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Well @FishTax and myself and Jake and Josiah participated in a culling tournament amongst friends today and had a FANTASTIC time. We all arrived around 7:30 and Jake started things off with a solid 3 on a frog. Following his lead I threw a buzzbait and caught a couple and missed 7 bites - all short striking. I start seeing the bugs getting munched on the surface and tie on a spook jr and proceed to wax them pretty efficiently until about noon at which point a pencil popper/jerkbait/drop shot and pop'r caught some more. The wind picked back up and I tied the spook back on and finished the day with 20 bass - the biggest of which went probably 3.5 and had a fat belly! Between us all we culled over 200 bream/crappie/catfish/small bass! It was my best day fishing top water ever and it was so fun to see the boys showing such promise and independence! Josiah caught his first fish all by himself and Jake won the tournament with 80+ fish total (mostly on worms/shiners/plastics) We saw some big ones and lots of fat little bellies means next year will be even better! What a Saturday! Tight lines to all this evening and tomorrow !

Last night we went to the local lake for a quick bank fishing foray and I found this beautiful fish willing to eat my frog - then promptly lost my frog and burned a spool of braid on the next cast thanks to the arboreal splendor of Greensboro NC 😂👍🏼 Made a move to the rip rap and played with reaction baits with nary a sniff and then just as we were preparing to leave I got my Yamamoto Tanuki bitten but they took the plastic. Put a stick bait on the hook and caught my second fish of the night. Got nibbles on every cast after that and had I been able to stay, think I could have caught a few more but was happy to get these two! Jake caught a nice cat on a live bluegill he netted and then lost one over 10 lbs right at the bank. Would have been his PB bullhead and it was the biggest bullhead I've ever seen!

I got a couple after work today, for some reason my phone won’t add pictures to my post. But I caught 5 smaller ones. It was a good after work session. 1 on a chatter bait, 1 on a dolive beaver, 2 on a yamatunaki and 1 on a jerk bait

Fished a perfect day, dark overcast and no wind. The fish were very cooperative with Shakyhead and flickShake, both GPM. I did keep one of the Alabama bass for the wife, delicious.

I can only think of one thing: people who trash the lakes, and don't respect the areas they fish in. I have zero tolerance for these low lifers.

Caught a carp, a tiny smallie, and a PB pike today. Pics of the carp and the pike and the full story of my day are posted as a status update on my profile page. If you don't like reading, pics of the pike and carp will be in the "Other Species Latest Pics Thread."

I toast the shore anglers. If I were pinned to the shore, I'd hope to catch one bass because that's what I catch on a GOOD morning when I cast from the shore before boarding my canoe. Yet, I see you shore anglers not only catch multiple bass, but some big ones, and many of you fish with picnickers on one side and another angler on the other. I don't know how you guys succeed like you do, but I always admire you. #contextcounts

Well it was a very interesting morning of fishing, I landed my first carp on 14lb fluorocarbon, it was quite the battle and process. No clue on the weight but I couldn’t hold it up with one arm to take a photo and I am fairly strong. I did manage one bass, last but not least I caught a pike that bite thru my 7lb fluorocarbon as I was taking it out of the water. So yes very interesting day, I was hoping that I would catch more bass and definitely larger ones than I did. Although I fish for all species and that carp is definitely bigger than any bass that I am going to catch in Michigan so that’s a win in my book. The funny part was that after I got done catching the carp a couple guys show up to go carp fishing, they had not caught any by the time I left 4 hours later. The weather was very windy and slightly warmer than it has been. The bite seemed to turn off pretty quickly today I had to have seen 30 different people fishing and they were not having very much luck either. That’s why we love this thing called fishing so much though the constant challenge to perform no matter what is happening weather, life, or work wise.

7-5, 4-1 SM, 7-1, 7-1, 7-5, all within the last calendar year, all from the same 27k acre reservoir. One whopper plopper, one chatterbait, two lipless, one Trig Zcraw. That's not even all the 7s I caught off the bank there last year. I wish I had a record like Pat but I think I've done OK for having only been at this a few years. I think being stuck on the bank is only sometimes a bad thing. But when it's tough, you start fishing for other things. I'm currently a crappie fisherman cause that's all I catch lately.

Okay if I gotta 😁😁😁 8.9/9.1/8.0/9.3

PB pike! And a snagged "carp" that upon further inspection seems to actually be a redhorse. Which I didn't know was a thing.

December January February March July 🤴 A-Jay

Oh yeah! I like a good bass caught with my feet firmly planted on the ground

I headed up to Mil Lacs Lake this morning and started out throwing jerkbaits. The water temp was 52 at 6:30 am. I got 2 good SM bass on a Megabass 110 LBO jerkbait. I caught a small musky and it broke the 110 LBO somehow. It now has a bunch of water in it and sinks. I switch to a pointer 100 and caught another SM bass. I saw lot of bass in the shallow reefs and they would not look at a Ned rig , drop shot, or tube jig. They would just swim off. When I left the water temps were 56 to 57 degrees.

