Melvern Giant

[jayhawk jim]

Hi guys! Long time lurker and first time poster. I love this site and look at it almost daily. After my experience at Melvern yesterday, I felt compelled to do something I've never done before and that's to enter a post on a forum. I've been fishing Melvern for over 30yrs. and absolutely love what kind of smallmouth fishery this lake has become. It's one of my favorite lakes to fish. A friend and I were in my boat in the Turkey Creek arm, when I hooked what I knew was not a smallmouth. After 40 minutes and a couple of sore wrists and arms later, we finally landed my catch. We weighed it on my Rapala digital scale and it topped out at 34.85 lbs! This was the largest fresh water fish I have ever caught and it was on 8 lb. test line. The lure I was using? The NED RIG! I had no idea that carp would hit a lure like that, but I guess they will. I've caught gar, drum, and catfish over the years while fishing for bass, but this is the first carp I've caught. I guess this dispels the notion that only big baits will catch big fish. We ended up catching about 25 smallmouth and 3 white bass for the day. The biggest smallie was 18", but several 13-15" fish. All in all, a fun day to be out and one I'll certainly never forget. I tried to attach a photo but it said it was too large. If I can figure out how to do it, I will send later.

[aavery2]

I bet that was a fun catch, I was really hoping you were going to post a pic of a giant Small Mouth, but congrats on a great day none the less.

[Darren.]

Great catch, and welcome to the forums!

[sizzlefry]

Its good your posting hope to hear from you more especially Melvern reports. welcome from the lurker status lol

[SuperFluke]

Welcome aboard. 

 

Hope to see you on the water some day.

[Doc-Drew]

Welcome!

As I am sure almost everyone can attest to, the Ned is pretty much a vacuum. I've caught largemouth, smallmouth, spots, catfish, drum, carp, walleye, perch, crappie, sunfish, whites, wipers, and northern pike on it. So when using the Ned, I wouldn't really say it's "bass" fishing... More like "whatever is in the vicinity" fishing.

[Bluebasser86]

Some days Ned catches everything but bass it seems. It's probably one of the greatest drum baits out there 

[Ron P]

Some days Ned catches everything but bass it seems. It's probably one of the greatest drum baits out there 

I need to find and get me a "Ned". I could have tried it yesterday at Melvern. I didn't get so much as a bite. I probably don't have the lures that many of you do. Mine are some older lures/baits. I tried about everything except some spinners. Tried deep, as my locator was showing them around 20 ft and deeper, and a little in shallows. However I will say I didn't venture back to the western part of the lake.

 

While fishing in shallow water (around 5-7 ft ), had a fair sized Carp clear the water just 3 ft off the side of the boat. Just the quick glimpse I got, he looked to be around 10-15 lbs. Waaaay back when I was a teenager, a buddy of mine and I would ride our bicycles to the river and fish. When the Drum and Cats weren't biting, would fish for Carp. We also made up dough-balls (carp) for this reason. We would then haul out some huge Carp. We started marking them just to see if we were catching the same one(s) over and over. It turned out I had landed a 25 lb Carp, the same one twice.

 

Anyway back to the original story... I didn't stay that long, only about 3 hrs. The play-time boaters, jetskiers, skiers were rather heavy. They kept coming real close to my boat. If I had not been hanging on, I would have thrown over-board with one such wave. Really started p***ing me off. So I decided enough of this crap, the lake is theirs...