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Manny, my old dog died April 19, 2023. I buried him in my Japanese garden and planted Creeping Jenny on his grave. The Creeping Jenny now completely covers his grave and it thrives, growing plush and wide. After months of mourning, I'm getting a new dog today, another black and silver miniature German Schnauzer. His name is Joey P. Boots, the "Boots" being a nod to his four white paws. He also has a white muzzle, eyebrows, and chest. He even has off-white ears, so da Boots is quite a handsome guy. A friend and I built a backyard pen last Saturday and the house is loaded with toys and treats. I might be fishing less because puppies have so much to learn. Anyway, big day and friends are already pressing to see him before he's even arrived.

It's been nearly 2 weeks since I'd fished my local hole and was surprised by just how choked out it's become with the relentless sun and heat. Just wild. Only had an hour after work but didn't even get that in because of lightning and pounding rain. Managed one scrappy acrobat on the Heavy Poop chucked as far as I could past a weed line and into slightly deeper water. Had to fight her back through the pads, but no problem on a heavy stick and straight 50lb braid.

Nabbed a couple more today. The Mepps #5 Black Fury is the most productive bait this week. Also, something ripped the tail off my Mepps. Felt a big thump, then nothing, and when I got my bait back, the tail was gone. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Another good July windy bank fish

I don't fish this lake much. It's always covered with stuff, but it's only 12" deep in it's deeper parts so often, punching through the mat produces nothing. But occasionally I'll hit it, and I've caught some decent ones there in the past. Pocket Frog Saw this but didn't catch it. Lizard for this guy. Not sure about this, hybrid warmouth? Private Lake here, trying out a vintage pack of power worms. Fat Albert on a ball head jig. I've never fished them that way. This is at my heavily pressured local public lake. The worms are working there too. The first 2 are right off the main office in a cove that gets hit a lot, and the first one is on the stump that always gets hit by everyone. All 4 in the same day was not bad at all for this lake along the shore. They like this color. All where split shot. This one is in another cove, that's not as heavily pressured but I'm sure it gets it. 2lb1oz, fat, and a fighter! Ya can't see it, but there was a shad tail barely sticking out of the gullet. This one came off a stump that is in a small creek that runs into the lake. It's about 6 foot wide at this point. Probably pound and a quarter, and was a fighter.

This is old I'm sure, and probably thousands of folks know this trick, but I thought I'd pass it along. Most folks prefer a floating plastic worm with a shakey head. Take a straight plastic worm. A Zoom Trick Worm is a good example. Clip about 1/8" off the tail. Take a round toothpick and thread it into the tail of the worm. Thread around 1" or so into the worm. Cut off any excess toothpick flush with the tail. Toothpicks will float, and will cause the tail of your plastic worm to float up off the bottom. You could do this with a shakey head, open hook jig worm style, or probably a t rig worm. Basically, doing this, you've created a floating, or semi floating plastic worm. Almost any straight tail plastic worm can work. This can make your bait more visible, and hopefully, draw more strikes from the bass.

I can find a snag in any body of water, at any depth, around any type of structure all without the help of electronics. If there are no snags in the water, I am perfectly capable of using my senses to find a tree branch 30 feet above the water. It takes years to develop the natural senses and skills to always be able to come home with less tackle than I left home with.

I had an awesome morning. 34.5" - 37" - 38" - 42.5". I got to watch 'em all eat. All four came on blades in less than 4' of water. The 38 was especially fun. I was waking a double #8 through a channel in the pads, and this joker blows up on the bait but misses. It comes right back up on it, nose on the bait, but I can't trigger it. I made several speed and direction changes, but it just kept following, nose right on the bait. So... last ditch effort, I stick the rod tip in the water and start burning that spinner as fast as I can, and just rip it into the 8 full force. I came through the first turn hard, then slowed up and hung it just under the surface on the outside of the turn. That fish came absolutely unglued on it. WWWWWWHAT A RUSH!!! 😂 One more day of fishcation left. I hope they're chewing this well again tomorrow.

Congrats @ol'crickety!!! Indy and Ranger approve!

I recently discovered that today is @WRB’s birthday! It’s difficult to believe this wealth of knowledge and wisdom is slightly over 50 and bass still tremble at the mere mention of his name. So I’d like to say on behalf of myself and the Bass Resource community “Happy Birthday Tom!”

Russell Dam on Savannah River North end of Clarks Hill

Still stuck shore fishing, but finally broke the bass-drought. Ya - it's only a pair of 13oz fish...but it's BASS. Missile Baits Warlock shakey head in 1/8oz GP with Zoom Finesse Worm in GP-Magic. Think I found my new shakey head jig - these stand up much better than the Owner Ultrahead I had been using.

