Latest Catch Pics Thread

[DitchPanda]

16 minutes ago, Pickle_Power said:

Ten fish in 90 minutes this morning, then the bite seemed to really slow.  A weightless Zoom Magnum U Vibe Speed Craw did the majority of the work. Got a couple on a Max Scent Hawg, too.  Jig/craw just wasn't doing it for them today.

 

 

Fishing it like a top water?

[Holetail]

Landed this girl this AM on a white chatter on my “last cast” before leaving. Not a sniff on that bait in over an hour of trying it. Caught 3 on green pumpkin swim jig. Measured 20” and weighed 4.26. I weighed her twice because I swore she was pushing 6 lbs. huge head but just skinny I guess. Chatter has really proved to be a big fish bait for me so far this season. Two 4+ and a 3.5 to date. Just goes to show that an old dog can learn new tricks!

[CrankFate]

Never made it out today, between yard work and talking to my neighbor, who basically had my wife and next door neighbor in tears telling us the story of how his wife died from Covid 3 months ago. Very sad.
 

Hit a local boat for striped bass last night, after a few good reports. With 60-70 people on board there were 3 stripers, 2 blue fish.

 

And Me (and my son) like:

 

 

[Black Hawk Basser]

2 hours ago, DitchPanda said:

Fishing it like a top water?

The first few fish hit while I was buzzing on top, but once the sun got higher I was beating the bank, pitching it into really shallow water and basically deadsticking it.

[PhishLI]

A dude met my brother and me last night for an unexpected trip at one of the very few lakes open here for bass fishing right now. This shallow puddle is fed by runoff and its level is maintained by groundwater, so there's no flow through it. We measured temps between 66-68*. The southern side had a bazillion bluegill and pumpkinseed on beds, but no bass. I suppose they're done romancing at this joint.

 

The first 3 hours was an epic dinkfest, just like a party boat on a school.  They were so small that a 1 pounder was a nice upgrade. Finally, some decent ones came out to play. My buddy got his on a G2, then my brother's came on a fresh Lancotti Psycho Gill painted in Ferrari red. I had a good'n shake off a crank next to the boat, but found redemption when a loony swimbait eating Crappie nailed my Shellcracker G2. We probably should've stayed a bit longer and caught the wave, but 3 AM was tapout time for our 50-something crew.

 

[Will Wetline]

It was a beautiful day in Central Massachusetts.

 

 

 

 

Today's tools:

 

[TnRiver46]

One of my buddies from college lives out near Memphis, he comes back to east TN for a smallmouth fishing weekend twice a year, arriving Friday mid afternoon and leaving Sunday at noon

 

friday afternoon: 

we got some good info from @Jerminationon where to fish close to an access so we weren’t wasting time motoring. After a 1.5 minute idle with the gas motor, we put the trolling motor down and start fishing. On the first cast, my buddy hooks up with a nice smallie on a tube! I guess it’s going to be a good trip.....

 

I had small fish duty all of day 1, although I did manage to lose a fairly nice one on a jump. Even mister whiskers showed up to the party. My buddy got me a new spinning outfit on a 7’ rod, it was fun casting further than i typically do. No backreel on the new shimano reel, it was pretty funny a couple times when I was trying to flip the switch 

Day2: we had a third buddy joining us with fly gear, and we decided to hit the shallow rivers close to home. We drive up and the water on river #1 is 58 degrees at 8 am....... hmmmm.. 

 

action was slow, although the fly captured a couple nice drum and white bass. We got dink smallies and lots of skipjack, once again I couldn’t make a striper eat a skipjack for pretty much an entire day. As usual my buddy got the biggest SM of the day, a 16-17” fish I think. 

 

 We went up another river and found 70 degree water and more white bass and skipjack, maybe a few more decent smallies starting to show up. Right before dark my buddy is landing one, I get a phone call. When I check to see who it is, my line took off swimming fast. I set the hook and a pretty big SM jumps, then dives and I can feel head shakes, and those shakes resulted in the hook coming out ?. I’m guaranteed to get a bite when my fiancé calls but it usually ends with me catching the fish. I guess I should have answered this time! Haha. 
 

Day 3: 

we only have until noon to fish before my buddy drives the long haul back to Memphis after sitting in a boat for 22 hours or so straight of awake time. This is where the peaceful weekend fishing trip took a bit of a turn! We decided to get the shallow boat hooked up and try way up river. It was beyond shallow, we were driving down a shoal that was several hundred yards long and about a foot deep and dry docked the boat on a rock with the target fishing area in sight. It’s about 1/4 mile away still, maybe we can still make it. Well turns out someone is bank fishing down there in the distance. We decide to attempt making it back upstream of the ramp in case of more crashing. Well, there was more crashing. I kept losing momentum on plane in shallow gravel shoals. I bet I tried 6 different times and getting stuck in the exact same spot so I finally just started walking the boat upstream (barefoot, smart. Forgot river shoes). We finally get 2-3 miles above the ramp and start fishing. My buddy hooks up on a tube with this one

 

That bite somewhat died and we had wasted lots of time so we start drifting in the current reeling grubs/swim baits. I notice the boat is now leaking and I broke the prop! Heck we were lucky not to be stranded. 

