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Dang NICE ones everyone! 5 all day @scaleface ! That's a gorgeous fish. Love her proportions and colors. I can't imagine the fight on a Ned! I bet it was amazing! This morning before work - only thing I could get them to eat in torrential downpour and ultra muddy water was a C rig D Bomb dipped in chartreuse dip n glow directly into the current dead stocked. One had crawdad antenna coming out of his throat! After work the rain subsided and Jake wanted to toss the inline spinner in the muddy water so back we went. I grabbed my frog and down the bank we went. BAM! He is on to the right of the boat house AND I hook up on a good one on the frog on the other side of the boat house. Mine comes off swimming directly at me lightning fast (bit 30 ft from me) and Jake catches his first of the day on the inline spinner! We keep a walking down to where I was getting action in the rain this morning and I get 4 blow ups on the frog in the channels on the deep weed lines just off the banks. I am fairly certain 3/4 of the blowups are the same fish missing it again and again so I point Jake in it's direction. BAM! Jake nails the kicker for the day on the inline spinner (same fish that missed my frog three times!). A healthy post spawn momma feeding up on bugs and minnows with her sisters. Momma calls and says suppers on the way so back down towards the lot we head - I tell Jake ' hey son, you keep on throwing that spinner while we walk now 😎😎😎👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼' Well it ain't long afore BAM! He whacks #3 and it's another nice one! Just as we are about to pass the boat house again he sticks a dink and #4 for the afternoon. My son put on a CLINIC with that inline spinner y'all. Floored me!

Caught my largest Ned fish ever today . Didnt have a scale. Five lbs I guess . Caught on a rip rap bank.

I enjoyed bassing this morning at a pace I haven't experienced since fishing wilderness lakes in northwestern Ontario. I couldn't get a bite on the surface for the first two hours, but landed 31 lmbs on my Keitech with an underspin. Then, with the Sun up, they started hitting the surface and I caught 14 on my Whopper Plopper. After that, it was a mix of the Keitech and Whopper Plopper. See the zombie weeds in the second and third photos? That's where the lmb were. I also caught a PB pickerel that I didn't photograph because pickerel are bonkers, but I'm guessing she would have been a new state record. She was so fat and heavy and the state record is only 6 pounds, 13 ounces. She was beautiful too. I was not willing to kill her to merely have my name in a record book. 16 of the bass were smb, all lean and long like river fish. I included one smb photo so you can see their build and their gorgeous striping. 59 were lmbs, many in the 2.5 to 3.5 lb. range. What a fun morning. The dinosaurs were sure on patrol: two eagles and two ospreys.

Afternoon journey near home yielded an 18.5” SMB, jighead worm. My wife got 4 different species with a fly rod/popper. Bluegill, SMb, LMB, rock bass

I had 45 minutes to fish and caught these two small fish out of the river, dill pickle d bomb with a 1/16 oz brass weight. The last one put up a nice fight but was no match for my zillion mhh rod. I didn’t get skunked and caught a couple fish. It was a good day.

I had a feeling....a tingling sensation....wake up early! - the voice inside of my head said to me before bed. I set my alarm for 5 am and hit the pond at 6 am. Sometimes that voice is absolutely right. Missed one on my first cast that hit it weird. Stuck this guy a couple casts later. Moved down to where I missed on yesterday in some vegetation and tried to see if anyone was home. Little but the blowup was satisfying and dragging him in with the salad was fun. Also this told me all I needed to know. Fish fast and fish that frog HARD. Which is exactly what I did. Missed one more who gently swirled at my frog so I left that area and made my way to the upper pond and made a cast paralleling the rip rap bank / deeper weedline. BAM! After an epic battle I land this 6 pound momma all full of eggs and mad as can be. Set her off swimming and walked another ten paces and paralleled the bank with a second cast. Missed what appeared to be a larger fish and in setting the hook I twisted my frog up in a deep thick tree branch and had to break it off. The bite shut down pretty much at 7:30/sunrise but they were all over it for that first hour and a half of low light. It was awesome! Hoping I can find a couple more willing to bite after work!

Spent about 40 minutes before work this morning fishing a local pond. Got to watch an osprey hunting fish after he decided tangling with Mother and Father Goose over their goslings would be too much hassle. He nabbed a small bass before I got mine, but I eventually did catch a very nice 16 incher just before I had to leave.

I think this should be done every so often. I'd like to thank our BR Site Moderators. They do a good job of helping this site run smoothly. Thank you to our BR Site Moderators here. You guys are doing a great job.

