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Yesterday, my friends and I drove a good bit to a new lake with the intention of getting away from the storm that was hammering our area with rain (rain isn't an issue, but when air temps are in the 50s with pouring rain, your hands don't work well). The goal was to catch a mixed bag of bass, as the lake we fished is home to all three species. We didn't catch a ton of fish, but we had a few quality bites, and one that made the trip 100% worthwhile! Between the three of us, I would say we caught about 15 smallmouth, 6 or 7 largemouth, and one spotted bass. We caught the smallmouth on bluff walls with a ned rig, a couple out deep on a jig, and some on walking baits. The largemouth were caught on top, a jig, a spinnerbait, and one on a 6xd. The lake has very steep banks with some good wood cover, and the better fish were definitely on laydowns, even the brown fish! Most of our bites were on wood or brush up shallow, but we did catch a handful of fish out deep on brush piles, including the big Kentucky spot! The highlight of the day was when I caught my new PB smallmouth, she measured in at 21" long, and weighed 4lbs 15oz. I have fished a lot of lakes that have big smallmouth, so to break my PB on a little lake in WV is pretty special. She blew up on a super spook jr and missed it, but luckily she came back a few seconds later! Once smallmouth get up around the 5lb mark, they are definitely in a league of their own. This is only the second smallmouth close to the 5lb mark that I have encountered, and I was just as shocked by this one as the last! You know it's a big fish when it dwarfs a 3lber Also, I found that this fish was also caught in April, it is a great example of how C&R can give the opportunity for more than one person to get a shot at the same high caliber fish!

The day before I get there & the day after I leave! ?

Well I'm an uncle X3 as of 12:48 this morning. My brother-in-law welcomed his first, a baby girl. Uncle to 3 nieces now.

Hey everybody! Sorry for taking so long on the update. I just landed last night and am still settling back in. The vacation was wonderful. I got a chance to see lots of people that I rarely see and had a lot of fun in the process. I spent 5 days on the Gunnison and Taylor Rivers before heading back east towards the front range to catch up with non-fishing friends at a killer mountain house in Bailey. These were some of the most beautiful rivers I've ever seen. I'll have the pictures uploaded as soon as I can get them to fit here. Friday we set up camp and did some nymphing and mousing on the Gunnison. We picked up a few rainbows nymphing and got skunked throwing mouse patterns (wrong place to do it). Notable catch: My cousin caught a bat and somehow managed to unhook it from a size 20 beats nymph unharmed. Saturday, I did a guided float on the Gunnison with a friend who drove out from SLC. Once we got the feel for fishing from a raft, we picked up quite a few nice rainbows and lost at least two larger fish in the 20+ range fishing hopper droppers (a series of nymphs tied below a dry fly - large grass hopper pattern, using the dry as a strike indicator). I hate nymphing, but this was a blast. Fish were only taking tiny size 18-24 BWO ad midge patterns. This was the theme for most of the week. Sunday we got up to the tailwater section of the Taylor. I have never seen anything like it. The fish holding in the half mile or so below the dam were some of the biggest browns and rainbows I've ever seen and they weren't shy about surfacing for emergers. In fact, on one occasion a 10+lb rainbow went airborne right over my line on a drift. Being a holiday weekend, it was almost combat fishing. There were dozens of guys chucking flies and probably another 5-10 throwing jerk baits and spinners. Fish were almost all only taking nymphs (we'll come back to this...). The first fish I hooked into was well into the mid 20s and snapped my 6X tippet on a rock after running straight upstream. The second fish, was very similar, and the third fish I hooked was a brown that was easily 24-26' that snapped my tippet on a friend's botched net job. (He also ordered a cauliflower steak at a steak house in Crested Butte and will never live down either of these events). I think I picked up one or two rainbows in the 15-18" range with some incredible colors. My cousin and Craig each picked up a few decent rainbows euro-nymphing. I spent Monday teaching my best friend to fly fish. He picked up super quickly on the Gunnison and within a feve everw hours his casting looked pretty good and he was getting the hang of fishing current seems and mending. After I picked up a few smaller browns and rainbows, we headed back to the Taylor. The middle and lower sections fish like an absolutely gorgeous freestone. It's like it was cut from A River Runs Through It. But we went there because I wanted another crack to 10+lb rainbows and fat browns, so we went back to the high tailwater section. I landed a few nice rainbows and browns on the nymph and was broken off by a monster that got downstream of me and took off into a boulder field of alpine riffles. I was not going to to give chase also a la a River Runs Through It. Later that day I started throwing streamers (because meat flies are terrifying and fun!) and moved more big fish chasing a Zoo Cougar than I've ever seen in one pool. I seemed to finally get the attention (at least) of some of the monsters. No takes, but watching a 30"+ trout chase down your streamer elicits a feeling of a bowling ball hitting your bowels. We don't have a lot of those in PA, and experiencing that while 10,000 feet up, is something special. Tuesday I went back with the hopper dropper rig during the day and landed a few nice browns and rainbows. I felt pretty good holding my own with the locals at this point. I don't fish nymphs often, but I was doing well and landing fish, which on 6X tippet is no easy task for a guy used to chucking meat for smallmouth. Later in the day, it was myself a dude from Texas in the bottom pool. I noticed that my deer hair grass hopper was getting more attention while I stripper it back at the end of the drift. It's action on the strip looked like a swimming jerk bait and the fish coming up to chase it were Leviathan-esque. Seeing this, I asked the other fella to watch my gear, ran to the car, rigged up the 8wt and grabbed a pocket full of Zoo Cougars and Drunk and Disorderlies before heading back down to the water. I was getting follows with the Zoo Cougar, but no commitment. Big trout definitely do not like having something like a jerk bait dancing in their faces. Three or four casts in with the D&D and I was moving HUGE fish. The D&D basically fishes on a sink tip line like slow rising or suspended jointed jerk bait covered in flash with an angled head that causes it to dive like a jerk bait. Ripping it back across the head of the pool, there was one brown that took particular offense to it, and through the clear water, I saw one of the most vicious strikes I've ever seen. I set the hook, and now with the benefit of 13lb FC tippet, I was able to control and land a 20" brown pretty easily (I almost considered it revenge for all of the fish that I lost on 6X). Not a terrible way to close out a trip. I spent the next few days hiking, relaxing, and getting my back spasms to calm down after 5 days on the water. I promise that I'll get pictures up here as soon as possible. Also, I was pretty shocked at the number of fish being moved by big streamers. Tons of guys lined the shores throwing tiny nymphs all weekend, and while they had some success, every one of us struggled with landing such large fish on such light gear. Going back, I'm absolutely committing to throwing streamers more. Had I done that, or borrowed someone's jerk bait rod for the weekend, I have no doubt that I would have beat several personal best fish. I also built a lot of confidence nymphing - something I generally don't love to do unless it's a necessity.

