CybrSlydr

I understand that it's in the dog days of summer and the fishing typically drops off when the temps get high. However, the number of trips I've taken and the amount of time and various lures I've attempted seems vastly disproportionate to the number of fish I've caught, regardless of the temps. So I'm wondering - is my problem that the fish are just in a place I can't reach because I'm stuck on the shore? I've posted pics of the lakes we've visited in my Fishing Report threads so you folks know what we're fishing - by all accounts they're great places. I'm looking for some advice to try and up the number of fish caught per trip to something above 2 for 5.

I'd love to hear from those of you that fish around the Marietta/Zanesville/Athens area and where you like to fish for Bass. Obviously, I'm familiar with the AEP ReCreation Lands already - and for the time, we will be bank fishing only - so where do you like to bank fish? Thanks!

Depending on how much you feel like walking to different ponds/lakes, there are over 350 I believe in all. We're just hitting up the ones near roads because... we're still new and getting lost would be a bad day. https://www.aep.com/environment/conservation/recland/maps.aspx

Well, today was an interesting day - and not for the right reasons! Got up at 6 and my brother and I were on the road by 7 to hit up a few lakes/ponds we'd not checked out yet. We got out to our first waterbody around 7:30. Look over in a tree and see three bright orange lures hanging from it about 35yards from shore - I know I'd be peeved if those were mine! lol Didn't get anything at that lake. We also hear some thunder off in the near distance and decide to check out the next place. By the time we get there, it's started to sprinkle a bit. My brother puts his poncho on and heads over and starts using a shallow crawfish crank. I think I bought one too light for our rod as we can't cast it as far as the other lures. We see occasional surface strikes, but again - no bites. By now it's about 9:45. A storm is definitely on the way as we can see the front moving in, so we decide to head into town about 10mi away to a bait store and see what the local guy suggests while this storm works its way through. Guy at the counter is quite knowledgeable and suggests some Zoom Swimmin Super Fluke Smokin Shad with a #3/0 weedless rig. Since I haven't a clue how to do this, he kindly demonstrates and does the first one for me. I also picked up some Venom 4" worms and a Rapala X-Rap Pop topwater lure. By now, the storm has passed and it's about 10:45 so we head back out to the lakes. We returned to Bicentennial as there are a couple lakes around there. We tried the swimbaits and cranks with no bites. So we moved on to another lake and tried the shallow crank with, again, no bites. Finally, we headed over to another lake we previously visited and tried the topwater, a deep crank and the swims - all with no success. Got home around 3:30pm with, again, nothing to show for our efforts. Pics Album Link - https://www.flickr.com/photos/cybrslydr/albums/72157671571280382

Brother and I are going to hit up a few more lakes on Monday and all of them have been clear water. What kind of lures do you suggest (color wise)? It's going to be cloudy and in the mid 70s and getting warmer as the day progresses. Do I want to use bright or dull lures? I also believe I've read that for spinners, silver spinners on bright days/clear water and gold for cloudy days/stained water, correct?

Honestly, looking at the watercraft available, like the Sea Eagle and others, I'm frankly flabbergasted by the prices. $900 for the Sea Eagle??? Good Lord. Then put the battery, TM, depth finder, etc on top of that and you're waaay over $1000.

I'd love to do something similar to this - but I don't have a truck or a car that can tow anything (at least I know the transmission in my car isn't the kind to take that kind of abuse and the car doesn't have a hitch). My brother and I are looking into something that we can use to get on the water as we're not having a lot of luck bank fishing (but that might be because it's so hot out). I'm mostly weary of something inflatable because... Well... We've got sharp pieces of metal around something that only floats if it still has air in it. lol Inflatable kayaks, those float tubes, etc.

Might they be from parasites like leeches or something? Raised, circular sores sounds like a parasitic sucker.