First fish of the day Sunday morning, a double when two spotted bass competed for my Yo-Zuri Rattl'n Vibe 😎👍

Yeee Haawww!!! 44" again today, and there's nothing skinny about this one!!! On fresh meat again. I'm getting this crappie deal figgered out, which means it'll be over soon. 😂 Gotta stay TIGHT to the tree tops, and move SLOW. I raised two others, one bigger than this'n. I'd guess 47"-48". Unbelievable how lazy these fish are right now. I had 1oz of weight on my quick strike and these fish wouldn't chase the crappie down. I added another oz to slow the crappie down, and went back through the same stretch and got this girl to go the second time around. Three more days of vacation. Guess what I'll be doing? Gorgeous fish, awesome fight. She was even kind enough to autograph my hand for me. 😁

I fished my third morning this week, up at three again and launching at four. I lost my Shimano glidebait to a rock and most of the braided line on that reel. Then another reel started to malfunction and I had to cut a lot of line off of it. I had to pull my Whopper Plopper, which I'd already cast, in by hand. A bass hit that lure and I had to land it in the middle of a zombie reed field by hand too, i.e. no rod nor reel. It was a pretty big bass too, but didn't fight much and I'm thinking it didn't fight because I couldn't apply much pressure to it. Still, I caught 42 bass and fished well the first three hours. The final two hours, I tired and fished poorly. The bass were still hitting, but I wasn't landing them. When you're catching bass in a foot of water with reed stumps everywhere, your mechanics have to be solid. Even zombie reeds are tough and fibrous and my mechanics were off enough for fish after fish after fish to escape. The bass second from the bottom is skinny, but I photographed it because it was long and had Spotted bass-like markings. The bottom one was the biggest and beautifully marked. In three mornings this week, I caught 154 bass. The biggest was 5.25 pounds. Many of this morning's bass were thick, as you see below, all 17" to 18.5". Now I need to nap. Whew.

Got on the water at "Lake 28" for 3 hours, 6am-9am. Only my 5th ever trip to this place (less than 18 hours total, according to my records), so I'm still kind of figuring it out. I did catch a 4lber here last year. Nothing that nice today, but I got a few (9), including my first few topwater bass of the year on a frog Pop Max....and a few more on the obligatory Super Fluke: Biggest fish was 15", the rest between 12" an 14"

$5 a bait plus a free hat. I did well.

I vote YES. Goodluck.

Made it out to the New Reservoir today. 69 degrees and partly cloudy. Winds from the NNE at 2mph. Started out around the boat ramp today and landed 5 on the floating worm. Here’s the biggest one I caught there…. …and the average size fish below My worm and I wore out or welcome there so I took a deer trail through the woods to get to the lower end and the dam. Along the way I stopped at a few spots where I could access the bank and landed a couple more. Added 4 more around the lower end and the dam, this time with the weightless senko. Typical size shown below.

Work and weather had kept me away from angling pursuits. So when I got the chance today I went to the neighboring village’s municipal park to wet a line. Even though I knew it would probably be a dink fest I just wanted to get my rod bent. When I arrived it was 66 degrees, dark threatening skies with winds 5 mph from the NNE. Normally I consider casting out into the middle of the body of water I’m a fishing an act of desperation, the angling equivalent to the Hail Mary pass. But today I could see milfoil topping out in the middle of the lake. So I tied on my floating worm, in this case a Xzone Deception Worm in Bass Candy, and began working it around the outside of the weed bed. I was rewarded with catching 5 fish the first one pictured being the largest that I’ve ever caught at this particular pond, and the next being typical of the rest. At that point it started raining so I took shelter in the pavilion and snacked for a while. The deception worm was chewed up pretty bad so I switched it out for a Senko in watermelon red flake. I wanted to see it the more vertical presentation of the faster sinking Senko would have a different result than the more horizontal twitching movement of the floating worm. By then the rain had stopped so I walked to the opposite bank of the pond to fish the other side of the weed bed. It started raining again, so I took shelter under a big oak tree. But then the deluge started, I considered going back but I would end up soaked either way so I decided heck with it I’ll stay and keep fishing. I caught another 5 on the Senko with this fish being representative of the rest. I started to hear thunder in the distance so I called it a day and beat a hasty retreat to my car.

154 bass this week is impressive. That's 152 more than I caught.

Bayou Boys doing what they love. Black Drum

I am very fortunate to be working with our County Parks out here in Sacramento, CA. Get to fish on my break and I get two 30s! Today one was for lunch and the other I hit the pond on one of our sites. Been really getting into finesse lately and have been soley fishing a Dobyns Ultralight with 10lb braid and a 6lb Maxima leader. Its a blast! Had a light wind blowing up against a tule point leading into a little shallow cove created by the vegetation. Chucked a black and blue senko up in there and noticed it wasnt hitting bottom when it should have, wham! Pulled out this little chunk, thinking she may have been on a bed or getting ready to spawn, got that belly on her still!

