Leaderboard

I went through every one of my trip reports and added all the bass I caught this year. My 2024 total is 2,044. Now, I know a few BR members might sniff at my total, as I caught a LOT of 2.5 to 3.0-pounders (I also caught my PB and several 20-pound bags.) One of the BR gang once posted that he'd rather catch no bass than three-pounders, but I don't feel that way and here's why: There's a TV show called "The Good Place," which is Heaven, and when the main characters finally reach Heaven, they find it's filled with bored people and desperate angels, for the angels have run out of ideas to amuse Heaven's inhabitants because Heaven's inhabitants have seen, done, and tasted everything again and again and again. No three-pound bass will amuse them. Nor forty-pound bass. Nor 4,000-pound bass. They've been there and done that ad nauseam. I'm not there, probably because I know I'll die and I only get to dance with bass for a few more years. So, I'm grateful for all of them. As an old fishing pal once said, "They're all good." Here are the per trip totals, with a few dates here and there: 1, 3, 2, 11, 3 (including my PB on April 17th!), 14, 6, 13, 15, 11, 18, 23, 37 (May 13th), 75, 42, 47, 39, 40, 45, 26, 28, 31, 37, 52 (June 2nd), 28, 56, 38, 55, 45, 10, 19, 34, 39, 36, 36, 49 (July 5th), 27, 24, 49, 9, 21, 40, 26, 57, 15, 8, 9, 25, 17, 9, 17, 26, 18 (Aug. 18th), 25, 14, 9, 26, 9, 11, 20, 20, 22, 5, 9, 9, 4, 25, 20, 6, 35, 4, 70, 24, 8, 9, 25, 20 (Oct. 3rd), 22, 19, 52, 15, 27, 20, 19, 58, 5, 12 (Nov. 1st) A lot of my single-digit totals later in the year were me scooting down to fish my pond for an hour or an hour and a half in the evening. My best day for quantity with quality was my 58-bass day, in bold font, three trips from the end. That day might have been my first 25-pound bag. Here are three of them from that morning. Clearly, I thrill to catching bigger bass too: Yeah, it's the good life and I'm grateful.

I had an excellent Spring, a mid Summer, and an abysmal fall. Highlight of the season was a new pb at 8lbs 4oz, my first and only fish on an 8” Huddleston deluxe. Caught decent numbers of 5-6lb fish with the most memorable being this double up with the bigger one being 6lb 7oz. Caught numerous fish in the 4lb class that I didn’t really keep track of. From March through May I caught them exclusively on big swimbaits with a Deps 250 accounting for the majority of them. Once summer rolled around I leaned more on big ribbon tail worms and jigs. Kinda struggled with size, caught more 4s than I cared to count with the only bigger fish coming in at 5lb 10oz on a wobble head jig. Got two decent ones in September then the fishing fell off a cliff. These last two were notable for coming from a lake I’ve been to in the past and never had success at. These are the only two fish I’ve ever caught at this lake. Overall the best year I’ve had so far. It is really tough to crack 8 where I’m at so honestly the rest of the season was just a victory lap.

Here's a nice addition to the Rebel collection! It in near mint condition considering it's 50 + years old.

I am still holding out hope for a sunny afternoon in the 50-60's where I can get "Marge" back on the water for one last hurrah. Need to look back through the fishing logs, count up all the days and fish. I did boat a personal best for the my time in Nebraska, breaking the 5lb barrier. This was my first full year fishing the new-to-me Lund Adventure. Lots of time figuring things out, honing skills with the TM and fish finders, and trying new techniques. Good old spinnerbait was my top producing lure. Also had good luck late in the summer running cranks over sunken brush piles off shore. T-rigged power worm was another technique that produced some good fish. @A-Jay, I tried and tried to boat fish with jerkbaits, and had a little success in the spring. It's a fun way to fish and I need to keep throwing them. Brother and I made the 19+ hour drive to Canada to chase pike. It was an outstanding trip. We are planning to head back in July of 2026.

2024 has been a pretty good year for me. I got a nice smallie at 6-12 & a largemouth at 9-6 but no PB's. Jerk baits & swim baits worked best for me.

I think you give up distance with any SV reel. Which when you’re casting light weights that can cause you to over throw and backlash. I have 3 reels that all cast well/effortlessly - Aldebaran BFS, Daiwa Air TW, and Curado BFS. I like them about in that order. But they’re all really good 👍

You know who you are.