So jelly... He hits tons of bass and such while my brother and I have spent days there and a sum total of two fish. lol

I have local access to the Muskingum river as well as the AEP ReCreation Lands ponds/lakes. Possibly sometime this month and definitely next month I'll be hitting up the Alum Creek Reservoir near Columbus. I figure lakes/ponds will be the majority of my fishing. Shore-based. (I was stationed at Fort Polk, I know exactly where Lake Charles is - I believe I bought a Sirius XM radio at the Best Buy there lol)

I'm currently using this rod, the 6.5' Medium - http://www.***.com/No8_Tackle_Co_BlackOut_Spinning_Rods/descpage-NES.html I'm using this reel the 4000 size - http://www.pennfishing.com/penn-reels-spinning-reels-penn-battle/penn-battle-ii-spinning/1347894.html Here are the lures I currently have (I bought them at the local outdoors shop with little to no idea what I was buying) 2-3ft - http://www.bomberlures.com/product/long-a/ 4-8ft - http://www.bomberlures.com/product/flat-a/ 8-10ft - http://www.bomberlures.com/product/fat-free-shad/ Crawfish - http://www.rebellures.com/rebel-teen...h-fishing-lure I also picked up these from WalMart recently: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Booyah-Pond-Magic-Okie-Craw-3-16-Ounce/38430404 I don't have that specific one, I have a black with gold willow/colorado blades and a white with silver willow/colorado blades. I'm mostly interested in lures as bait fishing doesn't really appeal to me. While I understand it's a tried and true method, I just cannot muster the desire to sit in a chair while waiting for a bobber to move - especially with the lack of luck we've had with lures. I'm figuring it's just too dang hot right now and the fish are too far away for us to reach from shore. I like to be more actively engaged in the process, so spinners, jigs, lures, etc. So far, I've caught a catfish with the Flat A (must have been on a slope or the pond was really shallow) and that small bass with the Long A. Appreciate the input folks.

Brother and I hit up three different lakes today. Arrived at the first lake around 10:45am. We didn't stick around long because, A. it was really, really hot and B. there was a shelf out to about 30ft before a drop-off. Unfortunately, the shelf is covered in grass so when we tried a deeper running lure, we would just get it caught up in the grass after about 5 revolutions of the reel. The next lake we visited looked promising. We saw submerged trees and other various bits that I've read bass love to congregate around so we tried our lures around those and met with no success. If you look on the right side of the picture, you see the green railing? That's where we were before we moved to where I took the picture. Tried all the lures and a spinner over here as well with no luck again. Thought I lost my spinner here - I cast it and let it sink to the bottom and it snagged good on something on retrieve. So, I cut the line and tied on another. My brother goes over and gets tangled up in the line I cut and ta-da! The lure is free and he reels it in by hand. lol So I dodged a bullet there! This is the final lake we fished, called Bicentennial. It's another long and narrow one. Being unfamiliar with the campsite layout, we ended up near the back-end of the lake and decided to fish there. Couple of cleared spots on the shore with little to no tree overhang that we decided to utilize. On my second cast of my shallow lure I managed to hook my first bass! I've got a Medium 6.5' rod with 12lb test line, so it wasn't a very... difficult landing. Pretty much just muscled it in because... I'm still new at this and finesse isn't something I have yet. lol It wasn't until I looked at this picture when I uploaded it that I told my brother - "It looks like I'm trying to attack the fish with the pliers" LOL All told, I was pretty happy with the catch! So I handed the rod off to my brother who proceeded to try that same lure and a spinner for the next 45 minutes and not get a single nibble. LOL He was most unhappy - I can't really blame him because I would be too. I catch one on my second cast and he can't get anything in 45 minutes? Let alone the previous hours we've spent fishing. I figure Bicentennial will be great for bass later on when it cools down as you can see it's quite shallow with a lot of grass and cover - though it'd be easier with a boat so we could fish those reeds and the like. Here's the link to the full album - I cherry-picked the pics for this thread. https://www.flickr.com/photos/cybrslydr/albums/72157672270730116

