MFBAB

I saw this exchange in A-Jays thread, and it got me thinking: A-Jay Said: I cannot say for sure why I don't get nearly as many bites on a bright night as I do on a totally to near moonless night, but I do. My version of the reason is that many of the lakes here have very clear water, so with a big bright moon, the advantage of "Darkness" is all but gone for me. I can see shallow water cover quite easily, so I can assume the bass can see equally as well also. I'd love to be able to catch on the brighter nights as opposed to the pitch black ones, but my results make the choice easy for me. Moon = NO Bass. No Moon = Bass. So fishing on a full moon is certainly Night Bassing, but for me there's less catching. Bluebasser Said: I also prefer darker nights. Full moon nights are extremely difficult for me, but one thing I've noticed is I tend to get at least 1 big bite on bright nights. If I had the option, I'd mainly stick to around half moon to a new moon. Catt Said: Three days either side of the full moon, I tend to fish deeper offshore structure. Around the new moon, I'll tend to move shallow. then it's a coin flip! **Unless there's cloud cover, Bluebasser Said: Maybe that's my issue. I tend to stay shallow at night regardless of moon phase. I'll have to try backing off the bank next time and seeing if that helps. I have started sticking to lighter colors during a bright moon and noticed an increase in productivity when I did that, but still way down from darker nights. .....Anyway, it really hit home HARD for me. I immediately decided to go back and examine my fishing logs for the last year and see if this trend was real or just in my imagination. I have been night fishing a lot of ponds in my area from the bank for the last year, so I am basically always fishing shallow and my primary method is topwater, and mostly a *Buzzbait. This actually helps my data-set because I essentially have a control in place: Always Shallow / Always Topwater. Therefore, I am able to compare results based on moon brightness without skewing the data with a lot of different bait presentations. (*The topwater stuff just covers water and you don’t snag, which makes night bank fishing faster and easier, even if it isn’t always the best bait selection for the conditions) OK, so I started running down my list. I decided that “Bright” was from the 1st Quarter-Full-to Last Quarter and clear skies, And “Dark” was from the Last Quarter-New-First Quarter + Cloudy/Rainy Nights during the bright period. - I had 92 night trips over the last 14 months. A trip by definition for me is however long I fish at any one pond. In other words, in 1 night I might hit 3 different ponds, so they are all logged separately as 3 trips. For “Bright” nights, I had: - 13 Good Trips - 22 Bad Trips So 2-1 poor fishing. For “Dark” nights, I had: - 42 Good Trips - 15 Bad Trips So 3-1 Good Fishing. - I had 3 to 1 more good “Dark” nights than good “Bright” nights - I had 1.5 to 1 more bad “Bright” trips than bad “Dark” trips Then I isolated big fish stats (4-8 lbs. only): There were 25 data entries in this category. By straight Moon phase w no weather adjustment, I got: “Dark” = 17 over 4 “Bright” = 8 over 4 - So 2 to 1 better on dark nights, but then I factored in clouds/rain for some of the bright nights, and it’s actually: “Dark” or “Bright” + clouds/rain = 21 over 4 “Bright” and calm/clear skies = 4 over 4 - So 5-1 better odds of a big fish for me on dark nights, or “Bright” nights w some weather!! This is pretty staggering. I felt like I was catching better on the darker nights, but I never really took the time to break down the numbers until now. What did I learn? 1 – Obviously, the dark nights produce a lot better, for both numbers and size 2 – I've got to alter my presentations on clear nights, I need to start treating the Moon basically the same as the Sun. In other words, when the Moon is bright on a clear night, and is casting a shadow, just like the Sun…I need to finesse my presentations down and fish cover or fish deeper. No Buzzbait on Clear/Bright nights-too easy to silhouette/switch to a clear Spook, Clear Baby Torpedo, or more subtle topwater No Spinnerbait or Chatterbait on Clear/Bright nights/switch to Keel-Weighted Swimbait or T-Rigs on the bottom or in cover. I want to thank Catt, A-Jay and Bluebasser for bringing this to my attention. Catt has always said “I fish the same baits at night as I do in the day”…and I think I finally get it! He is treating the Moon just like the Sun, duh Thanks guys, I hope this helps someone else. I'd love to hear others comments and experiences on this topic.

Bummer....

Guys, waving a gun in someones face is aggravated assault, AKA a felony. I'm just saying. Elements of Aggravated Assault All states consider aggravated assault to be a felony offense, though some states consider it to be a “wobbler”—an offense that could be charged either as a misdemeanor or a felony depending on the circumstances. As its name implies, the charge of aggravated assault must be more than just scaring or threatening someone with physical harm. For example, spitting on someone is offensive contact, though it may not be physically harmful, as is pretending to punch someone. Both are examples of simple assault. For aggravated assault, the typical elements are: An intent to create an apprehension in another person; An act that would likely result in the application of force with a deadly weapon or with some other means of force likely to cause serious bodily injury; and The present ability to cause the application of force that would cause serious bodily injury.