If the bottom is mucky use a lighter weight it picks less junk. In fact a #4 (1/8 oz) split shot about 8” above the worm works good during pre spawn. Tom PS, Bill Murphy’s stitching technique.

Very windy day with rain over night to the early morning. Scored this pair of two and a half pounders. Spinnerbaits

I absolutely perfer my older Calcuttas over my newer Lew's. Why? Solid as an anvil, versatile as a pair of Channellocks®, & dependable as a 30/30. With old age comes physical challenges which is why I now use Lew's. They're a lot lighter than the Calcutta.

@MAN you can count on finding Ambassadeur parts and upgrades as long as you want to fish, and yes, your reels will be heirlooms that will fish for generations. Easy to replace with a 90-mm handle, but 5.3 gears may be too slow to use that long handle. My. 6.3-geared Express has a 90-mm Haneda Craft "power" handle My 5.3 geared Ambassadeurs, these are both '77 4500C, get 70-mm H/C handles. Only C3 and C4 (Ultracast) offered 6.3 gears, and are easy to swap on U/C models. Avail and Valleyhill offer 6.1 and 7.1 gearsets for small-frame Ambassadeur (2500C), but no one offers gear upgrades for older mid-frame Ambassadeur.

Not much work today. I fought it all day , but finally had to get a few casts in. This healthy fish fell prey to the Bama craw yum dinger.

I forgot to share that it'll reach 68 degrees today, which is our high temp for 2024 so far. That's why I think they were so active. It's also going to reach 68 tomorrow with a south wind, so I'm going fishing again at the same pond. I did hook one bass that I think was big. She took drag and peeled free. @txchaser coached me to cast 180 degrees from where bass are hitting in case a big girl is hunkering in deeper water, so that's what I did and that's where she was.

Yep, them new gas cans are trash. I swapped out all mine with this kit...you can find at Menards and Amazon. Much better!!

At this point in time my Alweld is lacking electronics. I marsh fish a lot & electronics aren't necessary. Same for our bayous & rivers. On Toledo Bend I get by with my little HELIX 5 SONAR G2. No GPS, no down imaging, no side scan, & no FFS.

In another thread earlier today I told someone they didn’t need a new rod and apologies to the bait monkey in one swoop. In fact, I said “please forgive me bait monkey, I'll do double duty next time”. The monkey heard that and said “hold my beer”. my schedule has been tight lately so when the stars aligned I took an afternoon trip to my favorite local lake. I haven’t fished it this year and was curious where it was in the cycle. It’s a natural lake and in the hills so it’s usually cooler than the others around. That was incorrect tonight. While the lake Sunday was 59-61 and the big lake around is at 59, this one was 66 degrees. Going down the bank it was a mix of bass and bluegill on beds. It was a spinnerbait kind of day (overcast, light breeze, etc) so I started there but after seeing how much grass was already up and that the bass were on beds I gave up on it after 15 minutes and one pickerel. I had to take a work call so I plodded around the lake watching live scope while on the call and saw nothing anywhere (not surprising, the bass here relate to the grass). I hate bed fishing, so I decided to throw a wacky senko along the bluegill beds and hard cover looking for post spawn ears. I managed two bass that way but I hate fishing like that so I needed something else. Cue the monkey. Every year I pick a thing or two that I want to try and/or fish a lot more and get good at. After watching a bunch of Tyler Berger I decided to try a magdraft this year. I only went with the 6” since I had rods to handle it. I had just watched his lake break where bass were around beds and it turned out some were eating a magdraft pretty well. Turns out they were doing that here too. I landed 3 plus a bonus musky plus had that many more knock it sideways and not hook up. These were definitely post spawn fish as a 19” fish was only 3-08. In two months that fish will be a pound heavier here. The musky was a clean 20” fish. I had another 40+” musky watch my lure go by disinterested. I have to say, fishing a magdraft is a lot of fun. I’ve fished big keitechs and other soft swim baits before but the MD is just different. In the super clear water up here (it was 5’+tonight) I can see it working well. I might have to grab one or two more now, maybe some other high end soft swim baits, a glide or two and a rod to handle them. I can see how people get addicted to this.

