T-Billy

And an air pump to inflate the bass before taking pics. ? Good goobly goop.... what a spectacular specimen of a smalljaws that is. I don't often envy others, but brother you and @Dwight Hottle turn me a light shade of green every now and then. Y'all are big brown bass hammers.

Uh Huh... You'd get him back to that good ol bog water... Right after you picked him up by the bottom lip and took a bunch of pictures of him hanging there naked, and then make him pose on a bump board for ya!!! THEN you'd put him back and rush home to post those pics on the interweb for all to see. Poor ol @AlabamaSpothunter bass. ?

Outstanding Katie!!! Congratulations!!!

Seems touching the power button to bring up the brightness in the menu is pretty common accross the brands. My garmins work the same way. 30% works well for me at night.

Since they don't have deep water to retreat to in those bogs, I'd be fishing slow in the thickest stuff I could find. T-rigs and/or jigs.

Yep. Especially spring and fall, and especially if we get some wind from the same direction for a couple days or more. It can really stack the fish up on shallow structure.

Yup, and keep 'em coming. None of that lift up and reel down crap. Hit em hard and winch away. When in heavy cover, it's XH rod, 50# braid, flippin hook, BIG hookset. I lose some dinks as they're sailing over the boat on a slack line, but I don't lose many biggins when flippin/pitchin. I don't sweat the small ones. And... I don't have a youtube channel. It's just the best way to go about it IMO.

100% agree the XT is the way to go for your intended purpose. It palms VERY comfortably as well.

Spring is my favorite. Getting back out after a couple months off the water. Warming temps, big girls moving shallow, the woods turning green again... Summer is my favorite. Chasing big bass and eyes in the dark. No crowd at night, comfortable temps, peace and quiet, the way my senses are more acute in the dark... Fall/early winter is my favorite. Cool crisp mornings, fall colors, hot jig/trig bite on the shallow wood, even hotter muskie bite, no crowd... MAN... I JUST LOVE TO FISH!!!

Fall is prime jig time IMO. Once the weeds die off, it's all about shallow sun baked wood that has deep water near by for me, all the way down to 38 degrees. The big girls will come shallow before heading to their winter haunts.

I'm pretty well set with a chatterbait, a toad, and a jig in the dark. Lipless once in a blue moon. Chatterbait does the vast majority of the work. As mentioned above, keep it simple and be organized.

We used to accumulate unlimited sick time, and I rarely missed a day. Last year the company took that from us, without compensating us for it. They stole about 10k worth of accumulated sick time from me. In their infinite wisdom, they implimented a policy where we started with 14 sick days, get 7 per year, and can only roll 7 over, so it's use 7 or give 'em back to the company each year. I averaged about one call off every couple years in the past. It's 7 days per year now. SMH. Makes sense somehow to the bean counters I guess. Saving my last three of 23 for Muskiepalooza this Nov. or early Dec.

10-4. Been dry and stable here for awhile, with not much wind. Last night the pressure was falling fast, blowing 10-15 straight onto the wide, slow tapering point where I've been catching those good ones. It's got a 150yd long strip of hydrilla in the 4'-5' range with a hard edge, then some stubble on the outside out to 8' or so. I got there with HIGH hopes. Everytime I think I know what I'm doing.......... LOL.

Tough night for me last night too. We had some storms roll through. I had to haul butt to the ramp and ride em out in the truck twice. Only managed a handfull of dink LM and a 2# eye. I thought maybe the wind on the front side of the storms might get 'em chewing, but... NOPE!!! All good though. Tough bites make us appreciate the good ones.

I see that last fish on the stringer is sporting a mohawk @TnRiver46. It's a punk rock bass. I LIKE IT!!!

Same time, same place, NEARLY the same result. I pulled another nice eye off of it, and had a big bass on, but I managed to drag it into a clump of hydrilla on the way in and lost it. Best bass boated was this chunky 2.5#. Decent numbers, dozen and a half or so between 01:00 and 07:00. Blanked after daylight, and called it early to come home and work on the honeydo list.

Nah. I get up for work at 02:00. Days off I just adjust my sleep schedule a bit. I don't often get down to my #2 lake anymore for that same reason. It's about a 50min drive. Pretty rough getting home sometimes. My #1 lake is only 15min. from home. Makes it much easier and safer. #2 is a better SM lake though. I've been itching to get down there lately. I sometimes run into some big schools of brown bass there at night.

Release to the grease. Olive oil actually, after a good heavy dusting of Zatarans blackening seasoning. I save the breading for other species. LOL. Couple weeks ago I was going down a steep bank in the wee hours, fishing parallel to an outside hydrilla edge, and a big ol whitetail doe jumped to her feet and started bawling me out at a distance of about 20'. Darn near jumped clean outta my shoes. LOL.

Hit the water at 01:00 again. Was gonna go earlier but we had some storms roll through. It was a tough bite, as expected, lightning often shuts 'em down for awhile IME. Only managed six in the dark. Four dinks, a 4.09# LM and a 5.21# saugeye. Those two came about ten minutes and 30yds apart. Same spot that produced last weeks 4+ LM and that long skinny SM. This morning was only the second time I've ever fished this little stretch. I'm liking the quality coming from it so far. We'll see if it holds up. Only managed three more dinks after daylight. Called it at about 10:30. Hopefully they're more cooperative tonight.

My wife's reaction time is around three minutes. Lol. She has virtually no hookset and she probably misses less fish than I do. She gives them PLENTY of time to get the bait good.

Sprinkling the entrance with sevin dust will also kill 'em, but again much less fun than a gasoline mushroom cloud.

Pour gas in the hole at dusk. Pour a trail away from the hole. LIGHT IT!!! Not lighting it will kill them but is MUCH less fun.

I'm with @BigAngus752 on this one. I have zero doubts about it.

Congrats on a solid day while feeling sub-par. Hope ya feel better soon.

It thins our herd, but I'LL still be out there!!!