You can tell by the sky in the background that I was out today as a decent front was working its way into the area. It completely moved out the shad from the areas I was fishing a couple days back, and subsequently, many of the bass. I did find a couple in some shallower areas upriver, so it wasn’t a complete shutout…and the high hit 70, which is nearly 20 degrees warmer than the next couple days are supposed to be. Maybe we'll finally drop water temps into the 50s which I think would help the bite.

Yes sir. I buy Rebels for the collection and Rebels to fish. This one will be hung with the non-fishers.

This year started off slow and stayed that way. Once again, my most productive technique was fishing plastic worms in the vegetation. The worms were followed by jigs and small jerkbaits, also fished in, and around the vegetation. Pitching a Texas rig in the really thick stuff in place of a jig worked too. This fall about the only moving bait that seems to trigger a consistent bite has been a 1/4 oz. Rooster Tail. There were a lot of baits this year that the bass were very picky about. The spinnerbait bite died in the middle of April and really never picked back up. Crankbaits, topwaters, lipless, and regular sized jerkbaits landed me a few, but the bite was way off this year compared to past years. I haven't caught any giant bass yet this year, but I did manage a new PB crappie that was caught out of a 4 to 4-1/2 acre pond. Probably the best news I've heard this year is that one of my daughters wants to get back into fishing again.

The turned in point & the upturned angle at the bottom you mentioned is the reason they are superior to round bend hooks. The turned in point grabs fish flesh faster just like a circle hook does. It then penetrates quicker than a round bend. And lastly that funky bend you talk about keeps fish hooked up better by not allowing the hook point to back out as easily. I change out all my treble hook baits with Owner zo wire hooks. It’s expensive but well worth the improved hookup ratio & reduced loss of catches. Also use a lure retriever when you get snagged. And if that doesn’t work wrap your braid around a piece of wooden dowel like a broom handle for pulling lose snags. Don’t tighten down your drag to do so because it just causes braid dig in on the spool & weakens the braid. It can also distort the spool.

Mick, you might want to review this thread. Tatula 70 SV TW is the right package in USM reels for fishing mono. If threadline braid is ever in your sights, you might like the JDM Alphas, giving you more, lighter spool options. Note, you can get the Alphas Air ready to go for the same price in RH. https://www.amazon.com/Daiwa-Alpha-7-1R-Baitcasting-Reel/dp/B09LQYMTB7/ref=sr_1_5

@gimruis yeah it’s a bummer. Honestly water level in the river has a lot to do with it. This fish are so spread out it’s insane. When the bass master kayak tournament was here everyone was complaining how low it was. It’s a foot lower than when they were here. I’ve been going out on it too because I’m so over fishing the one unlimited HP lake around.

Alright. I went and did it and bought the “like new” used version from Alf. Got it today. This is going to be a cool rod. It is listed as ultralight but that’s just the top 15” of the rod. It’s like they grafted an ultralight tip to a medium light bottom. The bottom half feels like my 6’10” zodias ML. I compared them side by side with my stradic on them. Both balance great. The PA is obviously lighter in the tip (power and weight) which helps it balance. It’s lighter overall. I’d guess 0.25-0.50 oz total without weighing them. The tip is light for casting 1/16 plus plastic. Or even a 1/16 maribou jig. A light wrist flick loads it up for the top 12-18”. I’ve obviously not fished it yet, but I think it’s going to be great for a light Ned or a lighter jig head minnow. It has a lot of feel for the quick wrist flip sidearm. And actually l think the first time I fish it might be for trout. It has the perfect feel for that.

Second order showed up. Some 4.5 Spunk Shads and some 3.5s for the MiniMax. Some 2.0 and 1.5 decoy snaps for the chatterbaits, and some more Thunderhawk Sergeant lipless cranks in a new shad pattern, 3 in the 3/4 oz rattling version and 2 in the 1/2 oz silent version.

Yeah, ^this^ sounds right. I rose at three in the morning many times and launched alone in the cool, foggy dark...and when I heard a big bass splash, I was joyful!

An uppercut wasn't in the script unfortunately.

Welcome to “Club 2000!” We know how to party around here…

Congratulations on a truly epic year!

Katie you should have stopped at 2024. How cool would that have been 2024 in 2024. Congrats on the year.

You can get the Alphas Air on Tackle Warehouse for $350 or you can buy an Alphas Air from Japan for over $100 less and put a longer handle on it.

Sounds like my 7'6" mlxf Avid Walleye.

Yes I do. Wish Shimano would have left the ultralight rating off . I t fishes more like a ML to me but it's a cool little rod. I use it for drop shot and the minnow shaking deal.

Couple short fish I got one night last week before the water got too cold: one on the DRT Joker and one on the Tiny Klash. I target big fish with these baits, but sometimes the short ones are so aggressive it's insane. What were these lil dudes thinking??