That big hairy dude got me again last night. I’m beginning to hate him but I like when he shows that massive silverback face. Latest purchase:

Congratulations. Pictures are required on all new dog announcements. It’s in the forum rules somewhere. 😆

All I have to say is stay away from swimbait underground. They have a bait silverback. I’ve met him a few times. My wallet was not, nor still is, happy about those visits…

Yep going out to dinner

Caught some tanker warmouth this past weekend. I weighed a couple to make sure I didn't turn a state record loose on accident 😂

We posting dog photos today? Why not

I don't want to create the impression that by suggesting that you should keep moving that you should move over areas too quickly or past fish that are biting. The purpose of covering water and moving is to find the fish that are biting and sometimes 15 to 30 minutes is not an unreasonable amount of time to fish an area while moving very quickly. I don't understand why people can't reconcile these two things! 😄😄😄♥️♥️♥️ If anything, I find that while my intention is to cover water and move quickly every time I go out I end up spending 2 hours on a corner of a pocket that's about 30 ft wide LOL. Sometimes it works out but usually it works out better if I just keep moving. I am merely suggesting that the vast majority of people with good intentions and good information about bass fishing still generally fish too slow and don't cover enough water in a day to find fish a lot of the time!

So I took my kayak out on Somerset Reservoir, located in the green mountains of Vermont. I caught a rock bass my first cast and eight smallies, nothing large. But it was nice to be in 81 degree weather when it was 92 back home. Both the online maps and Garmin maps are wrong. They show the creek channel being near the east side when it was actually on the west side. I fished the east side until 8pm, realized I pedaled 3 miles and when I went back, I found and followed the creek channel and found some more spots for next time. It was a good test of my new GPSMap 943xsv and GT56UHD though, sidevu was bright and clear to at least 150 feet which is definitely a significant upgrade over my old GT54UHD. Loving the new Old Town Bigwater. I was able to pedal back at around 4.5mph into a decent current. Here’s a few pics https://1drv.ms/f/s!AhZmMB-Fz0_2j9MC5LgpfuldtkGl3Q

A kid I'd known since kindergarten moved away at the end of 4th grade. Angelo was as Brooklyn-Italian in his speech as it gets. Dis, dat, deese, etc. Ya know. Like a mini Paulie Walnuts from the Sopranos. He came back one day to visit while I was in 8th grade, and it turns out he'd moved to Texas. He was dressed like a cowpoke and now had a cartoonish southern accent right out of an episode of Hee-Haw. Texas can change a boy. Don't change, LMS.😁

They may not tell you all the time where the bait is but they sure can point you in the right direction to get the fish. This bird here was my FFS for the day lol and said, “follow my lead.” One cast below it got me a decent one. Happens all the time out in the glades.

Great photos and stories, guys. All out of reactions. Sorry. Here are my paddling partners on the Thames River, well west of London obviously.

It is not uncommon to spend hours punching with no bites & then stick a 25-30# stack in the next 30-45 minutes. When I decide to go punching I keep only 2 setups on the deck. A punch setup & a frog setup.

Birthday! Ya still doing those Tom? Happy Birthday!

Pat and I are fast fishers. If we ever fish together, we'll need someone to shout as we launch, "And they're off!" I thought about what I wrote and I think bass boat anglers with Pratt & Whitney jet engines would chuckle at a guy fishing from shore with his kid and an old woman in a canoe considering themselves to be fast anglers.

My saying has always been….. if you are going to show me where you are, I’m gonna fire a cast at you.

Spotted bass diet is purely crack cocaine and Marlboro reds

I agree that, in general, it’s best to scoot if an area is not producing and you don’t know what’s going on in the rest of the lake. And I’m happy to see the boats zipping by my favorite spots. 😉 I'm not sure I understand the subject of the post, but it's got closed minds in the title and I think it's about following general rules instead of analyzing each situation. There are several visual clues to the situation I described, but most boaters are moving too quickly to pick up on them. That’s why I mentioned the exception to the @Pat Brown rule. From your perspective, waiting for a 15-30 minute interval probably sounds crazy, but on a lake where 95%+ of the people walk away skunked after hours of fishing, it’s not so crazy. Maybe it’s crazy to fish there at all. I can’t argue with that. 😂

Most bass lures are versatile. Try a new or different retrieve. An example, try swimming a plastic worm instead of hopping it. Your using a confidence bait, but in a new way. It can work.

My thought is, you're taking this entirely too seriously. The only thing you are "supposed to do" is have a good time. There will be days where you'll make dumb mistakes and get skunked because of it. They'll be days where you do everything perfectly, and still get skunked. And there will be days where you'll make nothing but mistakes and catch a boatload of fish anyway. You can INFLUENCE how many fish you catch with your choices, but you can't CONTROL it. Besides, you'll make better decisions when you're relaxed.