Striped bass

Childish, disrespectful, and immature. It's one thing to see someone fishing there and move on, but to get ticked off and swear? Gimme a break. BTW I fish a lot of docks in the summer time and I never fish one that has a person on it.

The bad parts of where you fish You're kidding right ? The highest rewards almost always come with a good bit of suffering & sacrifice. Makes success that much sweeter. When I'm not willing to take the rough road, the other one is always a dead end. Fish Hard A-Jay Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. Continued success is stumbling from failure to failure with little to no loss of enthusiasm.

Today was different than yesterday. My biggest today was barely bigger than my smallest yesterday. I caught 5 (all pictured) as well as a 12 1/2 inch Crappie (in other species thread) as well as a small Yellow Perch and a Bluegill. (no pixels on those). Water temp was a degree warmer than yesterday (74 degrees) but I was on a different part of the lake.

Is this where we show off our big shore caught bass? This is my biggest: a very skinny 18 inches long. I appreciate the love given to us bank anglers, @ol'crickety I think often I look at those who have boats with envy, but I've got a lot to grateful for, and part of that is not having to worry about storage, transportation, launching, and care of a boat. I can just walk up to the water and start fishing. By land or by sea (or lake, river, or stream) it seems we all find a way to land fish. And some of you guys manage to land some giants.

I can catch everything but a shad. Still trying to catch my first American shad before the spawn winds down. Hopefully the rockfish is a sign of good things to come when the season opens this week. ETA: Can someone give me an ID on the first fish? I think it’s a shorthead redhorse, although I’m bad at identifying rough fish. It was caught on the Susquehanna.

Considering that I do occasionally fish from shore - thank you Katie This shore caught 17" is for you.

I took off work May 1st to go fishing with my dad. The weather was awesome 80 degrees river running 4.7 on the gauge. We chose to go to area we don’t normally fish to often. Made a 4-5 mile run up the river to the famous rock view train bridge. Oldest longest stone arch train bridge in the world. The bass up there were very boat shy as that would continue to be the story through the day. We did get some up there on cranks. Hit a few more areas up there with nothing Made a big switch and headed to a creek and went up it till we could stop seeing the bass in it. I positioned the boat to sit at the end of a pocket. I was drop shotting into this big pocket with success. I pulled 6-7 bass out of it. My dad got a few as well. The bite then seemed to completely die so we called it a day. 5/11: The weather was a complete change from the warming trends we have been having. Cold rains highs in. The low 60s have plagued us for a few days. Water temps dropped and the river level was 5.3 and rising. I ended up running a normal section I do. Since creek mouths and creeks have been working I ran up the river to keep this pattern going. I was crank baiting to start working it fairly aggressively. I did mange 5-6 fish on the crank then switched up to a ned rig and landed a few more. Most of these were small fish and a drunken large mouth. I made the switch with about 45 minutes till I was going to be done switching to a big eddy I like about 3.5 miles down stream. I ended up getting a couple more smallies as well as 5 walleyes. This trip was about 3 hours long. All in all some great trips. I am thinking too water should start to be a factor here soon.

@Pat Brown a big bass on a lipless crankbait from the bank? I see you too are a man of culture These are all bank fishing a lipless, ive tried the same lake in a kayak and all i did was get blown around and my lures stuck in trees on the other side. I love my kayak, its one of the best river kayaks ever made. And for the river its amazing. But for lakes and ponds i still love kayaking or using the jon boat, but theres nothing like bank fishing. It teaches an angler so much, builds will power and determination, and when i finally got off the bank and on the water, it gave me a different perspective, and a greater appreciation. If $10,000 was on the line id rather fish with 5 fellow bank fishermen than 10 guys with boats, somethings you just gotta learn by not staring at a fish finder for 3 hours a day.

*Trash *Being back boated in tournaments *Parents who don’t put a PDF on little kids. *Homeowners who think they own the water under and around thier dock *Indiscriminate weed control Mike

I had a front-row seat to a spectacular show last night! I haven't seen them that vivid - and directly overhead - since I was living in Alaska as a teen! Fantastic!! straight up!

