throwing cranks or similar baits, yeah they're gonna get buried in weeds. Have you tried texas rigs? Texas rigged flukes, worms, craws, all those things tend to come through the thickest junk fairly decent. Unless the pond is legit slop everywhere, you should be able to work pockets with those things. If it is 100% slop, go ahead and try some top water like frogs.

I think the whole deal with carbon fiber is that it is light and flexible, while still being sensitive. Now you've got me wanting to know. I got check this out.

Fun to watch the kids. My grandson wants to play baseball but his parents want him to do soccer, where he is not that good. He can really hit the whiffle ball when he visits with us. Calling son and his wife tonight to tell them so he can start playing next year.

You can fish a ned rig with a stick. Throw it out and let it hit bottom, shake it a little for 15sec, lift rod tip, reel in slack or wrap line around your stick. Repeat. Your rod choice will determine the sensitivity. It's best to use the lightest rod you feel comfortable with hauling your PB with. I got a medium light ugly stick elite for $40 and it works fine for ned rigging. I recently upgraded to a tatula elite ags finesse rod and guess what? It catches the same fish the ugly stick did.

After 20 years of marriage, a man named Jack left his wife for his young secretary. His new girlfriend desperately wanted to live in the million-dollar mansion that Jack and his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Edith, shared while they were together. Jack, eager to please his girlfriend, made sure it happened. With better and more ruthless lawyers, Jack won legal rights to the mansion. His young secretary rejoiced. As for Edith? Jack gave her just three days to pack her things and leave the house. Brutal. Defeated, Edith complied with her ex-husband’s unfair demand. What choice did she have? On the first day of her final three days in the mansion, she packed her bags and boxes, mulling over just how much she would miss her longtime home. On the second day, the moving company picked up her boxes and transported them to her new apartment across town. All the while, she wrestled with her feelings of anger and betrayal. She had to do something. But what? By the third day, she had a plan for revenge. It started with one last meal in the dining room. There, she treated herself to a small feast: a plate of shrimp with caviar and a bottle of Champagne. Edith then enacted the final part of her plan and left the house… A short time later, Jack returned with his new flame. For a couple of days, the two lived in the paradise of a few-thousand-square-foot mansion. But then the house began to smell… Why the heck does this house stink? Jack wondered. With no answers, he searched for solutions. He and his girlfriend tried everything to get rid of the smell—cleaning, wiping, and vacuuming. Still, the odor grew worse. Jack checked the air conditioning, thinking there may have been a dead mouse inside. He called for exterminators to drop a chemically induced death sentence on any possible vermin. Nothing worked. As days passed, the smell became torture. Friends stopped visiting. Even handymen refused to work in the house, and the maid quit. Finally, driven to the edge of insanity, Jack reached a solution. He was a rich guy, right? He’d just buy a new house where he and his young secretary could live odor-free. However, the smell was like a curse: rumors of the “stinkhouse” spread throughout the area. No one wanted to buy the home. Desperate, Jack lowered the list price for his house. Then he lowered it again. And again. Eventually, not even realtors wanted anything to do with it. So Jack took a different route… Jack took out a loan to buy a new house. Then one day his ex-wife called him and asked him how he was doing. He proceeded to complain about his ordeal with the home. She patiently listened to his story. When he finished speaking, Edith told him how she missed living there and would be ready to lower his alimony payments if he would give her the house back. Jack hungrily licked his lips at the offer. She had no idea how bad it smelled! Finally offered an out, Jack agreed to let Edith take the house—under one condition. She had to sign the agreement, sight unseen, on the same day. Edith agreed and met up with Jack to sign the contract. She wore a wicked ear-to-ear smile—for a good reason. See, Edith knew why the house smelled so bad. The odor was all her doing. On her last night in the house, right after her final meal of shrimp, caviar, and Champagne, she didn’t exactly exhibit the best table manners… She’d dipped her leftover shrimp in the caviar and stuffed the remains into all of the home’s hollowed-out curtain rods. For good measure, she sewed a few of the shells into the hem of the curtains, too. A week later, Jack and his lover stood smiling and full of relief in front of their former house, watching the moving company transport their belongings away. Finally—finally!—they’d escaped that horrid stench. Even better? It would be Edith’s problem, now… Edith, however, never even caught a whiff of the odor that’d pressured Jack into giving away his multi-million dollar home. Because when the movers packed up all of Jack’s stuff, they took the curtain rods with them! Talk about an effective way to get back at a cheating ex. While the story of Jack and Edith may be a work of fiction, there’s no doubt that need for revenge, justice, and free real estate lives within all of us. Looks like his ex-wife got the last laugh on that one with a little bit of shrimp revenge! A-Jay