2024 was a tough year bass fishing for me. I let work get in the way of my bass fishing again this year, and when I was able to go I had less success than previous years. I managed to remain good friends with the Bait Monkey, but even though my tackle box was always full, I struck out more than I care to admit. The good news is my wife and I had a cabin built one kilometer from a lake with bass. The bad news is I am having a difficult time catching bass there, and when I do they are not very big, with the biggest being around 6 pounds. I spent most of my available bass fishing time there, because it is now my home lake. When I was able to go to other lakes I did ok at one and horrible at another. I only fished Presa Pocho a couple times, and managed to catch one 10.2 pounds along with a couple 7.5 pounders. My success on large bass was down from previous years, but I had just as much fun, and even though my new home lake isn't as good as I would like it to be, I enjoy having a lake I can call home. If five small bass is a good day at new lake, than I will try hard to catch 6 bass. It is all relative, and a 6 pound bass on one lake is equal to a 10 pound bass on another. I hope to take more time away from work next year, and I still have time to catch my PB before this year is over.

8 bags of 3" Zakos showed up to my door today. Picked some up in green pumpkin, green pumpkin/white, white, and electric shad. I did not expect them to be positively adorable on the back of a MiniMax. Tossed it in the canal out back to see how it looks, action is as promising as its big brother. I have some 3.5" Spunk Shads coming in a separate TW order that should be here tomorrow, as well.

I posted a 2024 recap about a month ago of my season. No reason to burn it down twice. These two were my best largemouth. First one in May, at the time was a second best PB. By golly, in early October, I bested it, with a new second best PB.

Well, it's been a fishing season for the ages for me. In many different ways. Definitely did not get out on the water as much as in previous years and tried to make the best of the opportunities I was given. There were a few fish caught, some pretty decent one's too. While still hunting big smallies, highlights included: Several 5 lb class fish, two that went over 6 lbs, and my 2nd ever 7 lb mutant smallmouth bass. I was lucky to see many beautiful sunsets and sunrises, throw in some plus size pike, one freak of a musky, and that pretty much took care of it. As for productive presentations, it was another year dominated by Jerkbaits & Jackhammers. First season throwing the Megabass 110 in Shrimp and I can say quite confidently, that it will not be my last ! On the polar opposite end of the spectrum, I'm still trying to figure out how to get the most out on the Jackhammer Mini Max - This what some of my 2024 fishing season looked like . . . . . https://youtu.be/V3OYj82bUXQ?feature=shared Fish Hard Stay Safe & warm my friends. A-Jay

I'll effectively fish a rattle bait in just about every manner mentioned already in this thread. My PB LMB ate a 3/4 oz Red Eye Shad on a stop & go retrieve. Despite the effectiveness of that deal, my absolute FAVORITE way to fish a rattle bait is Like a Blade Bait. Need a clean-ish bottom. Meaning very limited soft *and or hard cover; especially wood./ I'll fish around cover just not in it. With just very little pumps of the rods and then a tight line back to the bottom. In the right conditions I will be netting SMB ALL DAY. Not really a secret but if you're having success with a blade bait, this is totally worth a try. Bait of choice for me is the Duo Realis G-Fix Vibration Tungsten Lipless Crankbait https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Duo_Realis_G-Fix_Vibration_Tungsten_Lipless_Crankbait/descpage-DUOGFXL.html A-Jay

My best days, quality and quantity, with a lipless have been yo-yoing in cold water (sub 50) and a slow ish retrieve with reel handle pops and kills while trying to maintain within a foot or three off the bottom (sub 60). Admittedly, I don't throw it enough to really know. A blade bait and small underspin and now a jig and minnow are my first goto's for those conditions. I've also had number days burning in the post spawn, but a swim jig/spinnerbait seems to get me close to the same numbers but with bigger fish mixed in. scott

Magnificent and scary looking fish Dwight! Fish like that remind me why every day I don't wake up as a Bluegill is a good day 😆 Finally got an Elephant to eat my favorite little peanut bait, the Flashback Mini.

Caught a nice one fishing the Kissimmee chain.

Limited run hair jigs built off WRB's jig head. https://siebertoutdoors.com/products/ols/products/wrb-hair-jig

Yep. Better get a prop wrench. They're plastic. Torque rating is about 40 lbs., or basically snug. The plastic prevents going any higher.