I live in Michigan, and we have some great waters for fishing. Unfortunately, I don't live by them. I fish retention ponds, the parts of the Chippewa I can reach on foot, and a couple "farm" ponds. Pressure is massive. And several people I know of harvest the big bass they catch. All the ponds are muck on the bottom, scum on the top, and minimal cover. In the river you've got to deal with drunken caravans of tubers, and shopping carts and electric scooters said drunk college students dump in the river. But none of that really bothers me. Most of that is just the challenges of fishing my area. It's part of the game. The bad part is all the trash and litter people, especially my fellow anglers, leave in the water and on the banks. Old plastics, packaging, bird nests of string, and on and on. I try to pick up most of the stuff I see.

30 ft. up in a tree is where I like to fish. I have never caught one there, but I'm sure that is where the biggest bass live, I will keep trying.

I ask and am usually told go for it. I've had the standers ask for pictures of the fish pulled out from under their dock too. That being said it they aren't engaging or don't respond I don't ask.

Just placed an order. Cannot wait to have my own life-size pic of @A-Jay hanging over the fireplace 😂

So, concluding my fishing trip, I landed 4 bass and almost a monster 5th bass, on that jig alone. Here's what I've found: Lake floor type - The bottom of the new lake I visited had a solid bottom and was sandy. This aided in dragging and improved the visibility of the lure. The lake that I always go to has a silt bottom full of weeds and debris, so the lure would camouflage. Because of the silt floor, my dragging technique was rendered ineffective as it would get caught in weeds easily and ruin the presentation. Hopping is the only technique here. Technique - I tried many techniques before the bass could become interested and nibble at it. The new lake was clear enough that I could see how the bass were reacting to the lure. Hopping and dragging, the bass didn't care. But erratically jerking the lure across the lake floor was pretty consistent with generating nibbles, leading into bites. When a bass is nibbling, it's important not to just sit there and "let it eat", you want to make the lure run like a real baitfish, that's what triggers them to eat the lure whole. I think the black and blue one did get a bite, but its hook is noticeably thicker than the green one, so I did get bites, but my rod is too weak to set the hook. I'm going to have to experiment with different colors to see what works best, but that green pumpkin with red speckle worked wonders today.

Strange day. Boated 5; missed 5. No bass on anything but soft plastics. Struck out on frogs, chatterbaits and squarebills. Caught two on a WR and the rest on a weightless TR. Three on a 5” green pumpkin Senko and two on a black Zoom Magnum Trick. The five I lost hit the TR. But they never got hooked so they still must be picking up baits and moving them off beds. I can blow a hookset like anyone at times, but not five in a day. All the bass were about 1.5 lbs. except the last one of the day which was about 2.5 lbs. Really put up a good fight!

We had a spectacular show last night and should be pretty good again tonight. Always seems like it should make some type of sound. But nope, just silent beauty that never repeats itself. #auroraborealisrules (not my Pic) A-Jay

Top from left to right: Shimano Calcutta TE 101GT, Shimano Calcutta 51B and Shimano Cardiff 101 Middle: 23 Shimano Calcutta Conquest BFS XG Bottom from left to right: Loongze Airlite B101 BFS Ifishband Tender Shoot Kawa Sabre JKS 51 Handle mods to the Calcutta TE 101GT, Calcutta Conquest BFS, Tender Shoot and Sabre JKS 51. The Calcutta 51B is kinda, sorta BFS. That I have 80% filled 65lb braided line and top shot of 15lb Power Pro braid. It does good with 5.3g(3/16oz) lures. Trying anything lower and it's a challenge and wants to cast left. Hard to find a shallow spool for the Calcutta 51B. So a Jimmy Rig shallow spool.

I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this thread...feel free to move it if not. I caught my first jig fish three years ago, after throwing one randomly for years and getting bored when not getting bites, and going back to Texas-rigged worm/creature baits, due to both confidence and familiarity. I am now hooked on jig fishing, and I'm trying to learn more about it. My biggest misconception through the years was the "weedless-ness" of jigs. They have a weed guard....they're WEEDLESS! (Only to have them hang up cast after cast in brush.) By my thinking, either there's an art to fishing a jig through cover and brush....or there are millions of jigs beneath our bass waters. So is there a "trick" to getting a jig through the thick stuff? Cast/cover orientation? (Parallel/perpendicular casts?) More vertical jigging as opposed to dragging THROUGH the cover? I keep a check on my weed guard to make sure it's flared out to provide as much protection as possible. HELP!

Started bass fishing from the bank & still enjoy it today. 11 lbs 3 oz

mine are too busy on rods to sit still for a group photo.

Only one thing. Not having more available time to fish. I can get around idiots, litter, traffic, rising costs, etc. Time is something you can’t buy or ignore.

Shore fishing can be just as productive as being physically on the water, as long as you can access good spots. In the places I can access from shore, the key is often mobility, being able to work down a shoreline, going spot to spot, giving each one a couple different angles. The rivers around here tend to have more extensive shore access than the lakes and ponds I don't do it as much as I used to since getting into kayak fishing, but walking a bank somewhere is the perfect use of a spare hour. A couple of my better bank bass in recent years:

Follow the limbs, don't drag your jigs across them.