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

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!

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

Location is the most important part. Doesn't matter what bait you put in the water, if there's no big fish where you're fishing you're not going to catch any. If I needed to catch a big fish a jig would be one of the baits I'd be tying on though.

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

I'll catch anything but these guys (technically a cichlid) just float my boat. My biggest largemouth (8.69# on the digital) fought like a four pound Florida pea, or a three pound Amazon pea.

Usually I tend to stay off the water on the busy holidays, but fortunately for me, the weather was projected as iffy all weekend which kept a lot of crazy people away from the lake. Had a pretty decent weekend of fishing, the passing fronts had them tuned up a bit and had a blast with dad catching our share of northerns and bass, including a few nice ones. Given that the lake our cabin is on is still in rebound from a die off roughly 6 years ago it was good to see the numbers coming back along with some size as well. That was great, but Labor Day itself turned out to be one for my record books. The day also coincided with my aunt's birthday. She enjoys fishing, so I decided to take her out on a lake that's been on fire to have some fun hoping for her to hook into some good fish. She did get a few, but in the meantime, I managed to put together quite a bag of fish. I wasn't catching the numbers I'm normally used to there, but every other spot I'd pull up on, we'd work for a while and I'd smoke a good one cranking. It was later in the day after we had went up shallow in hopes of her getting a little more action, when I decided to hit a small hump not too far away. I caught my smallest keeper right away, and then had a giant engulfed my crankbait a few casts later. When I first hooked into her, I actually thought it was a little one. Not much of a pull, not much of a hit like the others I'd caught that day and just some small head shakes. However, about a quarter of the way back to the boat she decided to come up. Despite jamming my rod tip down into the water almost the whole body came out of the water and after that the fight was on. She started pulling like a freight train coming up and jumping at least one more time. My heart had just about stopped as bass very very rarely reach that size in northern Wisconsin. Between the battle and my aunt freaking out in the back of the boat I was beside myself at what was going on. I was just praying that she'd stay on. With my aunt having somewhat limited mobility, I was left to battle and land it myself. Luckily, I was able to get the net under her and get her up in the boat. Fighting this fish I knew it was big...but being up close with it, it started to set in just how big this bass was. I had the shakes pretty bad and my whole body just about felt like jello, but I had put keeper #5 in the boat...my kicker and it tipped the scales at 7.34 lbs bringing my days total to 21.73 lbs. I could have fished slightly longer, but we decided to head in a little early to get some good pictures not only of the fish, but my limit as well. I almost wish I would have stayed out a bit longer as I feel like I could have made another cull to put me into a minimum of the 22 lb range and the way the day was going...maybe even higher. Days don't get much better than that around here, but it was a blast and some great memories were made! Not a day I'll soon forget. All fish were released to be caught again another day, but I've got the measurements to eventually get a reproduction made. Link to the whole bag --> https://www.facebook.com/michael.mudgett.9/videos/10214557160715206/