Nice Legion! I get a laugh out of guys asking what guns to buy for their wives. Most women are more than capable of handling recoil, and honestly recoil for most guns is nothing. They arent short barrel 308's.... The military has standard issued sidearms, regardless of the soldier, sailor, airmen, etc's gender. The best picks for carry (for men and women) are S&W Shields (if older the EZ models are great), Sig p365, XL, and even the Macro, slim line Glocks like the 43x and 48, Walther PDP F, Glock 19. Theres a ton of other options too, but these are the most known. Best thing to do for your wife is to learn about carry laws, along with taking carry classes. Plus range time and a good holster, not the one from Amazon for $15.

This was why I made the switch. I have traditionally thrown my chatterbaits on a reasonably parabolic/slow 7'1" MH/F, I affectionately referred to it as a "Moderate fast+." On that rod, I threw it braid-to-leader, and while I caught many good fish, those big ones more often than not would come unpinned on the jump no matter how I tinkered with drag, rod position, reeling, etc. Switched to straight mono, and landed my current biggest chatterbait fish at just under 7.5lbs, but I still kept losing more big ones than I landed on the jump, the graphite was just unloading too fast and like you said with those extra rotation points versus a traditional jig it was giving just enough slack to throw the bait. Made the switch to a glass rod a couple of months ago and while I have a much smaller sample size, the results are very promising so far.

I had a 7lb tilapia turn a stock split ring into a pretzel, and I've lost a couple of small bass that completely bent out stock Rapala split rings. There are a few companies I trust the stock hardware on, but everything else gets upgraded split rings (Owner hyperwire round for hooks and oval for line tie) and hooks (Mustad 1x strong 2x short EWG).

I take the prop off routinely during the season to ensure there isn't any debris in there that isn't supposed to be. Do the same with the prop on my bow mount. Old fishing line can do a number on both of them.

With total sadness I pulled the plug on my season yesterday. We’ve been dealing with a lot of wind as of lately and now rains and snow show up after months of on not having any and fishing low water levels. End of last week was the last hurrah for me. I sort of wanted to end it on a high note with a few respectable fish but the lone 16”+ Greenie and 10 nice bluegill for the grill over the winter I’m satisfied with that. My season was not a loss but not what I expected. I caught some respectable Smallies and Greenies 16-17” fish. But I know I was fishing for bigger fish. My biggest let down was that I’m primarily a crankbait guy and the crankbait bite for me was in the toilet. Fish were not where I expected them to be. I was diagnosed with a severe case of pneumonia and was side lined for a few weeks. I felt like I was behind the 8 ball and lost a big step. Nobody wanted me outside during the extreme heat. This took place during prime time and I think it knock my mental bass game off. We suffered lack of rains, higher temps, lower water levels and bass and baitfish in deeper water. But there were positives, fished some Z-Man soft plastics for a first. Everything and every color pattern worked on a handful of styles. Peanut Butter and Jelly is not a first color choice for me but found out how good a color pattern it is. Will continue to use it more. With crankbait bite in the toilet, jig and pig was fished more successfully. Fished for the first time the Flat Worm. Has worked as drop shot, split shot, T-rigged and on a jig head. Overall numbers were highest with this bait. Will continue to use this but gonna go to the bigger length next season. I have a few months now to reflect on the high and low notes.

I am right there with A-Jay with two additional considerations. First, you can acquire a moderate action by design or material. You get to choose. Glass rebounds slower than composites and all graphite rebounds the quickest. Here’s three examples of very goods vibrating jig rods: Dobyns Kaden 735 CB. All graphite and moderate. NFC Edge EFX Pro Hybrid MBR 706-1C. Composite, moderate, slower rebound. Alpha Angler Rebound 7’ Glass. Made from S2 glass, moderate with power and the slowest rebound of the three. Why moderate? A-Jay nailed it but consider this. A vibrating jig is a jig. But this jig has two points that hinge or swivel. This gives bass the ability to rock the jig in all kinds of angles unlike a traditional jig. That movement is an open door for slack and relieving tension on the hook. This is why treble hook baits benefit from moderate slower actions to stay hooked up. The goal, constant tension without ripping the hook out or bending the hook out. One last point. I don’t buy in to the idea slow rods allow the bass to suck in a moving bait deeper. If it’s something that gives you confidence, that’s great. It’s winter I guess.😁

Yes. though IMO, the bigger concern is just the rebending of that whole hook arm (point, barb, and length of wire to the bend, sometimes referred to as the throat) after it gets bent out a time or two. What I've experienced is that once it is bent out and rebent into shape, that metal "softens" for lack of a better term, making it easier to get bent back out of shape the next time. This ends up happening most often on a solid hookset, and the point never gets to bury into the fish like it was originally designed. Thinner hooks are worse about this than thicker ones, but once I've had one bend out, I will only rebend it back once if in the heat of battle before replacing it, because it inevitably ends up causing me fish. Eventually though, if you kept rebending time and again, that whole barb end will completely break off. Specifically on just the hook point, if I roll one over, I replace it. You can sharpen dull hooks that still retain their shape a time or two, but a bent point isn't worth messing with because the wire is so thin in that spot, it's bound to cause you heartbreak when you least want it to.