Yes, those are 2 of the best crappie lakes you'll find. Butla is crazy high right now and it stays really muddy when it's high also, so that can be tough to figure out when you haven;lt fished there before. Sardis is pretty good for both bass and crappie, if you put in at Holiday Lodge or Wyatt's Crossing on the N side of the lake you should be running with either species right now, the shallow end of the lake is from Holiday on up towards Hwy 7-lots of standing timber up there too. If there's a south wind you may want to consider driving on down to the south side to launch, Hurricane Landing ramp. Sardis is a bear when it gets windy, there will be big rollers hitting the ramps on the N side with a S wind much over 10 mph. Having said all of that, from Collierville I'd drive to Pickwick every time rather than either Butla or Sardis if I were bass fishing.

You can launch at McKellar or Mud Island downtown on the MS river, McKellar is surprisingly good bass fishing at times. The closest lake you can run on would probably be Arkabutla down around Hernando and Sardis a little further down I-55. We used to have Lakeview down towards Walls, MS but it is private now. Pretty much all of the State Park or TWRA lakes are going to be no wake if not electric only in some cases for the state parks.

Sorry to hear some of you guys aren't catching much. I do think were in post spawn for the most part now, and from what I've seem they are eating, as should be expected. This is arguably the best time of the year to fish, things will change when the water gets boiling hot around mid-June, but it has been pretty good for me lately on a variety of baits. I'm not doing anything special, I do try to fish early and late when I can but you should be getting bites on T-Rigged plastics of your choice and if you've got low light or a breeze the moving baits are effective right now as well, and don't forget a fluke or something to imitate yoy baitfish-fry are everywhere right now and bass will feed "up" a lot this time of year to capitalize on that opportunity, if not straight-up topwater then something worked just below the surface can be effective. I would recommend trying as many different ponds as you can right now, some of them are giving up 10-15 bites an hour right now in the 1-2 lb range, some of the real dink-holes are giving up twice that but they'll almost all be tiny-you just have to fish around some of these places to find out what they hold. Grove isn't known as a "Numbers Lake", although I have averaged a few more bites than normal the times I've fished there in the last month-mainly because everything is shallow right now, and active. This was first thing this morning at Grove, I had a bite from one about twice this size that got off too....

I'd be more concerned about the city ordinance against fishing there than the area of the lake that the fish was caught, but that's just me

I agree, It's worth it just for the fishing reports. Herb Parsons should be fishing good right now, I'd expect to find fish shallow still. I'm sure the water is pretty dirty w all of the recent rains. If you get there early, run down the riprap w something like topwater or a squarebill/spinnerbait. Then maybe beat the banks and try to fish around bream beds where you can find them. Shade and any cover you can find are your friend after the sun comes up

I still recommend getting a subscription to MSHFN. There is a nice list of local lakes and reports there monthly.

Ranger - yeah, that's what I was told. The Arlington parks office told me that they had actually tried to acquire that Hwy 70/385 parcel/pond for a park but it didn't work out. It may be worth trying to contact the landowner for permission, it doesn't cost anything to ask. UFpwr - I don't know about the Youth Villages pond, but here is a map with the Daycare Pond circled. That's another one that I'm not sure about the ownership on, but I know a lot of guys fish it. The Daycare building would be to the left of the circled pond, not sure why it didn't show up in the Google map. I think there's a fire station right across the street also.

I was told by an Arlington city official that the pond at 385/70 is private property, this was about a year ago when I was thinking about fishing there myself. I haven't ever actually gone down there to look at it other than passing by while driving, but I called the Arlington parks dept. to ask about it and that is what I was told so I just forgot about it-it looks like a great spot though! I never looked into finding the owner or attempting to obtain permission after that, so I have no idea whether they care about people fishing there or not. Anywhere there's a highway project there are always a lot of those little borrow pits around, but they are almost always on private property so be careful.

Sounds great, glad you're having some success!! The local ponds are on fire right now, I've been trying to run as much new water as I can lately. I feel like the best time to find (and evaluate) new places is when you know they are biting good. Even w the heavy rains/dirty water the last few days, it seems like the fish are pretty much wanting to eat right now everywhere I've been. In March they were all cold and lethargic, but they are fighting hard and jumping a lot now. The landing percentage may go down a little but it's a lot more fun too

Nice job Gstewart!! I got lucky this morning early, caught 2 good ones on back-to-back casts, I mean the exact same cast too! That's about 12 lbs. of bass combined, 5.5 and 6.5 lbs These fish were both pretty skinny, I assume they just got through laying eggs.

