Leaderboard

I spent my final evening on a pal's pond. Next week, it's back to lugging my canoe over fields and through woods, but not having to do this let me fish four times this week instead of two. This pond saved the best for last, as I caught nine bass in the three and a third pounds to more than three and a half pounds. The pencil reeds have grown higher and thicker and it's verrrry difficult to bring a bass out of them. To take a break from failure, I dragged a Rapala Crush City The Mayor on the bottom in deeper water and landed some thick fish. It's amazing what a little weed-free water will do for my success rate. Below, the first two bass are well-shaped, but smaller. Look at the fins of the first bass. That's a nest maker, the first one I've seen. Then there's a pretty shoreline pic. Then two well-shaped smallmouth. Then another pretty pic. And then the parade of slabs. Some of them are so round, thick, and beautiful, but a few are simply long. Then a reflection photo for @IcatchDinks. And finally, a pic of a pickerel. The pickerel grow as thick as nice pike in this pond and I wanted to share their girth with the BR gang. Note how calm the water is. After a week of fighting wind, a calm day meant more fishing and less paddling in my three hour session. I caught 37 total.

Sunny, light north wind, air and water both 80-82 today. Water vis almost 9 ft. Ended the afternoon with 10 bass, including the first smallie I’ve seen since moving here. Wasn’t big, but the surprise factor made up for that 😎

Quick lunch break bass on the Heavy Poop. Water chickens.

A little time on the lake yesterday… caught a few.

Just another susky beauty

Guy on the left came from a spinnerbait during a quick trip last Saturday. Guy on the right was on a Texas rigged lizard after a pretty tough day today.

While fishing Lake Minichuck in the Old Town Canoe yesterday with my wife, we were visited by a plus size pike. This one was longer than my rig is wide and super thick across the back; very healthy. Got some video and let her go. Been a while since we've seen fish of this quality on back to back trips. I don't hate it. A-Jay

Good Luck ~ Hope you have everything you need to take home the Big Bass prize. Sorry, I had to do it. A-Jay

Ever since I was a kid I have had the exceptional ability's to take a lure that catches fish daily, and by modifying it make the very same lure never get another bite. When I modify a lure, it is impossible to bring the lure back to its original fish catching form.

The monkey is pleased with your efforts. 🙈🙈🙈 I got a ton of odds and ends recently but most notably I got some scum frogs from Midway USA to try out per @LrgmouthShad recommendation and they are fantastic. The Trophy and the Launch are both incredibly useful frogs and come in small and larger sizes with beautiful paint jobs. They get bit a lot and heck even I can catch a fish with them now and again! I really like the shad color and so do the bass!

Oh my goodness yes. Buzzbaits and Frogs get lots of modifications. Making the blades squeal more, adding holes, changing the angle of the bends on the blades, bending the hooks out on frogs, replacing frog skirts with worms and other such things, adding trailer hooks, adding trailers, subbing big blades onto small buzzbaits and small blades onto big buzzbaits, adding bends to the buzzbait wire to change the hook gap, changing skirts, coloring the frogs or buzzbaits with markers to more closely resemble forage etc etc etc etc.

This was written by a man who's spent 40 years in the wilderness, both in the Yukon and Scotland: “I’ve spent the majority of my life living outside the conventions of mainstream society, and I’ll tell you what I think is weird, and it ain’t the hermit. It’s how entire generations of people have been conned into believing that there is only one way to live, and that’s on-grid, in deepening debt, working on products you’ll probably never use, to line the pockets of people you’ll never meet, just so you might be able to get enough money together to buy a load of crap you don’t need, or, if you’re lucky, have a holiday that takes you to a place, like where I live, for a week of the happiness I feel every day.”

Well I finally got my reel for my tequila baccarat rod. I went with a tatula 200 for $140 otd and 50lb j braid along with a rod sock. Not too bad of a deal. I may have to invest in a leader in the future but for now I am good.

Today's fishing was so much fun. Traveled to a remote finger lake and fished in the middle of the afternoon. And let me tell you. I fished for maybe 2 hours. Caught 30 bass at least. All of them were over a pound. 3 or 4 over 3 pounds. But this is where it gets fun: (Now please keep in mind this lake has absolutely no fishing pressure. There was zero sign of any human EVER being there, which I'm sure there has been at some point.) I took 4 different types of bait, all plastic. I took a dark green/chartreuse minnow on an 1/8 black jig head, one 7" red/creme worm, one watermelon with red flake dinger worm, and i also took a 3/8 white/chartreuse boo yah spinner bait. All pretty regular, except: i wasn't getting much on the spinner, so I took a 3" chartreuse pumpkin colored pack chunk craw, removed one of the claws and hooked it so the remaining claw was a tail. I caught d**n near every fish today on that setup. And I mean they destroyed it. I never would have thought. Was it the set up or the spot? I guess we will never know.

