gjfisher

Fished for three hours this afternoon from my kayak. Only got three bites, all on soft jerkbait. My last fish was a 6.0lb largemouth, on a superfluke in smoking shad color. My biggest fish this season by far. I landed it with my spinning setup on 8lb test line. Swimbaits, hard jerkbait and cranks got no bites.

It seems that the typical fall bite in shallow water is still off. I am having a lot better luck in deeper water still. Yesterday I fished topwater, jerkbaits and shallow/mid cranks and had a couple bites each but fish were not dialed in on any. The day before I landed ~10 in about 20-25 FOW on my trusted dropshot and all but one were over 2.5lbs.

Definitely tougher for me as well on those dog days of summer! Three patterns still work for me most of the time: 1. topwater, usually popper or plopper in early morning; 2. chatterbait at transition points from weed to gravel/sand when there's a little chop; 3. finesse, usually 4 or 7 inch worm in june bug color. I always bring my spinning rod these days if I want to catch some fish.

I started with a 60 lb 13 ft paddle kayak then three years ago I bought an Oldtown Topwater PDL 10.6 and I love it. The PDL definitely fishes better on larger bodies of water and in wind (up to 15 mph). I really like the ability to make tight turns and the instant reverse on the PDL, which makes fishing tight spots super easy. It weighs 80lbs (with the drive taken out) so I just haul it in the bed of my truck. I bought mine used from a local dealer for 1/3 off and then wired it myself. So if you want to save some money, check with local shops to see if they have any used ones in inventory.

Congrats! It is so awesome to break your PB twice this year! It took me four plus years to get a new PB last year.

I did not have a ruler or measuring board so measured with my hand. It's about 26 inches and has impressive girth. For a while, as my line was peeling off the reel and the drag was screaming but I couldn't see the fish, I for sure thought I had a big bass on. Fun fight though, so no complaints.

New PB today! For pickerel, that is. It took an epic battle to reel in the 5.13lb slob on my medium light spinning setup. It was a miracle that the fish did not bite or break off the 6lb fluoro leader. Unfortunately the size of my bass catches this year has been below expectations. I have done well with numbers this year, catching many more 1-3lb bass than I did last year with similar number of trips, but I have yet to crack 4lb. Plenty of time left still in the season but I am gonna start throwing more big fish baits like jigs, magnum worms and larger swimbaits from now on.

I had no idea how the bass would behave after the rain but still went out in the drizzle this morning. I am glad that I did because when I go fishing, rarely I find empty parking lot, overcast sky and feeding fish all at the same time, like I did today. Within an hour, I caught a limit of cookie cutter 15-17 inch bass on chatter bait and spinner bait. I switched up to texas rig, ned and drop shot and got another dozen bass in the next three hours. I found most of these post spawners at the edge of the weed line in 10-15 feet of water. Also something unreal happened during fishing. When I was fishing a finesse worm, a bass broke me off. He swam off with the worm, the hook and the weight. I retied and kept fishing the same finesse worm rig. About 10 casts in (which was about 10 minutes after that bass broke off), I caught the same bass on the same finesse worm setup. He still had my weight hanging out his mouth but had swallowed the worm completely. Fortunately I could still see the hook stuck out his gut. After a little surgery, I was able to remove both the hook and the worm from his gut. He swam off fine and I got my hook, worm and weight back.

Yup. I miss like every two out of three frog bites on hooksets but I keep fishing them. I fish poppers and WP around wood and in open water but many of the places I fish are covered with so much lily pads and weeds in the summer, frogs are the only choice for topwater.

Had I not sucked so much at hooksets, this would've been a 30-40 fish day. At least a dozen fish unhooked themselves in mid air. Being in a kayak and also trying a new hook could have something to do with that. Still, I landed 20 fish, by far my best outing of the year. Nothing huge, the biggest was a 3.2lber. I fished topwater, jigs, drop shot and ned but most of the fish came on the drop shot. Where I fished in southern MA today, water temp was 63-68. Half of the fish I caught had bloody tails. I think we are between late stage of the spawn and post spawn.

I am not that experienced in jigs but they do work well around here. It took me a long time to get used to "feeling the jig bites" but once I got it I like fishing jigs a lot. Also mixing up the retrieve may help. I usually do the slow crawl on the bottom or the "two hop" retrieve.

Try Dudley Pond in Wayland. Easier place to fish than Lake Cochituate.

Whacked about 8 of them Sunday on finesse jigs and ned rig. The weather was calm with only a slight breeze so moving baits weren't doing much for me. I switched to bouncing jigs/neds near 10-15 feet drop-offs and emerging weedlines and that seemed to do the trick. Nothing big but all were healthy 2-3lb fish.

Nice! The Nip has nice fish but it can be tough in the summer. I went out for the first time this year last Friday on the Charles in Waltham. Got two bass on a swimbait and one yellow perch on a jerkbait. It felt good to set hook on some fish first time in about four months! Got out again in the cold on Saturday morning at a small local pond but got skunked!

$100 is too much on Megabass for me as well LOL. I picked up two vision 110's and a surf rod, which took the damage over $200 for 25% off.