RiggityBop

I've been getting it going at sunset, working bullrushes that are adjacent to drop offs. black and white belly pad crashers.

Heya Guys, It's been a while... I hope everyone is doing well and have had a great start to the season. I've recently been doing a bit of fly tying, and got into making some marabou jigs. Wowee, don't sleep on these bad boys! I love me some paddletails, but the SMB just went nuts when i switched up to black marabou jigs. they almost look like a leech in the water... find the right weight for the water you're fishing and give 'er a go. I fished the marabou jigs up in the boundary waters last week and popped walleye's, pike, and SMB all day. On Wednesday I decided i'd head over to the 'ol mississippi to try out the marabou jigs and proceeded to slam 2-3 lbs SMB until I lost my last jig. What's everyone rigging up for this weekend? Looking like it's going to be a nice long weekend of chasing LMB for me... Have a great memorial day holiday everyone! tight lines. RB

Yup, "big thud and then everything is just gone." is exactly right. had 2 of those this weekend. lost two chatterbaits this way, and pike destroyed the rest of my spinnerbaits too... where did my blades go?! frustrating, especially since the bait shop on the lake didn't have anymore spinners/chatters either. It was quite a weekend battling the wind, but i grinded out 3 days of bass fishing for a friendly online bass tourney with some buds across the US. it was a judged on the 5 longest bass, which was quite a fun way to compete with others from various states across the US. I worked a ton of water, but what produced the most for me was working the pencil reeds (not sure of the actual plant name) with spinners, and chatterbaits. Topwater wasn't really producing bass for me, but i did have some crazy pike blowups on frogs, couldn't get buzzbaits/ploppers going either. The bass I caught were in the 18's, 17's, and a bunch of 15.5's/14's/13's. Unfortunately, i lost a couple really nice ones which would have put me on top of the competition... Every once in a while you'll get one that is quick to bury themselves in the weeds, and it didn't matter that i had 60lbs braid and muscled it out, it was gone. oh well. fun nonetheless. Now I'm on to hunting season, and a couple musky outings. Speaking of, here's a couple ski's from two weekends ago. Caught them on some RiggityBop homemade bucktails, which has been a goal for a while

had a pretty fun weekend out in Wisconsin at a buddies cabin.... Rode ATV's, and did a little river fishing with the boys for whatever would bite in the Cornell flowage, chippewa river. fishing was pretty good, and even had the pleasure of watching my friend fillet his first fish : ) hard to put down the frog and the 360gt swimbaits... but once i switched over to floating a leech, man was the SMB bite good... throwing my rig on the inside seam of the main river current produced ~10 TANKS, most of them sized around 17-20 inches. It was a ton of fun on the new 6'6" light spinning rig w/ 4# mono that i picked up for panfishing... felt like i was reeling in 40 inch pikes. Back to the LMB grind next weekend, here's to hoping for nice weather in the TC metro area.

My fingers have finally thawed enough to type this up.... Hope everyone had a good opener. Also, it's nice to be back on the forum, it's been a while... :) I got a late start to the bass hunting on Saturday, had to appease dad with trolling crankbaits for walleyes in the morning.. Finally got out in the afternoon for a couple hours and had some luck finding some decent L.M.B. I was in the saint cloud area, and the water is still a little cold, mid-high 50's, but i found some shallow warmer water and popped a few on 4" swimbaits (keitech, green color,), water melon 5inch senkos (t-rig w/less) and a few on my favorite lure... The frog! I've been waiting a long time to throw that frog... swimbaits seemed to get the numbers though. Sunday i took a stroll down to the Mississippi and fished for about an hour around dusk and popped two really nice smallmouth. One on texas rig w/ bullet sinker, and one on a 4inch swimbait, again in green. Promptly lost both rigs to snags.. such is life.