Me, reading this convo about weightless worms and how to fish them:

What's weird, ICD, is that right now I'm using pretty much two lures: a Keitech with an underspin and a Whopper Plopper. The Keitech is catching the most bass by far, about 70/30 versus the Whopper Plopper. I've tried other lures, but right now in Maine, the bass want those two lures. Come summer, I'll add a popper, wacky worm, squarebill, and T-rigged worm, but for now, I'm a two-trick pony. Apropos of nothing, here's my top 2024 bass and all-time PB again, caught on a Keitech. She fought like a log and thank goodness for that, otherwise I might not have boated her. The photo is horrible, but I get so nervous with big bass in my canoe. I just want to return them to the water ASAP. She was 22.25" with a big back and belly:

@bp_fowler I totally forgot the floating worm exists. Definitely a great thing to be throwing right now, thanks. Great day!

Few odds and ends, mostly taking advantage of sales

Can't use a drone when hunting, but you can use FFS when fishing. Make it make sense.

Voted 'No' for 2 reasons. 1) Price 2) My age & that I already have more than I can use

Beetle spin

5 packs d bombs toxic grape candy bomb pink belly black neon super craw 1 pack jackall chunk craw green pumpkin orange 1 pack clear pegs for my tungsten weights

Is it too early to use a 12" magnum worm in Maine? Our water temps are in the low sixties and we are pre-spawn. I want to target a big girl tomorrow morning.

On another note. We can all be about as old school as can get but there's not doubt about modern day fishing electronics. A fair hand shake is a must. They've opened the door, completely, a game changer that has moved the fishing industry forward like no other. The tournament world is dominated by FFS. Many purest abound but the fact is, no one can compete with these electronic marvels that have basically eliminated the concept of luck. Luck can still be in anyone's favor, no doubt, but to eliminate it from the equation is pretty drastic. Readying the water, seasonal patterns, and all the jazz is all well and good but the guys who know how to read a FFS screen pretty much will lead the pack.

I throw it Texas Rigged weightless, Texas Rigged weighted, & Carolina Rigged. Both Texas Rigs can be fished on the surface, mid-depth, or on the bottom.

It won't end at FFS. I predict that drone lures with AI are coming, i.e. lures linked to FFS that will swim to the scoped bass and using AI, entice a hit. The technology already exists. The tech user will have to free line the lure and the lure will alert the tech user when it's been hit, so the tech user can take up the slack and set the hook. Then these tech users will be posting photos of 50 lb. bags. I further predict that such successes will be short-lived, as bass will adapt. As it always is in nature, it's adapt or die. The stress of being caught again and again will kill some of the old gals and especially if they're crammed into livewells so that the tech users can pose with five DDs at once. I hope I'm wrong.

Chuck Norris calls @T-Billy for Muskie fishing tips.

Blurp Blurp Blurp greatest sound in bass fishing.

I don’t remember which pro said it, but it made sense…. if the bass can get one big meal over several little meals they go that route, ie several minnows or one big slow easy to snatch fish or in your case worm.

Yeah I peg mine all day every day. I caught two converting my pegged T rig to a C rig on the fly while it rained this morning. All I can say is bass LOVE BIG WORMS. Throw them.😎👍🏼🎣⭐

Alright that’s a wrap folks 🤓 Good work, Tim

I'm totally old school because I'm too old to carry a battery and sonar to the water in addition to everything else I'm carrying. Like Tom, I'm always visually scanning. Even if I'm retrieving a surface lure, I'm often not looking at it. I can hear and feel the bite. I use my eyes and my swivel neck to look for clues about where to cast. There's a lot of information as to what's below that can be gleaned from what's above. I like to infer. Then, when I catch one, it's because of deduction.

So much for telling myself to never order big swimbaits. Ordered 3 3:16 8” mission fish swimbaits - Hitch - Dark Hitch - Clear Lake Ghost

I fish from the bank a lot and I fish in about 1 ft of water on the lake a lot. I still use down imaging just to be safe and because I find it an educational tool to enhance my enjoyment of my hobby. But I catch them plenty from the bank. Eye scoping 😉😉😉 Electronics don't make people any more or less likely to catch bass unless they're already purty good at it I reckon.

I have little need to use the electronics since the depth rarely exceeds 5 feet in the Atchafalaya Basin and marshes in south Louisiana. I will however have the GPS and depth finder on split screen on the console of my boat turned on. I run so much shallow water I'm more comfortable knowing the depth of the water I'm running. The last thing you want to do is run aground on a sand bar. That's like dropping your boat off the trailer in a parking lot. There have been a few times I have had to have someone pull me off a sand bar.

Using cologne eliminates you as a bass angler unless it’s 100% pure anise oil😎 Tom