IcatchDinks

@Fried Lemonsthat's super cool! Must have been a sight to see. Very nice fish, too!

Went fishing yesterday and caught one little guy on a drop shot rig using a little hellgrammite type bait. Fishing is still slow, but as the water temps rise, I expect the catch ratio to rise as well. I've only found one spot on the river where they'll bite. I would have fished more, but left my phone on top of my car, and when I pulled out to go to the next location it fell off and broke. I don't like catching fish I can't document, so I called it a day. (P.S. I didn't have any appropriate drop-shot weights so I made one from a snap-swivel and some split shot.)

Just got my order in from engineeringhooksets.com. The guy is a YouTuber and smalltime bait-maker. I've had success with his soft plastics last year and loaded up on baits again for this year.

On my favorite river, there's a good stretch that's all weed beds. You can cast just about anywhere in that stretch and get bit. Further down stream there's a long, flat sandy stretch with nothing but a couple of downed trees. Of course the bass will be up under those trees. You can cast all day, but if you're not working the lay downs, you won't catch anything.

No shame in that. I'll be proud if my little guy grows up to love fishing as much as myself. You're raising the next generation right in at least one aspect. Kudos!

Well, now I gotta go learn how to fish a tube.

This has also been my experience. Always seems to take a few days after a big blowout for the fish to start biting again. Could be I'm just fishing them wrong, but I always struggle finding bites after an event like that.

There's a little pond sandwiched between TJ Max and the freeway that I like to fish. No more than an acre in size. I've seen photographic evidence of someone else who caught a good sized largemouth out of it. I haven't caught any bass yet, but it holds hawg sized pumpkinseed, bluegill, and hybrids. There's a lot of little ponds like that all over town. I like to get on Google maps and find little hidden ponds and backwaters to fish (as long as I can be sure I'm not trespassing.)

Took me way too long to figure out what "ICD" meant. Lol

First two fish of the year on the board! My wife and I took our six month old to the park that's circled by the Chippewa. I threw on the waders and tied on a Ned rig. A few casts in I had hooked my first fish of the year. She was a beautiful, fat 13 incher. I know I don't look it in the picture, but I'm elated. That's my happy face: A few casts later I had the second fish of the year: a smaller and not nearly as colourful smallie: My wife was kind enough to take the pictures and watch from the bank. After breaking off my last two Ned rigs (my spring resupply is still in the mail), I called it "good enough" and my wife and I finished the evening with a stroll around the park. Finally I can talk about fish and not naps or flowers. Neither of these are giants, not even keeper size. But fish are fun and I'm living up to my username.

And I third it. Super awesome, @deep I, on the other hand, am still fishless for 2024. Got a few bumps and tugs while on the river yesterday: assuming they were were little fish like chubs or bluegill or something that couldn't get the bait in their mouth. But I did see some beautiful flowers!

If I could catch something the size of one of those "little guys" I would be a very happy man.

Everyone at work took a break and we all used our welding helmets to look at it. Coworker got a pretty cool photo of it. https://i.postimg.cc/d0kn9pj8/signal-2024-04-08-21-28-33-938.png

Not that I've ever caught, but I've heard people say there are some in there.

I went fishing today. That's all I did. No catching. Unless you count the catnap I caught on the little cement island I waded out to in the middle of the river. It was a beautiful day topping out around 60F, but the water is still icy cold. I was cramping up even through my waders. It's good to get outdoors again.

@JayMac89 beautiful fish!!! Stoked for you! Everyone else, your fish are nice too.

This sounds really similar to the ponds I fish. There are many wiser anglers on this site with years and years of experience that you should listen to before me, but here's a list of what I like to use and have success with. Top water baits: Whopper Plopper https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/River2Sea_Whopper_Plopper_Silent/descpage-R2SWPS.html I also like the Rebel Pop-R. There are lots of popper options. It's not even that hard to make your own. Super simple bait that works if they're biting top water. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Rebel_Pop-R_Topwater_Popper/descpage-RPR.html Crankbaits: My favorite is the Rebel Wee Craw, but, like the popper, there are many good options. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Rebel_Middle_Wee_Craw_Crankbait/descpage-RMWCR.html I also use spoons and inline spinners. And a Texas-rigged senko worm never fails either.

I hope this works for me. I've got short hair for the first time in 4 years.

What is that creep 65 lure? Looks like a soft plastic? How do you fish it? (I use hard baits and stick baits almost exclusively) You've piqued my interest with that unique one. 😄

Ooh, keep me updated. I'm always so confused trying to figure out how to catch bass in early spring.

Me last night.

Congrats, man!! That's awesome to hear! Thanks for the great read. You caught some beautiful fish.

Thanks! It's good to be back. Great to see all our southern friends catches, too! I went out to my local waters today, but it's still a bit early for the fish to be active. It's lovely to be back out with a pole, even if the fish aren't biting. Heck yeah! I can't wait to show him everything I know (which, if I stick around here that long, will be substantially more than I currently know.)

The long hibernation is over, and I'm finally emerging from my winter nap. I've missed you all, but if I can't go fishing, watching other people fish gives me an itch I just can't scratch. So I've been pretty dormant during the winter. Plus, I had a kid in September and that put an early end to my season. But I did go on a recent fishing trip with a buddy, and I figured I'd regale those bored enough to read it, with my doleful, event-less tale. Spoilers: we caught nothing. We spent all day last Saturday (9 hours) wading the rivers looking for steelhead. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'd never been steelhead fishing before, and a buddy from work offered to take me last weekend. We left his place at six in the morning and got to the parking spot near the river at nine. It was bitter cold. About 20°F when we first got there. When I said the parking spot was "near the river" I was speaking subjectively. We crunched through snow and dead leaves for half a mile to get to the water. And then we fished, and waded, and hiked, and peered through the water for fish, hoping every ripple, shadow, and submerged log was a steelhead. (I would have been happy with a smallmouth, myself.) We kept on like this till about noon-thirty. And then we had to walk two miles back to the parked truck. Which was a good thing, because I think my toes might have gotten frost bit if didn't do some marching to get the blood flowing again. My family has a history of poor circulation in the feet and it seems I've inherited the malady. The first half of the trip I was kinda miserable. The one thing I did enjoy: it was absolutely beautiful. The sunrise, the happy gurgle of the river, the birds in the woods around us. I got to watch some small winged insects hatching out of the snow. I'm not a regular fly fisherman, so I have no clue what they were, but it was pretty cool to see. After we got back to the truck we drove over to another river, ate lunch and got right back at it. By now the sun had melted most of the snow and temps had warmed up. It was a lovely time, but no fish. I gave up on steelhead and switched my rig for targeting bass. Didn't get so much as a nibble. We didn't see a single fish that day. All the locals told us the recent warm spell followed by a sudden cold snap had messed up their spawning pattern and no one was sure where the fish were. My buddy is going out again Saturday to try to find them. Me, I love nature hikes, but I think I'm sticking to bass. I fish for fun. Not for exercise. I'm glad it's spring, y'all. I can't wait to feel that tug on my lines again and start posting photos of my dinks in the Latest Catch Pics thread. Until then, I'll be following y'all's fishy exploits with interest and envy. Edit: distances are guesstimates. I have no idea how far we really walked. But it was a lot.

Not a bass. ?