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My week in photos! Starting with the most recent and ending with last weekend. Lone smallie Thursday. Interesting color pattern on it though! Couple bites that day but they weren't having anything to do with eating. Wednesday, to' some fish up! Smallmouth were sitting on the edges of the fastest current, and eating anything that came within reach. Gar were doing the same, unfortunately, so I lost about 10 lures to those teeth. Feel the bite, set the hook, get half a lure back. Picked up a nice smallie on the second cast that day, and got that nice chunky 2.5lb largemouth which is the biggest green bass I've caught in this stretch of river. Weirdly enough... Couldn't see the fish, but I knew it was going to be a largemouth before I set the hook just by the way the bite felt, and the way the fish started moving with the lure. Caught another dozen or so smallmouth that day, some dinks but mostly 12-15" size. Tuesday had an average day. Different stretch of water, got 6 fish in about 2 hours. They were off in calm pockets out of the current. Monday was the same. Sunday... Sandy river res. Almost needs a whole page for itself. Bait fish EVERYWHERE! No bass on them. And if we found bass near them, they didn't want a lure. My first two of the day were a 3.5lb on a squarebill in 5 FOW. It was apparently sitting on a bed?! Second was a 4 and change that came in about 8 FOW on a ribbon tail worm. I caught three dinks the rest of the day. Had a couple better fish hooked but they shook off before they even got to the surface. Probably not as big as my first two. My buddy was working on a skunk until he picked up a dink about mid afternoon. His next was a 3lber off bottom in 22fow. Next was a 6.4lb 21.5", from some sort of rock structure in 10Fow. Caught on 1/2oz blade bait. Nice solid fish, but that was all he got for the day. One lure, one fish. No single lure produced a second fish for either of us, so obviously we were not on the pattern. The baitfish that were everywhere in main lake were shad about 2-3" long, and try as we did, we could not get a pattern going with anything we had that was that size.

Of the 35 double digits I've caught 14 were on jigs the other 20 were on Texas Rigs. 6 of that 20 came on craw worms, the other 14 came on worms. Numbers are fairly similar which indicates location! The remaining one & my personal best (12 lb 8 oz) was caught on a Rat-L-Trap

It's my stress relief. Addiction and mental health are big issues in my family. You're either a raging alcoholic or suffer from crippling depression. I enjoy a drink occasionally, and I get down once in awhile, but fishing doesn't leave me enough time to waste with either. I've met a lot of friends, almost all of my regular fishing buddies are guys I've met off of the forums, and I'm always looking forward to fishing with others I haven't yet. Lots of folks I consider friends that I've never met, just because I've interacted with them on here so much. It opened the door to me being a mod on this forum, which has been a pretty cool experience.

I know exactly what you are talking about. Just the other day I was trying to hammer a nail in the wall using a screwdriver and I just couldn't get it to go in. I think there may be something wrong with my screwdriver...

@JustJames true that, family comes first and there's always tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow(today actually...lol) I went back to the upper lake side of Caney Lakes again this afternoon for a couple hours. Nothing to brag about, but I didn't get skunked either. I caught this nonscorable bass on the same tequila sunrise lizard today not long before having to leave. I found out why tequila sunrise and plum colors are doing so well. I saw the first crawfish I've ever seen out there and it was practically the same color as those colors. Now I need to find some craw type baits in those colors. Hopefully somebody makes them. ?

My wife's pets didn't seem to give a rip about the fact that it was pouring outside, they were hungry.

Worst birds nest in probably a decade. Didn’t even try to pick at it LOL

My dad passed away. He was 90 years old. I still miss him terribly. Mentally he was still sharp as a tack, but his body was just worn out. His passing was not a surprise, he had been in hospice for a couple of weeks. I couldn't have asked for a better father. He was a WWII vet and always worked hard to support mom and us kids, but made time to take me fishing, hunting, all the things I liked to do. The last thing he did for me was to hang on and not pass until today, because yesterday was my birthday, and he made sure I would not always remember my birthday as the day he passed. To all of you whose parents are still here, I can not urge you enough to take every day with them as a blessing. To spend time with them, to talk to them about anything and everything. It was only after my dad passed that I realized all the little things about him and the family I never thought to ask. My wife and I will look at old family pictures, and I go to tell her about them and realize I just don't know. There are so many things about my dad I will never know, so many stories he could have told me that now are lost. Please! Please! take the time with your parents. Don't wait, don't put it off. This is one of my favorite pictures Even as a little kid I had the fishing bug. I was too young to "really" fish, but they gave me a toy fishing rod and dad would take me out around the lake so I could "fish". This was around 1956 and I still have memory's of it.