My parents have a cabin on clearwater, so i'll be going up there tonight and fishing all weekend. : )

Ayyy, if you see a red lund on clearwater lake with me on it this weekend, i got a beer with your name on it! maybe even some special gummy bears ; ) was still getting some nice frog action last weekend. haven't perfected catching them deeper yet, so can't be helpful there... pic below was last saturday late night on clearwater, 5fow middle of the lake on hook/worm/glow in the dark bobber. Also to your never catching a smallie comment... i've been doing pretty well with smallmouth just beating the banks of the misssissippi after work. If you're interested i got a couple spots that hold smallies for sure. I have been taking two rods down, one topwater rig, and one spinning rod with plastics. Topwater marks em, and if you can't get em to bite on top, ned rig/ neko rig/ tubes / senkos will for surely get 'em. cheers

Wow, picked up the heavy rod and threw frogs all weekend... It had to be one of the most fun fishing experiences to-date. I worked the weeds/bulrushes with a white frog and boom, boom, boom. lots of action. So, I know what i'll be doing next weekend! Still trying to figure out how to get more bites midday in deeper water... Only landed one on a white chatterbait. tried shad raps, and a couple different worm presentations as well. ? i guess i'll keep reading and experimenting. Riggity

Thanks punch, I'll give it a shot! Much appreciated my man. Thanks Kicker, i'm still trying to figure everything out.. it's been a lot of fun. And wow... that sounds like a helluva day catching smallies! Nice Pics! oh man that is so tempting. I'm rocking a 6'6 medium action spinning rod, and a 7 foot medium action baitcasting rod. what would you guys recommend for picking up a 3rd rod to help round out my collection??

Got out to the Mississippi river in the downtown area for about an hour last night, and I hooked into 6 nice little smallies. maybe only about a pound or so, but lots of fun. I was throwing a Ned rig parallel to the bank and working it at all different speeds... but they all hit on very aggressive retrieves. First time using a Ned Rig, so that was really cool. Anyone been on Clearwater Lake in Annandale lately? any pointers?

What's up everybody! Newbie here with my first contribution to the board! this place has been a great resource to me so far, so i'd like to pitch in what little info I have. precursor- I grew up with a dad who was into fishing walleyes/crappies/panfish but never bass, so all this is new territory to me and i've been having a lot of fun trying new tackle and techniques. Getting my hands on my first baitcaster this year has been very exciting! so on to the report... I don't have a boat, and i live in NE Minneapolis, so i've been hitting the Mississippi after work trying to get in some late night action... usually ~7-10pm . Lately I've been by the Lowry Bridge area, and have had some success with smallies, catfish, walleyes, etc. If you have recommendations for bank fishing around this area I'm all ears! my smallie catches have been: - Mississippi river - july 24 - first smallmouth on my new bait caster, using 5 inch senko t-rigged https://youtu.be/mr0vzB8edhI - Mississippi river - Early August up to present - 2 little smallies on rebel pop-r perch color, really close to the bank - 1 little smallie on Rapala original floating minnow - black/white , also really close to the bank - lost count how many, but most catches have been on a bobber/split shot/small hook drifting a nightcrawler or leech. this seems to produce the most for me at this location, but maybe it's because my other techniques need polishing. This tech. also produced walleye/catfish here. I'm going to pick up some more shallow-diving crankbaits to see if that produces some larger smallmouth... - St. Louis River in Jay cooke State Park - 8/12/18 -hiked and threw a bunch of tackle but went back to what i know works well here... throwing a small jig head with a 3 inch chartruesse mister twister tail slow retrieve, produced a couple smallies and a nice northern. Going to get out on Clearwater lake in Annandale this weekend and will have access to a boat, so i am super stoked to chase bass all weekend and try all these new lures i've bought this last month. gonna hit it hard in the morning, take a lunch break then all evening. Not sure exactly what my plan of attack is going to be yet, but couldn't be more stoked. Thanks to all you regular posters here for the insight you've shared. Regards, Riggity