GoPro had just enough juice to turn on and get a pic...hence the lighting and awkward angle. Also standing in an ant hill. 3.5lb, t rigged junebug Dinger.

Another weekend at the pond and another trip full of rats. We caught fish Saturday until the rain ran us off. We fished Jane Gaines and Patroon and ended up with 16 with the average being around 1.5#. It seemed like it would take finding 4 groups of fish to find one group that would bite. But once you found a group that would eat you could catch several fish. Sunday morning we went back and caught about the same size before heading home at 11:00. I finally got a coupe of fish to eat a c-rig, but the majority were caught on dropshot. Probably won't head back for a month.

Got out Saturday morning, west side metro lake. Had water 68-70, slight breeze picked up as the sun came up. I ended up kind of junking around for the day. Not a numbers day at all, but the bass I did catch were quality. I noticed right away that the pads are starting to recede, like very noticeably in a week. Started off near the pad line with heavy grass near a deep water hole, and stuck a 4 on a popper as my first fish - I thought it was going to be the day of all days. Caught another 2lb on the popper then moved on to a main like point as I wanted to throw the whopper plopper. Got to the point, long one, 4-6 FOW with submerged grass - had several swipes at the plopper, but none would eat it. I had the 110 size on and thought about downsizing to the 90, but didn't want to waste time. Started throwing a red craw colored red eye shad, ripping off the grass and caught a couple shorts and several slimers, but nothing notable. Moved to another underwater ridge, 5-6 fow submerged grass and caught a skinny 3.5 on a jig. Threw a chatter a lot in this area and nothing. Lastly, moved to a 5' grass flat where I normally catch them good on a jig. With the wind picking up and blowing directly on this area, I traded the red red eye shad for a blue colored one and first cast caught a nearly 5 pounder. Next cast caught a big ol pike and I thought I had something going. Had another real good quality bass come unbuttoned, but I felt like I was on to something then. Then I had to go, so I couldn't really finish out the pattern, but it did seem that the fall bite is coming on quick. I bet the weather coming in next week really gets them chomping. One thing to note. I definitely got caught up by KVD a while ago when he says to switch out your stock trebles for the short shank EWGs. It seems like once I started, every fish literally has a face full of hooks - like so many in them I feel bad sometimes. I didn't switch them out on the blue red eye shad I was throwing as it was new and I got lazy. Not saying the one I had come off was because of that, but you never know. I do know the lures I have switched them out on are a pain to get out of the fish. Just thought I'd throw that out there for anyone having trouble losing fish with trebles.

If that ain't the truth. It also seems that cold fronts always love to blow thru on a Friday.......

Cape Update: Cool Runnings Went to Cliffs Friday evening and Saturday morning. Friday was relatively calm and drizzly, which meant being harassed by mosquitoes to no end (which abbreviated the trip). In that short window we caught a few keeper small-mouth and I managed a decent rainbow on a fly that we spotted at the surface feeding. With a healthy application of bug-spray and renewed optimism, we returned at sunrise and started fishing the outer weed-lines in 16-20ft that we had found the night prior. There was a decent amount of bait-fish around, but 2 hrs later and just a few 1-1.5lbers to show for it, we made the audible shallower. We eventually connected with a few decent ~2.5lbers; casting hair jigs and ned rigs into shallow rock-piles was the ticket. The better caliber fish were surprisingly shallow (3-5ft). All in all, we ended up catching 5-6 fish a piece until noon before heading in. One potential reason for the shift shallow could be the trend lower in water temperatures...as far as I see it in my journal, peak water temps were about 3 weeks ago (Cliffs @ 81, now 78, Wequaquet @ 82, now 79, Long Pond @ 80, estimating its about 78). While just a small change on the margin, perhaps the internal bass clocks are clicking into early fall mode. That should (hopefully) improve the fishing, as its been a bit slow since late July...