I've posted too many bass. My trip reports get fewer and fewer views, reactions, and replies. Going forward, I'll just post a bass or two in the Latest Catch Pics thread...and maybe one pond pic. I've posted many photos because: A. I like looking at bass and I figured you guys might be like me. B. I think Maine bass vary greatly in color and shape and I like seeing the differences. However, I'll throttle back. I'm surprised no one reacted to the pickerel. It makes me think that thick pickerel are pretty common for you guys, but I only catch them at this pond. This is the pond where I caught a pickerel that I think would have been a new Maine record about a week or so ago. That pickerel sagged like a pregnant bass, but she wasn't pregnant because pickerel spawn at ice-out. I know the pickerel photo above is a lousy photo, but even in a net, pickerel are bonkers. She wouldn't stop flipping. I nearly never net pickerel, but I netted this girl so you could see how thick they grow in this pond and they outfight five-pound bass, so I actually enjoy them.

Fun tactics I have tried! 1).Hard jerkbaits, I will change treble hooks to bigger ones.. 2). If they have three, I will remove the middle one, and just use the two big trebles. 3}. In very weedy areas I have removed all trebles and changed to a #4 WGH with a weed guard. No trebles! 4. With tubes and a Carolina Rig, I pack the hollow body tube with styrofoam. Then Texas rig through the styrofoam and tube. Floats nice and high behind the big weight. Will dance in place with the slightest shake. 5).Plastics I bite a chunk off the original to get a clean head when it's torn up, or just to down size the bait. 6). A floating broken back rapala, I have taken the back half off and replaced the back half with a texas rigged grub, no treble hooks. Great top water in matted vegetation. 7).Ran out of Zoom Flukes, noses all torn up. Wacky rigged them and the bite was back strong! 8). I have put a Clouse Fly Jig a foot behind a floating rapala. I have caught bass on the Jig. 9). Ran out of bullet weights, so I hit the wife's sewing kit and found beads of all different colors, and the catch was good, saved the day. Add a little color! 10). Sometimes experimenting is just a blast!!!!!!!!!

Tinkering ( modifying) with bass lures is a common practice. Adding colors to lures is probably the #1 modification. Tunning the lures is #2 as few come out of the box with the action we are looking. #3 is changing hooks size, color, style and adding dressing like feathers. #4 changing ROF (sink rate) by adding weight. #5 changing sound like running silent or adding rattles, Very few bass anglers use a lure out of the box, tinkering is a big part of bass fishing. Tom

Nice trip ”I’ve posted too many bass” oh go cry me a river! 😂 nice problem to have

Its almost a daily occurrence here. There is a small pond down the road and all kinds of lush, green, manicured lawns this spring in my neighborhood so they love it. I refuse to allow them in my yard though. They sh** all over the place and its disgusting. And they carry avian influenza. Once they step foot in the yard, I release the beast. That sends em squawking outta here. Whoever came up with water chickens has obviously never tried eating one. They taste nothing like chicken lol. Taste more like hockey puck. My wife calls them pothole filler.

@Pat Brown, had 4 geese at our dock all winter/spring. They love honking wildly at 3-4 am in pitch black darkness. fast forward to now and there are about 24 of them….. bunch of little fluffy %*+!> that will be night honkers before you know it I hope to turn some of them into pastrami if my buddies can shoot them this fall

I use a Palomar on everything with zero issues. If tied right the knot should slide down tight with minimal effort.

A couple of new spinner baits lol, I got a box full of them but not this blade combo. So I had to get them. Both a 1/2 oz, I have heard good things about them on here.

Hold my beer. I got this.

These always make me laugh

Wife and I camped again on a small 19 acre lake that was beyond clear, 20 ft visibility. Bluebird skies so every fish was caught early on Jackall flickShake GPC.

Exactly why I chose them, I am an odd man of opposites. I do the reverse of normal and it works for me. Gin clear water I throw black and blue baits. And catch 4+ lb fish so if it works for me I keep doing it. Maybe I get lucky with fish that are too eager, but that is not the case for this lake. I caught my pb on a green pumpkin jig out of this exact lake. So it must not be a fluke, although I fish a very stained water pond that they will only eat natural colors for the most part. It’s only normal if you agree with it, throw caution to the wind and go for it and let me know the results. Every body of water is different but hey it works for me, I have pulled a 4+ lb bass out of that pond using black and blue colors. A local Ollie’s haul after my work friends saying that we might go to a frog 🐸 lake lol. I might be wrong but I am going with two colors of frogs and a reel my new to fishing friend can blow up plus a backup just to be sure lol.