Caught a couple bass this morning: I started out with the Mepps #5 and hooked into a good one, but lost it right at the bank. Two casts later, I hooked into an even larger bass @17" long. Ole boy put up a heckuva fight, but I managed to keep this one on. Caught one more before I had to go to work. This one came on the Crush City Mayor.

I know many anglers use FFS to locate bass, but our senses can also find them. An example: Last night, I only had an hour and fifteen minutes to fish, so I tried these places: A stretch of fertile water that is often loaded with bass. My count? 1 bass A reef with both muddy and rocky bottom, so it attracts both SMBs and LMBs. My count? 1 hit The dropoff from the reef. My count? 1 fine SMB that jumped and threw the lure. A grouping of lily pads in 5' to 6' of water. My count? Skunked. So, in four, prime places, I'd caught one bass and the clock was ticking because I don't like walking through the woods alone at night. I decided to burn about five minutes paddling across the pond to a marshy shoreline. I knew that bass liked to hunt parallel to that shoreline in wolf packs at dusk, but when I reached it, I saw no feeding bass. So, I simply paddled quietly along the marshy shoreline and watched. Up ahead, I saw a wave of slight ripples coming out of an opening in the marsh. I hadn't heard a fish feeding, but I figured the waves were made by a feeding bass, so I positioned my canoe for a cast, lobbed my underspin into the opening, and it was fish on. Repeating that pattern, I caught another six bass in eight casts and picked up my ninth bass on the paddle back. Here's one of the indentations and that first bass: I'm wondering when one of your senses clued you to the location of bass, something you saw or heard that broke the code for you.

Thank you all for remembering this old timers birthday it’s heart warming🥰 Tom

It’s funny how you mesh with a certain breed and it’s intuitive when you get a new one. We have had 2 Weimaraner's and both were trained using the methods espoused by The Monks of New Skeet in their books. While it can be difficult to adhere to them, the more you can, the better results you will get. They breed/train GSD’s for income and publish their methods in a line of books. Our first Weim was strict to the methods and our second was generally trained with them. Both were outstanding dogs.

If I had a nickel for every carp I’ve bombed a topwater at…….. id have like $35 😂 I always tell my buddies the bass will usually jump more than once in the same spot and you’ll see the shad jumping trying to get away. Eventually you can distinguish the sound difference in a bass engulfing something and a carp just jumping for fun. But better safe than sorry so I bomb the topwater anyway

too bad. I'm already taken. 😄

Under no circumstances would I mention it to my wife. If I were to tell her….

@PhishLI: I didn't know you moved to Brazil! I'm assuming you were fishing backwaters of the Amazon.

I don’t focus on baits as much as I do conditions. I think the conditions will tell you the method and bait to use. I understand finding grass or wood or whatever and gravitating to it because you may have had a spectacular day one day in that scenario. I do it myself but only for 10-15 minutes. If I am not catching immediately with what worked that one time, it tells me to get back to my routine of finding fish on the graph, what they are relating to, the current/wind, water clarity and color, water temps yesterday and today and if it is trending. All of those conditions narrow the method and bait choice. So I guess in a way, I don’t choose the bait, the conditions do. Do I still continue to try to force a spinner down their throats, you betcha! but I will eventually put it down and goto the thing that the conditions dictate just to prove to myself that yes, they are indeed still biting. I don’t think I am normal though. I honestly don’t care about catching a fish, I care about catching every fish. Put 10 fish in front of me and let me dupe 2. That only angers me, why can’t I get the other 8 to bite? I know I will never figure this out but I will never stop trying.

HAPPY HATCH DAY!

TOM!!!!

all of the above replies are great. Just remember, don't get overwhelmed with trying new or different techniques,you have to find what works for you. Your fishing not doing brain surgery......unless you're a brain surgeon..

For @Catt, the swamp boy: Conway: Well, the ol' boy he came from deep in the swamp. Loretta: Didn't dare look at the girl, she was sure to womp Conway: So, he sent her a redfish and crawfish for stew. Loretta: But in his swampy heart, he knew she was more than he could chew. Chorus: Oh, a swamp girl bites worse than any old snapper And when she grows old, she becomes quite a yapper But a swamp boy can't help it, she's his one true love When he looks at her, all he sees is a gentle, sweet dove.

I cast aimlessly and pray.

Fishbite rod holders for dragging.

Woke up to this guy looking for something to eat in the kitchen a few days ago. Quickly re-homed to the nearby woods. But, I'm agonizing over whether to mention it to my wife. She will fully acknowledge that rat snakes are harmless.....and has even dispatched one off the deck. But inside is going to be a different reaction.... which do i want: freaking out and fearing more inside the house? Or a bit of increased awareness...vigilance?

Got out to the Crappie Hole with my boy for some birthday fishing. That was a great present in itself but as a bonus I caught a new PB.