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Warm summer evenings and biting bass - a good combination in my book...

Photo by Rob Choi.

Biting bass were just a nice bonus tonight...

Got out Tues. And thurs. For about 5 hrs. Each day. Looking for frog bite but could only get a few to swipe or swat at them. Fell back on pitching again and got 1 decent one each day. 4-3 and 4-2 or vise versa can't remember.

Took my daughter fishing the other day and snapped/posted this pic of her helping me wipe down the boat...Just on my own page and I'm not a big social media person. Skeeter Boats saw it and liked it enough to feature it on their page . She's already more famous than me in the fishing world lol ?.

The time of the day when everything is perfect!

Read, saw a lot of videos, and talked with the late Doug Hanson aka the Bass Professor. He told me that he primarily stuck with the proven, tried and true lures. Admittedly, he marketed a bunch of “new” lures but the several times I spoke with him he told me repeatedly that there was no “secret weapon”, it was a matter of fishing the right places at the right time with a few select proven lures. I know now this is contrary to the “bait monkey” philosophy but several years ago I switched from a large boat down to a much smaller boat necessitating “culling” some tackle. Having bass fished for over 50 years I had quit the collection of lures. Once I “pared” down my tackle selection I was forced to fish more thoroughly with what I had left. I catch more more and larger fish now just concentrating on the basics. If a bass would hit a lure 50, 60, 75 years ago a bass will still hit it today. Search all you want for the “magic lure” but I really don’t think it exists.

My initial impressions of the Lunch Worm and the Flat Nose Minnow. Decent Baits. A-Jay

Are you close ? Can't say with any certainty. What I will say is, that if there are 'big bass' in a body of water, and bassheads are fishing it - someone will catch some. And while a "Trophy Hunter" may be increasing his or her odds by employing experienced based tactics and presentations, there's always a few Hawgs caught by less experience angles using very basic or even conventional gear. In other words. if they are there, they'll be caught; if they are not . . . . . . . Put an average angler on above average water, good things can happen. Rarely is the reverse true. YMMV A-Jay

Followed that beast up with this one today. Another Ned Rig masterpiece. Didn't have time to get a horizontal photo of this one. She was of the same quality, however. Not sure which was bigger. She was missing half of her top lip, if you look closely. Don't believe I did that to her. Earlier in the day I caught another quality Smallie at the smaller dam. I thought she was going to be my star of the day until that one on top happened later on. I love the camaraderie of the bass fishing community. My friend helped me land the first big girl the other day, and then today there was a teenager there fishing with his dad and the teen saw me fighting her and without hesitation grabbed his net and netted her for me. Once again over the wall and I'd have possibly broke off. I'm going to have to start standing in the water below the wall.

Got Topwater ? A-Jay

A-Jay

A-Jay

I'm up in the adirondacks, got here yesterday afternoon. Went out for a few hours last night. Caught all dinks. Few smallies, one largie, and some rock bass. About 10 in all, I was happy for the first time on the lake. I went out again this morning at 5am solo, checked a few promising areas, but didn't see any sign of life. I came back in at 7am to eat with the girlfriend and then we went back out around 8am. Sun was coming out by then, clouds were gone. Water was 76*. We tried shady areas with no luck, then we tried a sun beaten rocky area. Bingo 5 smallies, and a largie, all around a lb, better than the night before. Then we ran out of rocks and started hitting trees... Not a ton of luck, couple smallies. I'm on vacation, and had some tackle with me I normally never take. Namely a large swimbait. I'd never thrown it, had a new rod ready to go for it... so why not. The lure was bigger than any of the fish we had caught previously... but I wanted to play. Second cast to a sun soaked downed tree in about 15 fow.: I saw a big shadow, my lure disappeared...the fight was on. My new personal best! I'm still jittery, decided to head back to camp for a bit and let the jeski's do their thing. Hopefully I have more good news to report later this week.