Got new TranX 401, Put the power handle on. Going to get a 9' kaos tackle assault stick telescopic to pair with. anyone have that rod? It is famous musky rod and I want to have it because it will be 7'5" and can put it in RV with other rods and I am going to use it for mega size glides, Any taught?

I'm tempted to mark this as the solution to the entire thread.

Every glass casting rod I've ever fished will fish below its rated low end - what it does best is skip-cast (reverse spiral) lite lures below its rated low-end. Can't exactly call it noodle, but this 6'4" bad boy S-glass, I set up to skip-cast 1/8-oz bunny shrimp to redfish backs under mangrove overhang. This is my river kayak version for cypress overhang, and only 5' - the 1-pc composite blade has S-glass tip and an IM6 layer on the butt for turning bass.

Yep, love me some glass. This is a fantastic stream smallmouth setup. The rod is a Graywolf 5'4" 4-8lb progressive E glass.

If tied properly you should be able to hold the mainline & tag end in one hand & the lure in the other hand. The knot should slide down effortlessly. If any pressure is required something ain't right.

One night I could not catch a bass on a buzzbait, although I was getting hits regularly . I took some needle nose pliers and bent the wire frame in a stair step fashion "Cavitron style" and started hooking up . The bait was riding slightly deeper. I now do that to all my buzzbaits since I pour my own . I believe I get a higher percentage of hookups. I made a jig to bend the wires to keep them straight. Its just two nails in a 2x4.

I felt something in my shirt pocket the other day and it was half of two different colored stick worms. One a red shad and the other a baby bass so I thought, 'ok, let's see if the bass like both colors at once'. So I heated the ends where they had broken and melded them together and the bass love it. I may have to make a couple more.

This photo makes me laugh. We don't have pickerel or muskie or bowfin or gators at the ponds I fish. But I do find myself cussing under my breath at geese at least once a week 😂😂😂😂 They somehow manage to be loud and obnoxious and good at scaring fish away right when I'm about to make a perfect cast in a way that no other species can come close to.

Sounds like a good day down there, neighbor. Once I get Bass Trek in the water, maybe duo-boat it on Tonka sometime....perhaps get @gimruis and @Deephaven to make it a flotilla.

I’d do it. Then I’d eat both of em. HA HA !

@Team9nine probably mangled up a small piece of elaztech when he set a record. That would be referred to as “natural modification.”

There are no fluorocarbon lines that “requires you use specific types of knots to avoid knot failure” The only thing that is required is that it is tied correctly as is all other lines. If you have consistent success with what you’re using there is nothing better. Mike

Yamamoto loves this one simple trick!

Well I got some more smaller stuff to throw on my bfs setup, not really bfs weight stuff but the local pickings are slim. Plus some reins plastics at reduced price. I will have to be careful not to spool my poor bfs reel with these lures.

Al Bundy I keep reliving past catches hoping someone cares about it and every so often I get a mild moment of glory again. I also work at a job that goes unseen and no one appreciates 😂

There's a reason Shimano and Daiwa do not make a round reel that light. First off, they, unlike the Chinese, have most likely field tested concept and pre-production models like you are talking about. They have the resources for extensive R&D and probably never brought them to production because of weaknesses in the alloy or design used. A reputable manufacturer doesn't risk its reputation over such things, they will tend to stick to tried and true designs that evolve over time. Similarly, Abu once had a 1500C concept model that weighed a whole 5 ounces, they were planning on releasing it in 1980 but because it was not structurally sound like the 1978 model, it never saw production. Better to err on the side of caution than to potentially sacrifice the brand.

I modify many lures in some fashion. Don’t even get me started on spinnerbaits

I’m going to play devil’s advocate because why not. I bet you it catches fish. I bet it’s not too shabby. Is it better than the myriad of other rigging options we have at any given time? Who knows.

With the plethora of lures out there you can almost always find what you want. Also I think almost everyone does "adjust" their lures. Removing strands, cutting them short, cutting and bending weed quards. Many times I've adjusted a line tie to make the bait track better. And I will bet you that every pro modifies their lures.

We need video of this.

In 55 years of fishing Toledo Bend there were 3 occasions I ran boat up on the bank & got out!

A big bass I missed years ago. It made me determined to get better at bass fishing.

You can do whatever you want. Including using no trailer. Josh Jones special. I my world, a properly rigged swim jig has a certain 'waggle' to it as it swims and as it falls; on a tight or slack line. Line size and type, lure speed And trailer size, as well as type ALL PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE. Getting this right, for me anyway, takes some trial and error. I fish swimjigs often, because they get bites, but I’m not always using a paddletail trailer. A-Jay