TingTingEightSix

One sign of a good day of bass fishing: thumb all gritted up from the teeth. "Bass thumb" as it is often called. Wow lol. How on earth did it even get the hook in its mouth?

The Lil one I got on a red wiggler fishing for bait fish.

Some of my most recent catches. One with red fin I believe had recently been on a bed. Bass with the red fin was 21 inches long and the bottom Bass was 19 inches. It had on the other side of it very fresh and angry looking gashes as if it had got nicked by a trolling motor. But it was still out there doing typical Bass things and utterly destroyed a bluegill(legal bait in Alabama) so that one gets extra 'spect put on it from me. I did lose what probably would have been a 5lber when it got wrapped around a dock post, but I feel like these as a group made up for it. Also believe I caught my PB in terms of tiniest Bass as well. Gotta share the runts with the good'uns right? ?

That is awesome!!!! Now he will be literally hooked for life. My 2 nephews went together a couple years ago. Oldest nephew was having a lot of success catching bluegill, younger nephew was struggling mightily. At the end of the day oldest nephew caught 14 bluegill, youngest 0nly caught the one. Sadly since that day, the youngest nephew has lost interest in fishing, and has declined every time ive asked him to go ?. Can't make him go if he doesn't want to though. Unfortunately he is now addicted to phones and Xboxes....... Oh how things may have been different if he had caught at least a handful that day, or a 1 decent size bass....... but alas.

I just checked my scale with a 5 gallon bucket and I put 3 sodas in it. A 5 gallon bucket empty weighs 31ounces. Weighed it first and yup, that's about what rhe scale showed-31 ounces(1lb 15 oz) Then I added 3 unopened sodas in it and weighed them. 36 ounces plus the 31 from the bucket gave me 67 ounces. Divided that by 16 to get just over 4 lbs. And that's exactly what my scale read with those in there. Just over 4 lbs. So apparently I did indeed catch 2 very good fish today. Needless to say, I am stoked with the PB.

Good idea. I'll definitely have to try that!! Got a feeling I need to take a pound and a half or so off each of those fish today. But I still feel fairly confident the larger one was a 5. It was pretty darn heavy holding with one hand.

IF, a big IF my scale is anything close to correct, I caught my PB this morning within 15 minutes of arrival at the lake and concluded the day with another solid fish. Hold the excitement or legit PB?

2.9 lber caught today, at least according to the cheap Ozark trail manual scale I had on hand. May have overestimated the size a bit, but for my ego, I'll go with the 2.9 it gave me ?. CPR'd. Caught, Photographed, released quickly.

Awesome. Only takes one decent one like that to make the day worth it to me. Anything else, or anything bigger especially is icing on the cake.

Yeah not gonna lie, that does kinda take some of the excitement out of it. Just looking at it in person I thought it beat my previous PB, which woulda put it around 5 lbs. But it is a big improvement over my only other bass of the year pictured here, and I do feel confident I can call it in the high 4 range at least. This first little dink bass of the year went after a minnow half as long as it was ?

I know this isn't rhe best way to hold a bass, but there wasn't anyone else I could get to take the pic. I had a previous best of 5 lbs caught last year. I feel this is at least right at that, or my new PB. My buddy said he thought it is in the 4 lb range but I believe it was heavier than that. My one arm got quite tired trying to hold it up qnd still while I snapped photos on my phone. I left my scale in the truck and I didn't wanna walk up to get it, as that would have had the bass out of the water longer. I could kick myself for that d'oh. But I am 90% sure this beats my PB of 5 lbs. What do you think?

A healthy porkster, well done!

Try taking some Bread, peel the crust, roll the rest into a ball, dip it in vanilla extract. Carp seem to LOVE that. Its been a long time since l have been carp fishing, but I used that a lot and caught quite a few good size carp with it.