February 3rd 2007 was a nasty cold morning with Northwest winds at 15-20 mph, a slight misty rain falling, and temperatures in the middle 30's. After having launched out of Jack's 944 Marina I made the short (2 minutes) run to the mouth of Bull creek trying to stay out of the wind and some what warm. Having rounded the corner I dropped the trolling motor, picked up my Rat-L-Trap rod again with the thought in mind of keeping moving and staying warm. My third cast was into the mouth a cut leading to a boat shed which I knew had stumps on the west side, after turning the handle 4 or 5 time my trap stopped solid, I tell Pat d**n to close to the stumps so I push the trolling motor handle towards the mouth of the cut while stepping on the switch. At the exact same instance my line starts zinging towards deeper water rod all bowed up & drag slipping; I immediately scream at Pat get the net. By now the boat is moving off to my left the bass is moving off to my right and I'm nearly on my knees in front of the console with the upper third of the rod in the water. Pat net in hand is now on the front deck killed the trolling motor and with a swift motion netted the hawg; which ends up weighing in at 12 pounds 8 ounces. Needless to say I was rather warm for the rest of the day!

Keeping the dog theme going. This is my lap dog! Dont tell him otherwise. ?

Thanks for all the feedback on this issue. Today I drove 2 hrs to my local Cabelas and gave them my reels for inspection in the fishing department. What we found out is the place that put on my power pro braid never tied it to the spool.. “yikes” the guy also never used mono first, he used straight braid. So all this time I thought my local sportshop put the line on right, until we found out the truth at Cabelas today. Problem was solved by them taking the line off the reel and putting it on a empty spool. Then they used 4lb mono for a few turns and put the braid back on the spool. So now my drag is solid as it should be..Quick fix!!! No problems with Daiwa..

If it was me I'd spend less on a combo and hire some hot looking hoty to go fishing with me a couple times.

You guys have not seen true “bug time” unless you've been in the bush in northern Ontario about the first half of May. When the blackflies are at their thickest, it can be hard to even breathe!

There went 16 minutes of my day...YMMV ?

Got out for about 3 hours yesterday evening/night to Caney Lakes upper lake side. The lower lake side is closed until Memorial Day next year which really sucks, unless you have a boat. There's a boat launch on the other end of that side, but all the bank access is in the park area that's closed. Why? I don't know. Anyways, nothing was doing until about 8:45ishpm and finally got this nonscorable bass on my 1/4oz weighted tequila sunrise 6" Zoom lizard. Then 3 casts later caught another maybe scorable bass(didn't bother to weigh either of them) on the same lizard. My girlfriend wasn't feeling very well so we went on to the house. Wish we coulda stayed a little later, no telling what else I coulda caught, but her wellness is more important and at least I didn't get skunked. ?

made a quick stop by my local hole and pulled out this 4.7 lber on my second cast using a top toad.

Been a grind the last few weeks working hard for a hand full of keepers and dinks with a couple of maybe 3's in the mix. This week was a little better as I stuck a 5-1 Tues. On a weed demon and a3-3 pitching a jig into holes in weeds on thurs.

[September 06, 2018] My "Fish Of The Day" & Jeremy's Personal Best Northern Pike! CONGRATS! 15 lb 05 oz, 38 & 1/2" WolfyBrandon

This stuff is common in local lakes and I often wondered what type of vegetation it was . Surprise . Its not vegetation at all . Its a form of Algae . Look at this link. http://www.aquaticbiologists.com/branched-algae-chara/

while I was in bama ,my grandson sent me this pic of this little pig he caught from my lake. he was surprised when he looked in her mouth to retrieve his hook, he saw this blue gill either not all the way swallowed or she tried to regurgitate it like a shad when hooked.

With water temps reaching their peak recently the fishing at our normal hot spots has been poor lately so I decided to try a new lagoon. It's near one of our productive lagoons and I had driven by and scouted it in the past. It has a few houses along one side, but the rest has some good aquatic vegetation along the shore that we can reach from the bank. But as soon as we pulled up I could see that at least for today we weren't going to be able to fish there. The photos say it all. The house in the background gives you some perspective on the size of this gator. This one had a bit of girth to it. We moved to a second new lagoon that looked promising. There are no houses on it and plenty of laydowns along the back side that you could reach with a decent cast. I started making my way down the length of the lagoon and another big gator showed up. He swam out to let me know I was in his territory but didn't chase my baits. But within a few minutes the skies opened up with a torrential downpour so we called it quits for the day. While the weather is still going to be hot here for a while, the water may cool off a bit soon - but not in a good way. We're keeping an eye on Hurricane Florence right now. We're still within the cone of probability, but so far it looks like it's going to head north of us. Two years ago we got hit with a hurricane and last year with a big tropical storm. I really don't want to have to evacuate again. Fingers crossed...

Started an informal fishing club at my school... Reminds me why I love this so mucn

Location, location, location, then the right lure at the right time. Jigs are excellent choice when big bass are feeding on crawdads. If you use bottom contact lures like jigs and worms 90% of the time your odds are good that is what you will catch big bass on if they are in the location you are fishing. Tom

It’s been more than five years since I broke a rod. Sounds like you’re high sticking and not letting the drag do it’s job.

My youngest son is in the Coast Guard, stationed at the small boat station at Ft. Macon (Atlantic Beach) NC. They're making ready for Florence. I'm praying that everyone stays safe.