I planned to torture myself with Dropshot rig on a pockets of weed today. Got there a little late 6:45AM and saw a whole bunch of water boiling. I took a closer look and carp everywhere roaming around shallow and deep. I walked to my usual spot, 2nd cast felt a bite, set hook and line started screaming out of my reel. I said to myself "oh **** carp hit me again" and this area is weed everywhere. I let him pull the line but try to get him to stay on surface as mush as possible, finally got him in with another carp swimming around him very close to my feet. I moved after that since I don't plan to fight with crap in those weedy area and I know for sure carp will hit my lure again. This was on Zman zinkerz anyway. At 2nd spot I got nothing and still saw some carp boiling up, I think those greenie water bugs laying egg or something?

This sounds very similar to the water we fished this weekend. The main lake bite has been slow, so we headed up in the headwaters and found a little pattern pitching jigs in very shallow laydowns and log jams. No real size to speak of but was able to catch a few in this range. I think next week, we are going back with kayaks and see how far we can really go.

If you accept that people are idiots and not considerate, you have to think about whether you're being foolish taking a small boat to a place where it is likely to be inadequate for the conditions. No different to me trying to take my 12ft tin boat across the atlantic. I might make it, but it wouldn't be the right boat for the conditions! My little boat is perfect for where I do take it though.

Went out fishing yesterday and it was dire. The river Thames was 76f, which I certainly don't ever remember seeing before. Predictably the fish have pretty much shut down and even the tiny perch were proving hard to tempt with the smallest of crappie jigs. So I went exploring. Proper swallows and amazons stuff up a little backwater. Motor trimmed up and front troller held to the surface on the cord. Amazed how far I got, the boat must only draft about 4"! Anyway, got to a gravel flat that I couldn't pass and got out for a splash around. The dogs loved it charging about in ankle deep water. I doubt many boats had ever been up there, a few kayaks probably, but I had it to myself only about 12 miles from the center of London! The heatwave is predicted to end in the next week or so, so better make the best of it. The last summer like this was 1976. We don't get many great summers! ?

There are some awesome gill patterns in here. Very nice work everyone! Here are a few that I've done on my cedar baits.

I have both a spring scale and a digital luggage scale. Both are very accurate, but the spring scale isn't as reliable for smaller fish. I rarely, however, weigh fish preferring to just get a quick measurement and release.

That's completely false. Scales tell us who wins a tournament. Scales tell us our PB. Not everyone lives in the land of DD bass. Not everyone fishes for LMB. A SMB doesn't need to even be half of 10lbs to be incredible.

Scales are useless unless you catch a 10 lber

Nice fish guys! Pretty sure I found your spot, and a group of kayakers that were there must have known about it too because they floated around that area literally the entire day yesterday. They were determined, but when I was close enough to see I didn't see them catching much. It looked like they were fishing flukes but I never got close enough to really tell. We gave that spot a break when the bite slowed down around mid morning and explored some other parts of the lake without much luck. Hopefully they got on some action! Jerkbaits produced if the bass were pushing shad to the surface. I caught several on crankbaits, when they were not crashing shad, several on a chrome rattle trap. My biggest of the day I got with an A-rig. It's been a long time since I've caught an A-rig fish and I caught three in about 20 minutes all out of the same spot. They absolutely hammered the thing! Was hoping for that big bite but they pretty much shut off after that. Flukes or any other soft plastic they would not touch for some reason. Tried several different sizes weightless and weighted and never got bit. Underspin they wouldn't touch but I didn't have a 1/2oz size so maybe that's why? Still had a great day, somewhere around 20 bass in the boat!

Amazing Bass ~ ! And your face right there confirms it. Congrats A-Jay

New PB. I don't own a scale but I'm buying one tomorrow... That picture angle didn't do him justice at all.

Last night was one of those memorable nights. I hit a pond with my kayak that I normally don't get a chance to fish in the evening. Probably over 20 topwater blowups on frogs, buzz toads, and buzz baits. The fish in open water shot out of the water like rockets to hit the buzz toad, especially. Missed quite a few in really thick slop. I ended up boating around 10, including several in the chunky 3 lb range. No monsters, but constant topwater action. I don't ask for any more than that!