Generally if I can get a t-rig through it, I can get a jig through it. I love a jig in heavy cover. If it is really thick cover, treat it like heavy vegetation. Do not drag your bait across that stuff. Drop it in, work a little, pull it out. If you feel your jig start to hang, gently pull the jig over. You can also drop it and shake it on the far side of the obstruction, then do the same on the near side. The type of jig matters. Over time you will get a sense for how stiff weedguards need to be for working in timber. I do not fan mine out and leave them just reaching the barb when I pull it down.

A weed guard is actually more stiff when it's condensed down the center but really, IMHO a jig is generally not what I reach for first when fishing heavy brush loaded with snags. I prefer jigs in standing timber/stumps/pads/laydowns/rocks/over hanging trees/dock pilings/sea wall/rip rap/big points/little cuts with hard bottom/humps/ledges etc. Heavy brush, I just throw a t rig or a shaky head or something where I can bury the plastic. 👍🏼 Try a punch skirt for a jig presentation in heavy brush and see what happens!

Funny you mention this, last year I started going out on a canoe with a buddy and this year I got a paddle board to get off the bank with minimal hassle. Don’t get me wrong, I strongly prefer either of these modes of fishing over bank fishing but I still have way more success chasing big fish from the bank. Part of it is the learning curve of controlling my position from a floating object which gets pushed around by wind and current and even the resistance of a lure. This isn’t that big an issue fishing moving baits but when I want to slow down and work the bottom I find myself often wanting to beach or tuck up right against the bank to fish uphill. Also sitting unsupported all day is murder on my lower back.

American or silver redhorse ? Do they have fall fish in Michigan? Don’t know if they get that big either, first guess without opening the book is redhorse

I fell asleep and missed them. Because I'm old, stupid and pathetic. What a spaz. 🥴 A-Jay

I've never had a bad experience with a dock owner. If they are out, i usually keep my distance, maybe just wave -- It seems like obvious etiquette to not roll up and start pitching sharp hooks at their stuff when they're standing right there. But they are often very chatty and want to tell me all about the best spots...so of course I let them (I think they just love their lake and are eager to show it off). Whenever a dock owner has seen me catch something near their property -- under a dock or boat or whatever-- they are always very excited, want to know what it is and how big, what I caught it on, and they are always happy to see me release it. Granted, this is usually morning, before they have had a chance to become annoyed by everyone else on the lake.

The past several years I have been using the services of The Antzl Project to mark my more notable fish catches. I have posted about this previously but IMO, it bears repeating. I'm not a Mount or Replica kind of guy, so the a decent size digital print does it for me. Do like the 20 x 24 inches size on canvas and I have several hanging in a stairwell; affectionately named "Bass Alley". My latest addition arrived a couple of days ago. We also have many of the dogs we fostered & placed hanging in the lobby at the local animal shelter. People have done everything under the sun and many are completely Amazing. The Antzl Project (run by Kevin Washburn) does excellent work at a reasonable rate and completes them in a timely manner. Considerably less (time & $$) in all respects vs a mount or replica. There are 'several' sizes & types of material available and these units last. He works exclusively through FB and Email and the process is super easy. https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=the antzl project If you're thinking about it, I say go for it. A-Jay

WIND!!!

Had a pretty great day today. A few months ago, I was in Perry, GA and stopped in a fishing store there. I picked up some Marabou Jigs made by Jiffy Jigs and noticed they were made in Vidalia, GA. I emailed the company and told them I enjoyed their product and that my in-laws lived in Vidalia. They promptly responded and said they'd be glad for me to visit the shop and show me how they make their jigs. Today, I was over in Vidalia and stopped in their little store. The owners (Mom, Pop and Son) were in there and I told them about sending the email, etc. They were awesome. They knew my in-laws and invited my family into the back to show us how all the jigs were handmade. They went through the whole process- showing us the hooks, molds, pouring the jig heads, how they paint them, making the silicone body, the bags of marabou and turkey feathers, the final products, etc. We talked best colors for certain waters, local fishing, how many places they sell to and just about everything else fishing related. This little shop in the middle of nowhere GA supplies their jigs from Florida up to NY (for ice fishing up there). It seemed like they were thrilled to show off their product and I was thrilled to see how everything was made. I don't think I've ever met such nice and knowledgeable fishing people. Of course, I had to buy some stuff and came out with a few cards of different colors and a few little silicone crickets attached to a Beetle Spin type spinner. Can't wait to give these a shot this weekend. Just wanted to share how I spent a most enjoyable morning with some fantastic people.

My Manager laid out of work and got this.