Anybody in the market for a 7'3 MH/XF rod, you'd be hard pressed to find a better deal than this. Chromium marked down to $87 with code BF24. Retail $300 (again, we all know how Kistler works). Shipping (to WI from TX) is $20. But even at $107 that's a STEAL. These are really nice rods. Super light. I already have 3 Chromium's and trying to convince myself I don't need a 4th. https://kistlerrods.com/products/chromium-fishing-rod

I didn't do much bass fishing, but I did pretty well when I did. I only got one over 5#, but was on solid numbers of 2's and 3's in the limited time I spent chasing bass. As usual, it was the flippin rig and my homemade chatterbait doing most of the work. On the other hand, I've had an epic year of muskie fishing. I've put 86 over 30" in the net so far, with a few weeks left to fish. Sitting at the top of the heap are a matching pair of thick 46.5" beasts.

Well my year was slow, I wanted to fish mostly crank baits this year. That didn’t work to good so as far as catching fish, one arm is bigger than the other from cranking so much, also I took a treble in my finger and lost some brand new lures. The plus side I did get some cool new tackle, square bills, med to deep drivers, some flat sided cranks, and an array of jerk baits. I even picked up a Krej….. I haven’t caught anything thing on about 80% of them, but they sure do look good when I open that Plano 3700 and ta-daaah!! ( and the crowd goes wild) I’m going back to my old way of fishing first of the year, I said I’d give it a year. Not giving up on cranks just not going fish them exclusively.

I had a good year, didn’t fish as much as last year, but many good trips. I do have a boat and fish from that, but I also really enjoy taking shore fishing trips at my local park, has some great channels off lake Winnebago, WI. I do a lot of short 1-2 hour days. I believe 30 was my best day from shore. Overall, no complaints. Very good crank bait bite this fall. Today it snowed. Season is pretty much over.Also did very well on a Tokyo rig in the spring, and forced myself to do more jig fishing, which I did great on! New convert to that! Bought like 50🤣

Coming from decades of fishing rocky lakes for smallmouth, 2024 was the year I fully flipped to fishing weeds for largemouth. Like this: And this: I'm so conditioned to hauling bass out of weeds that nowadays, if I'm in the veggie section of the supermarket, I want to run to my car and fetch a rod. For the first half of 2024, I fished an underspin with a Crush City Mayor, a great lure for throwing into weeds and wood. And I became much better at keeping them off-balance, I.e. applying so much pressure that they can't dig deep into the weeds and shuck my lure. I understand that this is Bassing 101 Weeds and Wood, a class all of you took decades ago, but you gotta start somewhere. I'm still waiting for my grade. I hope it's an A! Here's what I caught on the final exam: I did catch my PB early in the year and also likely caught the Maine state record chain pickerel.

If I have no idea what's going on and I'm fishing a lipless I let it fall to the bottom and then start reeling and pump the rod tip up and towards me at various speeds and intensities and distances and frequencies - sometimes holding the rod tip up and sometimes dropping slack back to the bait immediately and picking it up with the reel - sometimes letting it fall back to the bottom etc etc Give it life 😎😎😎 Usually I'll start to see a little bit of a pattern if they're biting a lipless at all on what part of my little cycle of cadence variations they hit on and then I will sort of hone in on that type of retrieve exclusively and sometimes you can wear them out! One of my all time favorite baits when the water gets cold.

Different days and locations call for different retrieves. I mostly use lipless cranks on flats with submerged vegetation. My aim is to keep the lure just over the tops of the weeds. Fast retrieves when the tops come to 2-3 feet, and I slow down more the deeper the weeds get.

The 3 colors are Shad, PBJ and Fritz (Dave Fritz) color for Smallmouth or LMB. I use a Hitchhiker spring to attach a 2” piece of finesse worm cover the hook point for a weed guard. Bluegill PB&J with Green pumpkin Chigger Craw trailer claw tips dipped in chartreuse Spike-It. Chigger craw swims like a bait fish. Tom PS, wash the bucktail hair with Dawn soap to remove sticky oils.

How to stay warm in a tree stand 😄. Water temps drop below 50* , I never do well, never have for LM bass.