jbmaine

Noticed the same thing. Water temps are a little higher than normal, and I'm seeing weeds in places I don't normally see them at.

I always assume other fisherman are ( like us ) out to have fun and catch some fish. When they are close enough I'll engage them in conversation. Most fisherman are friendly and we'll talk about what a nice day it is, fishing conditions, etc. and I'll let them know I'll go out around them. On the rare occasion they are less than friendly I'll stay put and let them make the first move. I always try to treat people like I would want to be treated. I've never looked at fishing as " us against them " but as just, we are one of many who enjoy this wonderful thing called fishing.

Haggard lives close to me and I am blessed to call him a friend. Thank god he and the other driver are OK. He spent a lot of time and sweat turning his tracker into a good fishing machine. Hope the insurance will make good. As he said that stretch of road has been very dangerous lately. Really makes you not take anything for granted.

Welcome to the forum, It would help to know what type of gear, baits you are using, do you fish out of a boat, from shore? Generally speaking, with the structure you describe, I would try shorter casts so I was pulling the bait up from the structure and not horizontally thru it. Less chance to get hung up. Also I would use weedless baits, like a T-rigged plastic.

Use star-tron in everything, boat gas, mower gas etc. never had a problem.

I must admit that the bat, duck, rat, etc. looking top water baits have , to me, seemed a bit much but now, maybe not. We were out fishing an area between an island and the main shore, maybe 30 ft. between the two. My wife says " what's that in the water? " I caught a glimpse of something as it ran onto the island. A while later she says " there it is again." We moved closer and saw it was a red squirrel. The darn thing was swimming back and forth between the island and the main land. Nothing got it, but it sure looked like it would have made a good meal for a LM. First time I've ever seen a squirrel swim.

They seem to fight above their weight class when hooked at depth. And when they barrel out of the water and tail dance it's so cool.

Guess I've always been backwards. Spinning is all I use. Never had a problem catching fish.

braved the summer heat to try for deep water SM. Ned rig in 25ft of water did OK. Nothing big but a lot of fun. Here's one of them

Thanks again for the replies and info. It sounds like generally speaking, if there is a large cove full of lily pads in 2-4 ft. of water next to a deeper weedy channel. On a sunny summer day I would be better off fishing the deeper channel. And early morning, late evening, or overcast days lily pads would be a good bet.

In Maine you can not operate a water craft greater than head way speed within 200 ft. of any shore and must operate in a manor to cause reasonable minimum impact on other vessels.( or words to that effect ) In other words he was way to close to shore and too close to me to be going more than headway speed.

Thanks for the replies, I see videos of people busy all day catching bass in lily pads, but have not had much luck up here doing so. It got me to wondering, was there a difference in the depth of water pads grow in to explain why bass were, or were not in them.

Lily pads and LM go together like bread and butter. I've seen countless articles and videos about fishing lily pads, but there is one thing I'm not sure of. Around here ( Southern Maine ) all the lily pads I've seen were in about 3-4 ft. of water. Is that normal everywhere? In other words when I see a video of say frog fishing down south, are the pads, and LM in this same depth as up here? I guess when I see videos like this from other parts of the country, I'd like to know how closely can I relate this to conditions here. Thanks Jim

My wife is my fishing partner and better half, but she has hand, arm strength issues and can only fish for short periods of time, and only with a lite rod and Zebco spin cast reel. However this doesn't keep her from showing me up on a regular basis. Yesterday was a perfect example. We were fishing for bass in shallow weedy water. The bass weren't cooperating but we caught the occasional pickerel. I was doing OK with pickerel when I heard her say " Fish on ". As our usual practice she handed the rod to me to get it in. ( she doesn't have the strength to do it ). Got the fish in and darned if it wasn't the biggest, thickest, pickerel we've seen in years. 3.2 lb. 26+ inches of muscle and slime. No one will ever convince me a Zebco can't do the job. Here's a couple of pic's. the first one is the average I was getting, the second, I'm holding, but it's her fish.

Ya, it was pretty cool to see that happen. The inlet itself is only about 25 ft. wide then opens up to a big basin . When I saw the jet ski coming out I went to idle outside of the entrance to wait for him to pass me. Marine patrol boat was about 100 yds. behind me. Must have been inline with me so the jet ski didn't see it. Soon as the jet ski took off and passed me he got nailed. ( Marine patrol had to chase him half way around the lake before he could catch him) I believe in public water being open to the public, but this is an 1800 acre lake. He had plenty of time and space to get away from shore and me before opening up and having his fun.

Was out fishing today, Started to go into a narrow inlet and saw a jet ski coming out. Waited for the jet ski to exit the inlet. Right at the entrance, 20 ft from shore, 50 ft from me, the jet ski goes WOT and races past me. Hear a siren behind me. Marine patrol pulls him over. I love it when people like that get caught. Also, noticed he didn't have a PFD on.

He catches fish with this gear because no one ever told him he wasn't supposed to be able to.

I'm a believer in the coffee scent on Strike King baits.

Here in Maine we have our own invasive species. They are called tourists?

This is my experience with bass. Some times color, size, shape, presentation, etc. matter, and sometimes not so much. If I could figure out all the particulars to be 100% successful all the time, I'd write a book. What I do is to try what has, or should work. If no joy I'll start throwing the odd colors and baits. For example, I have no Idea what a bubble gum colored Senko is supposed to represent, but it's kept me from getting skunked more than once.

Sorry, I should have updated this post. To date I have tried two covers from two different companies, neither came close to fitting. I sent them both back and just cover my boat with a tarp when it's in the yard.

Our log has date, time, weather, water temp, air temp, body of water, were and what we caught, and on what. After a period of time it's nice to use this to pin down seasonal patterns.

A few years ago there was a fatality on one of the lakes I fish. Kids were running around at night ( probably done it a hundred times ) and ran their boat onto a point into an oak tree. The tree won.

Nothing to be embarrassed about. At least you know the fish are there, that's half the battle. If your worried about snapping your rod, maybe try a cheap rod at first or something that's almost impossible to snap, an ugly stick comes to mind.

Put your most expensive lure on and cast as hard as you can. Watch your lure and front half of your rod go sailing off into the sun set. Seriously, I would try penetrating oil, then ice, then heat only on the O.D. side.