Brother and I went fishing again today - this time we went to Sand Hollow Campsite in the AEP ReCreation Lands. It's a long and narrow lake with extremely clear water. The site we picked had a little trail down the embankment to a spot on the shore just big enough for both of our chairs - but it made casting a bit of a pain. Second cast of the day, FWING!!! I hear that sound as I watch my lure fly off about 65ft away. ****. But, lucky me - couple of ladies in kayaks came paddling by shortly after. One of 'em grabbed my lure for me. When she got closer, she remarked there's supposed to be a fish on the end of it. I told her there's supposed to be a knot on the other. lol So, thanks to them I still haven't lost a lure! That said, we couldn't get anything to bite today. We got there just before noon and left a little after 4. None of the cranks were working at any depth and I couldn't get any hits on the spinner either. We saw a bunch of smaller fish who were very interested in our lures. They'd be about 20ft out and follow it in, eventually we had a group of about 10 of them just kinda suspended. I think they were trying to school with the lures - but their bigger counterparts weren't interested at all. Best we got was my brother got a bite on the shallow crank. In the excitement and shouting at me, "I GOT ONE!" he forgot to set the hook and when it jumped, it threw the hook. I laughed and he was ticked. That was the sum total of the action we got in the 4 hours we were there. Here's an album of pics we took of our spot and the ******* fish. lol https://www.flickr.com/photos/cybrsl...57671410101851

Hooray! Brother and I went out to the AEP ReCreation Lands today and hit up Hook Lake around 8:15am. Didn't initially have much luck but later on with the Bomber Flat A I managed to hook myself one of these! Flopped around quite a bit and then less and less. lol Bit of a pain in the ass getting the hook out of it's mouth. Good news is I didn't take too long and when I nudged it back into the water, it swam off. So HOORAY! I'd wager it was about... 4-5lbs. Last night at Walmart I picked up some new wire - 15lb SpiderWire braid. It cast quite a bit farther than the 12lb mono Trilene. I'd say I had a few casts of the lures over 100ft and my brother right around that as well. (I know a time-honored tradition is to fib a bit about the size of your catch - my guess is the fish was no more than a pound or two, not 4-5lb. ) Here's the link to the album of all the pics we took - including the Miners Memorial which has my father's name on it! Larry Sampson - he mined coal out there for quite a few years. https://www.flickr.com/photos/cybrsl...h/28237287533/

Welp, my brother and I survived! Didn't catch anything though. lol My buddy's brother went in for surgery for testicular cancer yesterday, so he had to cancel on us today. So my brother and I went down to the lock in town and fished around there. He caught 2 twigs and a lot of tree, I only caught tree. Closest we came was I was reeling in on my 7th or 8th cast and just as the lure came out of the water, a fish darted out at it and missed. That was it. lol We fished from about 9am until a little after 12:00. All-in-all, it was enjoyable, even if we didn't catch anything. My brother's first stick Where we fished

I'm too new to this sport to say I'm addicted or have a passion for it. Mostly I started because I was curious. I'd never done it until recently and I figured if anytime was the right time, now is better than later. So, I talked with some buddies, bought some gear and went out to do it. As a fan of being outdoors, I do readily enjoy that part. Being out in the middle of nowhere, hearing the critters chirp and buzz, occasional car drive by... It's nice. I'm also going because I'm trying to figure out how to catch more and hone my techniques.

Whoops! Appears in the excitement I forgot to paste the link. lol https://www.flickr.com/photos/cybrslydr/albums I'll go edit the post.

Hello everyone, I'm Jordan. I'm brand-new to fishing, even though I'm from rural Ohio and am 32 years old. lol I've recently purchased my rod, reel and some tackle and have been out fishing four times thus far with my younger brother. We're sharing equipment until the first of September. I'm currently rocking a 6.5' Blackout Medium rod and a Penn Battle II 4000 reel strung with some 12lb Trilene XT. We've hit up the Muskingum river here in town as well as hit up some of the ponds/lakes up in the AEP ReCreation Lands near McConnelsville. So far, I've managed to catch one catfish (with a 4-8ft crank - go figure) and one small bass (just caught that today). Mostly I joined up here because I'm looking to learn about fishing and hone my skills as well as share my experiences. Here's a link to my Flickr albums - I have an album for each time we've gone fishing. https://www.flickr.com/photos/cybrslydr/albums Here's the first-ever bass I caught today - I hope you enjoy my pictures and I hope to learn a lot from you folks!