My regular dropshot hook #2 Gamakatsu EWG. I don't want dropshot hook to be too heavy so my plastic can get a lot of movement. I use rebarb hook especially for Elaztech stuff and EWG hook for others. Compare to 4/0 EWG hook I plan to use 1/0 medium wire for weightless worm, so I can get a little bit more weight to sink faster and make more vibrations when pulling through weed. To be honest I don't see much different between light wire VS medium wire. I do believe that my old one is 3/0 which I use mostly for 7" and longer worm.

looks like another solution, looking for a problem.

I've never done that, but if they're over 5 pounds I just pull their head (only their head) up out of water and pop the hook out. I personally don't think lipping small ones does any damage, but I have heard that holding a 5+ pounder vertically can injure them. I learned that soon after I took a picture of that one in my profile picture...

Yeah, I caught one on a barbed hook the other day, and I went back to using barbless after that. It was a solid 4 pounder hooked in the corner of the lip but it still took me around 15 seconds with needle-nose to get it out. (usually 5 seconds or less with barbless) I also just bought a scale so if I'm going to keep it out of water another 15 seconds to weigh it, I can't afford to spend that extra time un-hooking it.

Notice in the diagram below that the brain is much smaller than the stomach. There is a reason for that. That bass learn not to hit certain lures or relocate to areas to avoid being caught hasn't been proven. Bass migrate. The fact that they may not return to the exact spot just tells me that the bass found a comfortable water temp, a place they feel safe from predators and has some food there or nearby. They don't build homes and come back to those homes every evening after a hard day at work. The entire lake is their home. Just my opinion with a few facts thrown in for good measure.

Youtube Richard Gene the Fishing Machine. He is a good ole boy from AL who has a lot of good videos on bait fishing for bass. He mostly has videos about crappie, but he can catch fish. Funny too, if you like southern corn ball humor. I would like him better if he would quit wearing all of his @#$/^& Bama merchandise. Avoid the rush, hate the Crimson Tide early.

No, but I caught twice as many pike as I did bass yesterday. I don't think I have caught a tiger muskie yet this year over there. As for tonight's fishing on Silver...it was good. Not on fire but good. I fished from 4pm-8pm. I caught an even dozen, with the best 5 a 4-13, a 4-1, a 3-11, and a pair of 3-9's. I'll take 19 + lbs for 4 hours of work any night. The most exciting part of the night was when I went for a swim.....unintentionally. I skipped a frog up under a dock, and some other bozo left a wad of braid broken off on this dock, and of course my line, and frog got all tangled up in it. So there I am, on hands and knees, with the scissors cutting my frog out of this mess, when I get blind sided by a huge wake. It wasn't the initial wake that got me it was the rebound wake off the retaining wall on shore. I felt it start pushing the boat away from the dock.....the next thing I know, I am forming a human bridge between my front deck and the edge of this dock. My out stretched arms and hands on the dock, and my feet hooked on the gunnel of the boat with the rest of my body over open water.....it must have been a sight to see. I was faced with two options.....keep holding on for dear life and risk some kind of bizzaro injury, or just let go and take a swim. I chose to go into the drink. So I went in as gracefully as a 300lb fool could. I actually landed feet first on the bottom in about chest deep milfoil and eel grass choked water, calmly walked over to the boat, grabbed the TM shaft and walked the boat through the grass filled water to the nearest dock with a ladder, and climbed back on. One of my idiot friends saw the whole thing, and I thought I was going to have to call the ambulance for him he was laughing so bad. Lucky my phone, keys, and wallet were in the boat, and not my pockets. I continued to fish for 2 hours or so after this comedic fiasco, and caught my best fish of the night afterwards.

Got "the call" today, a month early. Apparently they've had some folks back out of their orders. Went down and got my paperwork and headed to DMV tomorrow morning (yay?!??). Will pick it up Monday after work. Should be on the water Tuesday night.