So did you grab the rod a foot or two from the tip and try to lift/drag the fish like that? That's a big no-no and one of the easiest ways to break a rod if you did.

Conquest rod with a Met DC or Conquest 100

I hope the 90 doesn't go anywhere, the 75 doesn't replace it at all imo. The 75 is much louder and a bigger profile, even though it's shorter. Everyone can send me their 90's and I'll dispose of them so they'll have room in their boxes for the 75's ?

Exactly but don't overlook the thicker areas either, they're gonna use the opening, edges & sparse areas to ambush but they're hiding out a little deeper in the grass. Take a point formed by grass many anglers hit the end & sides. I'll work up the point like I would one without grass!

I just wanted to follow up on this. The bait I had an issue with was a Cambio Spinnerbait which had the back blade come off within minutes of it's first use. I contacted them through Facebook shortly after posting this and they said they'd contact me through email. Email never came so I asked again through Facebook. They eventually helped me out and sent a very generous package from Japan of replacement baits, that I received this week. I got out today to fish one of them and it held up to many fish so I am very pleased with how they handled it and I trust that the bait I had break was just a fluke. Thanks Duo!

I don't call those bird nests anymore...I call it a professional overrun.

Bass fishing has been an active part of my life since I can remember. I met my wife when she was 15 years old. We are both 71 now. We grew up in South Florida and fished together before and after school. We fished together our entire lives. When our son was born, we carried his play pen with us in the car and fished from the bank. When bass tournaments first started in the sixties, I fished everyone I could enter. I have great memories of those years. We fished together as a family until my son got married and had his own kids. He fishes to this day. I can not think of a better family activity. When you are on the lake, it's you, the fish and your troubles are far away. I'm too old to fish now. Those years of bouncing around Lake Okeechobee have taken a toll on my back. Take your family fishing. Get your kids away from the computer and teach them to appreciate a day on the water with their Dad. You won't regret it.

Big Dog Guy ~ Facials are Tucker's specialty ~ A-Jay

Mental health. Before retiring I had a long hour, high stress job. Short fishing trips after work, would always put life back into perspective. Now that I am retired, my constant quest to catch a new personal best bass, keeps my mind working. Retiring healthy and with the means to pursue my goals, also helps.

You guys have been smoking too much algae.

It has opened the door to the poor house for me.

Well, it's certainly taken a bunch of my money ?

This is not what I expected when I saw the title of the post. ?

Had a fun day on the lake yesterday, I got finished up with class at noon and obviously headed out shortly thereafter! I caught a couple largemouth in the grass, then I went out deep and found some crazy stuff with my electronics. There were unbelievable amounts of baitfish, and when I saw fish near the bottom underneath them, I knew it was gonna go down. I caught smallmouth, walleye, and pike on a Berkley Dredger 25.5, it was a blast!

After a solid numbers day in the rain we arrived back at weigh in with a full bag of 6 fish. Well aware it wasn't the winning bag but figured those 6 would put us near the top. Pop open the livewell at the launch to give them one last look before they head to the scales. The green blur was past me before I knew what was happening. Didn't even touch the deck or rail before it gave itself an early release back into the lake. Live and learn.... something I will always be able to look back on and laugh. Amazing creatures.

my old boat did not have a latch on the livewell. while we were at the weigh in waiting for our turn, another angler walked up to me and asked why there was a 3lb bass laying on the floor of my boat. I went back to my boat and put the fish back in the livewell. a few minutes later is was my turn to weigh in and that same fish somehow knocked the lid open again and was laying in the cockpit of the boat. we did weigh it, then release it. Surprisingly it swam away. I no longer underestimate the escape instinct of a bass.

Thanks AJay! I had received a couple of these as a "service" along with a JDM order this past winter and forgot I had them. I'll throw em in the jig box and give a try. How does the blade hold up?

Yes, sir! The more I focus on "grass" fishing, the more I specifically look at the surface to tell me what's going on below. In my mind, that is actually what I'm casting to.

I'll definately check out some boat rentals at Quabbin. Thanks for that.

All the fishing I do is south of Boston. I recommend looking through the NH thread. It seems like there's some decent water in southern NH. You also might want to consider renting a boat out on the Quabbin. The fall fishing there is about to get really good once it cools off.

Same here ?!

I am in the foothills of the Blue Ridge and we normally don't get bears unless there's a drought and their food source in the mountains runs out. I have had them come up and check out my smoker. The pic is from my great room and my house is built on a cliff. That's my lower deck where I put the smoker. The grill is on an upper deck where Yogi can't get to it.

Broke my PB 5 fish bag weight and my PB big bass on the same day. Heck of a day on the water, didn't catch lots, but obviously what I did catch made it worth the grind!

Decent largemouth on the Ned Rig earlier in the evening. Took a break and met up with my buddy for a little night action. Got a good smallmouth on a crankbait, but then storms rolled in and we had to call it quits far too early. That smallmouth ate the crankbait completely. Lodged it in the back of its throat.