Brushog, Not to oversimplify, but it just about all works this time of year, the fish will mostly be shallow with WT in the low 70's right now. I've caught fish w/in the last week on top/middle and bottom. I guess I'd say if it's windy and/or overcast, wind something...If it's calm or sunny, maybe slow down with plastics. I've caught a few fish recently that look spawned out or at least not heavy w eggs, so I'm thinking this current full moon cycle is probably winding down the majority of the spawners in the ponds. Welcome to the thread backlash!! You guys post up some pics when you get into 'em Here's one of those spawned out ones, this is from yesterday evening, I'm pretty sure I caught her about 3-4 weeks back a little heavier :

I listed a few places here:

Absolutely! Pickwick is 2 hours East. Some of the best crappie fishing in the country is right down I-55-Butla, Sardis, Enid, Grenada. Glenn Springs TWRA lake is N of Memphis in Drummonds, about an hour. Poplar Tree at Shelby Forest State Park, Herb Parsons TWRA lake about 30 minutes east. A good way to familiarize yourself with some of the local lakes would be to subscribe to the Mid South Hunting and Fishing News. They have monthly fishing reports for most of the area lakes so you would have a good starter list to work with. The reports in this magazine are not kept as current as they used to be, they tend to repeat a lot of them these days (by repeat, I mean they will republish the same reports for some lakes every year, they will be seasonally correct for the month published, it just might be from a couple of years back) but the information is still pretty useful if you are unfamiliar with the area. I highly recommend it as a starting point.

Go back a couple of pages, I think there's a marked Google map posted for it.

Is there a way to search the archives with the new system? Everything that comes up is current, even if I specify an earlier date parameter. Also, is there a way to search by posts (not threads or topic titles) with your keywords? Or posts by a specific member? I used to use those functions a lot with the old system, but it doesn't seem possible now. Any help appreciated. Those features were incredible! I always thought BassResource.com had the best search function of any forum prior to the update.

Shoulda saved it for today, April Fools Day :):) Shelby Farms is pretty cool. It's over 4000 acres and there are 15 fishable ponds there - shhhh, don't tell anybody!! It's like having a rich uncle with a private ranch, but he lets you fish all you want to, you can bring your friends, and it's 10 minutes from the house!! Sure, have to walk a little and there are plenty of snakes, but it's a wonderful and underused (for fishing at least) resource.

Yeah, those Peacocks you put in there will probably love it! The Smallies will probably just stay offshore and chase bait though Seriously, the park people usually kill any grass beds that pop up in their ponds. I think they are putting Koi in a lot of places now too, I assume to control grass. I've seen Koi in 3-4 different ponds this year that I never saw them in before-these were Bartlett and Germantown ponds. If you like fishing grass, check out Halle in Collierville, or Glenn Springs. There are also a few ponds at Shelby Farms that have grass mats in summer-and almost no one is fishing them. Keep your eyes open, there are a lot of grass options around.

I've mentioned record keeping before, I thought it might help some people to see how I keep my fishing log, what to keep track of, etc. These are screenshots from an Excel Spreadsheet. I have it color coded so I can spot things at a glance. It looks like a lot, but it only takes a few minutes to fill in the boxes and make a few comments after you fish, and the ability to look at all of your trips on one screen like this (as opposed to a notebook or something) is amazing, the trends just jump out at you-both the good and the bad stuff you're doing. I left off the pond names and one or two details, but y'all should get the idea Hope this helps! These pics would all be in a long row from left to right on my spreadsheet screen....not stacked like this. Oh, and don't judge me for all of those yellow "zeros", I've had some tough trips at some ponds, but like I said, if you look at the dates, a lot of those are clustered on one day with a good catch at one of the stops-I only average about 1 hour per place. I'm still fishing a lot of "new to me" water, and that comes with some shut-outs, especially in the early season.

Grove isn't a numbers pond, but you know the quality is there. I haven't fooled with it much lately because it was so muddy the last time I checked it, but the fish should have adjusted to it by now. They've still gotta eat and they will still spawn soon. If you put your time in over there for the next couple of months, it'll happen

Good Luck!! I Hope there is some good fishing where you're headed!! Someone posted that there was a fish kill there not long ago, I think he said he lived near that pond. Maybe they will chime in about the bass fishing there. I've been seeing those Koi all over the place in the ponds this spring, I think they must be stocking them to control grass.

The old "accidental deadstick" strikes again!! Congrats!!