I've caught some of my biggest bass on techniques that I know nobody else is throwing on the body of water I caught them in (magnum rage bug, big straight tail, 7" senko, weighted senko). But o the flip side, the other big ones I've caught on that lake have been on baits that everybody throws there (jig, craw, spinnerbait, big ribbon tail). The only reason I know nobody else is throwing the first few baits I mentioned is because it is a private 65 acre lake owned by my fishing partner and we know everyone that fishes there, what they like to use, and where they like to fish and anytime they see any of those baits I have tied on they just laugh and ask if I really think they are gonna work. I just grin and say nope just trying them out.

No doubt, man. Whether it's dumb luck or not - right place, right time, has a lot to do with it!

Sadly, this may be the last one for a while. ?

Jigger Pole

Got a free offshore fishing trip from my job. It was the second least productive day Ive had offshore fishing but it was still fun. One of my co-workers ( the one next to me ) was seasick all day and never put a line in the water so my day was great compared to his.

I'll check the rules and see if that's a 2 minute or 4 minute fishing landing penalty. ?

Culling issues, lol.

I was having problems losing fish with zman ned rig hooks, TRD combo. I noticed it's almost always from my kayak, I set the hook and the rod is high and I'm reeling at a pretty good pace. I've watched them shake it out at the kayak while still underwater. My guess is with the rod high and the speed of the reel/me, I lose pressure on them and they take advantage of that slack and win.

We gave up our last morning of smallmouth fishing and started slaying the channel cats. My daughter had a blast.

You know who rules the water when you're fishing a normally productive spot for bass that isn't producing for some reason, and then one of these pops your jig.

I placed 3rd in a tournament drop shotting in stained water. Caught LMBs and small mouths. Go for it!

1st order. Just got a tracking number from UPS.

Like others said unless you purposefully took a pair of pliers and bent the washers I doubt you weakened them during cleaning. Greasing your drag stack will lower your max drag slightly with the advantage of smoothness.

+1 I've ordered from them probably five times. I would recommend them to anyone. And I have here.

Went back today with an ultralight rod and spin fly and caught a nice size pickerel, so maybe that was it.

+1 Field Supply is legit. I've ordered from them a few times. Everything has been top quality.

I will let you know. I ordered 2 Huk shirts. I did get an order conformation but that don't mean they are legit.

I order from them all the time. Never had an issue.

We actually did that at a church mens retreat .We tied an old rag or something to somebodies line and had a teen wrap it around his hand/arm and hang on. ( This was at night ) Then we found a gullible friend and got them to hold the net while we hollered " Its got to be a world record " , and all the while the teen flopping and jumping and pullin.Finally, We'd " work him in close " and as the friend leaned over with the net, our teen in the water would suddenly come up out of the water with weeds all over him and make as horrified a sound as possible. One of our friends fell backwards into a boat he was so scared. ( He was ok but very embarrased )?

Yep it'll work great for that, I like to use it to catch various species of panfish.

Bass have not been biting here water temp has been really high. Been experimenting with trolling though

It's funny how kids react to watching you catch a fish. This morning when my son asked my grandson what he wanted for breakfast, the reply was "crank?"

FYI, we had to remove several posts, and even suspend one guy.... all because people get all emotional over ... .... a reel. It's fishing folks. It's supposed to be fun. If your blood starts to boil over a post on a fishing site, then it's time to do a gut check; because something is seriously wrong. Just sayin'

Number 1 = Lake Baccarac, Mexico Number 2 = Bullards Bar, CA

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?

Had 3 generations on the boat Friday at Yates Center. Caught largemouth, a surprise smallmouth, green sunfish, a wiper, a white bass, a walleye, and a couple channel cats. Lots of action on the 3.5" YUM Pulse swimbait again.

Our better catches from La Cygne on Friday. Flatheads were on a 6XD, Z-Craw, and Yo-Momma, bass was on the Z-Craw.