I don't know if bass read man's rule book on how they are supposed to behave. Generally, a couple days after it's passed and things return to "normal" But then there are times like this past weekend, it was 90+ degrees here for the last week, and they were biting good, this weekend it was in the upper 50's, cloudy, and stiff north breezes....and they were still biting OK, despite a 40 degree drop in air temps, and mother nature doing a complete 180 in the weather turning it from Aug to mid November overnight. Moral of the story...just go fishing, if it sucks it sucks, but it might not and you never know because you weren't there.

No way to tell other than to go. September usually sucks here regardless of weather, but I'll still be out there trying.

Medium fast spinning Rod, reel and line depends on techniques but in general 10lb braid and an optional 8lb fluorocarbon leader. Medium heavy baitcasting rod with 30lb braid to 15lb leader. This is very general but it a step in the right direction.

Before the "Texas Rig" caught on, anglers got creative with rigging these new plastics out of necessity when fishing around weeds, brush, trees, etc. As such, most rigging methods used today were actually thought of and utilized at some point with the tools available at the time. Here are a few examples in reference to the above. The top rigging is essentially a shakey head...1966 from Grits Gresham's bass book. The line tie through the head of the bait from Creme's 1967 catalog of tips. Charlie Brewer showing variations of this same rigging in his book (1978).

Drove to a state park yesterday only to wonder into a bass fishing tournament. Got there just as it was starting to drizzle and the boats were coming in. There were some nice size lunkers caught. Most of the bags I saw weighed in ranged from 12-18 pounds.

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

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

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.

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.

Enjoyed a delicious bison steak and I'm going to be bouncing around the state slinging flies for the next 9 days. I'm ridiculously stoked to be spending the next 4 days on the Gunnison and Taylor and then probably front range rivers and mountain lakes afterwards. I'm going to try to keep this thread updated with killer scenery and of course whatever fish porn I can offer up. I'm hoping for at least a solid 6 days of chucking hoppers, mouse patterns, and of course, big, ridiculous streamers at fat browns and rainbows. Wish me luck.

Wednesday, the heat index was 110°. Last night, had to build a fire, it was so cold.

Can't be mad when they earn their freedom like that. haha

I really like the Pop Max. Start out with pops and then walk it back to the boat. You can also try some of the Pop Max KO's (knock offs) that guys custom paint. The ones with the gill slots are very close to the MB and work excellent. I see Ima Roumbas in that box. Not a popper but my favorite Wake bait.

Personally I would not go smaller than a 14' with a 44" bottom. Down here tin boat are a dime a dozen ?

This is a cool video about rod breaking.

Along with the good answers above, you could still fish a dropshot. Just have your bait a little over 2' from your sinker below and use a cylindrical dropshot sinker. This will keep your bait just above the 2' growth on the bottom and the cylindrical dropshot sinker will work its way through that milfoil better than a teardrop or ball sinker. You could also use a diving crankbait that will dive 3' to 5' or even up to 10' or so depending on the depth where you're fishing. Those things are made to fish just above the grasslines and ripped out them when need be. Could make for some viscous reaction strikes. ?

Don't know if you made it out, but I was out there today. I don't think they ended up getting much rain; the water clarity looked pretty good overall up until about a mile past arrow rock. We found fish really spread out, but better fish were pretty shallow cruising fish coming off of hard bottom flats. -Jared

Best historic thread to date......

Don't think it is on the market yet. if it is any were close to the quality of the speed demon pro baitcaster it will be a good reel. I own 1 Sharky II in 3000 size and 2 sharky III in 2000 size. they are all very nice reels.

He's saying in both statements that he only shops TW now.

Added a little tech to my Tracker. What do you think? Takes away from the heritage theme too much?

Invest in a $20 landing net and put the rod behind you by stretching your arm back. Then use your free hand to net the fish. Best $20 you'll ever spend.

I don't throw jigs hardly at all. Honestly, I don't even think about them. My last 3 PB upgrades have all come on either dragging a craw or useing swim worms. (ribbon tail and speed worm) As @Bluebasser86 said, location is key. Mike

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. ?

Why did the squirrel cross the lake?...……………………………………………… I have no idea...……………………..but there he was.

Yeah, anger management!

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

don’t worry, it gets worse as you get older. ?