Eyeball test of sorts I suppose, wish I would have had a tape measure on hand for a definite measurement. Maybe this will give an idea of how close it csme to 15"

Good takes. Yeah let those over 4lbs go every time so they can continue to breed more of these beautiful fish and therefore keep the waters from being "fished out". Someone had a fish fry and I was invited, a 5 lb bass was among those in the fry, I had a slab of it and my dad had the other slab. I told him it was a bit tough and didn't have quite the taste smaller ones do and he agreed with me, he thought his wasnt good and tender either. Of course there may have been other factors in play, but 5 lbs just seems a bit tough and bland to eat.

Wish there was a way I could take a picture of a tape measure pulled to 15", superimpose the bass into that pic as evenly as possible with the tape measure. Classic OCD symptom, but dang it, id habe loved to known whether or not that was a keeper by alabama game and wildlife standards (15" minimum for largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass).

Skinny? Looks pretty chubby to me. Nice one!!

Nah not this last time, that trip was kind of an impromptu trip so I grabbed my rods and tackle box rsther quickly and left without even thi king to bring a tape measure.

Very nice catch. Especially as your first bank bass. Did you measure and weigh it? Also look at fhat pretty , dark green color, beautiful fish.

9/10 times I catch and release, but there ia tjat time along the line I fish for keeps qnd eats.Bass I like in the 1.5-4lb range to eat. Biggest than that seems a little tough to me.

Thanks guys!!! I think out of tbose options the soft baits would be the best for me to start with. I think I could probably learn spinnerbaits fairly decently too. Crankbaits and jigs would probably be a big challenge for me.

I do not have access to a boat, so my options are significantly limited than if I did have boat access. Ive always been primarily a brim hook qnd live bait (Canadian night crawlers 90% of the time, live minnows the other 10%), basically content to catch a few decent bluegill, but hopeful to run into a bass or two in the process, much like I just recently did. I want to become a little more specific for largemouth/smallmouth/spotted bass. I want to learn different lure set ups for bass fishing off the bank. What would be a good lure for me to get started with, keep in mind tjat I am limited to the bank? It's been said fishing with live bait is great, but one needs to become adept at artificial baits to have more success(bass in particular) and to be a better angler overall. We have a public lake that has produced aome small nass for me on le bait, a couple 12 inches here ans there on buzzbaits, and numerous brim and shellcracker. Unfortunately, this place is being shut down for renovation and wont reopen till 26016, and thats a shame aince it is only 3 miles from me. That leaves me with fishing the riverbank of the Tennessee river, and a couple places in a creek that runs within 10 miles of me. In one place that creek is located near a reservoir woth a axillary that helps supply water to the creek, and it has a bit of a current towards the first spot, and slower, calmer water down the line a few yards. The other location is under and around a bridge, can see a log sticking up on the left side of the bridge and the water gets deeper the closer to the Bridget it gets and stays that way for a few yards. The water in the creek ia typically greenish to slightly murky. In regards to the r iverbanks I fish? Water clarity can be more variable, depending on rain or lack of rain. Normally its semi clear, but not just crystal clear. I always look for brush, fell tree, rocks, and other structures in the water bass may be attracted too. Many of the r iverbanks have a good amount of shade to them, and water depth runs from about 1 foot deep near the bank, to perhaps 10-12 foot deep where my line is cast as far as I can cast it. People claim watermelon seed swimsuits and worms are some of the most productive baits to use for bass from rhe bank. And by swimsuit, I meant swimbait, dagger auto correct!!!. I certainly sont expect to have immediate success, bit I hope I can become adept enough to catch some good bass on a pretty decent regularity. Spinning reels are my reels of choice, and my S himano RX2000 paired with a medium action Shakespeare ugly stick have caught its share of bluegill, crappie, catfish, and a few small bass. I hate this is a long post, but I like it here and you guys seem like pretty good folk and are happy to help fellow anglers out.

Here was the last bass I caught prior to the one in question in this topic. I think I did better this last time around. Lol

Here is one my dad caught on a minnow. No doubt his is 15 inches or a little more.

There are length to lb charts available online if you Google them. They might not be completely, down ro the ounce accurate, but I believe they are pretty reliable. 21 inches on a healthy bass is no doubt a 4 pounder at least, and depending on other factors, could push 5. A 4 lb bass is a very nice catch and I can only hope to ever catch one that big.