Even though I played small fish catcher again, we then proceeded to catch all kinds of smallies in the short period of time we had left and my buddy got the biggest bass of the trip, just over 18” . We had a double or two and some

back to back cast action. 

 

[Fishlegs]

Sounds like a trip he'll never forget.

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, Fishlegs said:

Sounds like a trip he'll never forget.

You know it! Haha. He comes twice a year and we document all things good and bad 

[jbsoonerfan]

First time out in almost 2 months. Only had about an hour and a half to fish. We got about 2" of rain last night with more on the way. I didn't know what to expect. Started with a jackhammer and noticed the grass is really starting to take off so I switched to a frog. Only caught 3 but when you break the 5lb mark, it makes for a good day.

 

[N Florida Mike]

I finally got my granddaughter Mackayla back out this afternoon . We took the canoe . The fish were still all over the yum dingers...

[deep]

Finally managed to get out again. Caught a couple real nice ones, both on poppers (one on a 6th Sense and the other on an Ima finesse popper); but otherwise it was a grind.

 

Also, I realized I have taken out the kayak just once this year, and fished with my buddy on his new boat once. Otherwise I'm back to the old days- walking the banks with one rod and one reel.

 

Both fish were about the same weight I think. The first one was longer, but the second one had a larger girth.

 

 

 

[PhishLI]

1 hour ago, deep said:

Otherwise I'm back to the old days- walking the banks with one rod and one reel.

Congrats on those studs! Don't sweat the bank fishing thing if those are your results! The other night my brother and I were musing about this very subject. It's been 3 years since we got our boat and Kayaks. We've done well in them, but all, and I mean all of our lunkers during this time have come from fishing on the bank, or wading, which is just glorified bank fishing around here.

[NorthernBasser]

Love seeing all the pics/reading your stories, guys! Keep them coming.

 

Got a few decent bedding fish this weekend. 

 

I spotted this smallie as I was working a canal off the river. I was right on top of it when I noticed it and I was only in about 1.5' of water, so figured it'd be spooked, so I backed off a bit. All of a sudden I notice a pike come into view and it kept chasing the pike away from the bed. He/she was fired up. 

 

I pitched a Rage Bug in there, and the pike comes flying in and nails it, tearing the claws off. I get the bait back in and quickly pitch back in there and this time the smallie killed it. Like, hit it hard hard and just took off. They REALLY wanted that bait off the bed. I have the pike to thank for getting them so riled up. ?

 

 

The next day I was on the lake and came across some bedding LM. They were very spooked so I had to back way off to have a shot at them. They wanted nothing to do with the Rage Bug. So I grabbed a Daiwa Yamamoto Neko Fat Worm I had laying in my console and trimmed it down to make a smaller profile, and threw it on a 2/0 hook. That did the trick. I caught 4 of them in a short span. Interesting how big of a difference just changing up your bait can make. To me the Rage Bug looks more threatening and bluegill-like than a worm. Then again maybe they were actually eating and the worm looked like an easier meal.

 

 

[Steve84]

On 8/11/2014 at 8:54 PM, missouribigbass said:

Thanks! I've had a lot of good luck this year with the big bass. I keep a log book and after the 3 big ones I caught on Saturday that made 42 bass I 've caught this year over 5lbs 29 over 6lbs 8 over 7lbs and 3 over 8lbs. Haven't hit on a 9lb fish this year.I weigh everything over the 4lb range.

You sure you ain't fishing in florida with those numbers and weights? Lol killing it 

[CrankFate]

After work today.
I recommend the hat. The fish were drawn to it.

 

 

 

 

These mask fish selfies look bad. Maybe I’ll just do the fish by the lips from now on.

 

These are stockers, probably this year and last year. Lake was recently recreated after being destroyed by hurricane sandy. I broke with tradition and fished straight braid. The water was stained and I was practically flippin cover, not quite, but I broke off a lot of brush to get to them.

[N Florida Mike]

Had a friend over yesterday. We ended up with 14, caught on various baits. 

It was a strange day for me though. I missed a lot of fish  on the hookset, had one break the line,and lost another big fish in the deepest hole in the lake, and got hung up numerous times in brush piles due to the baits I had tex-posed and skipped up into. Ended up kind of frustrated but happy that I put Robert on some fish. 

[JWall14]

Tournament on Saturday. We did well but I failed to land a 4lber that would have qualified us for state. I didn't realize the hook was dulled until after he pulled off. I fished a fluke all day and landed about 10. My partner had different ideas about what to hit and all of my spots (or really @slonezp's spots) produced keepers and we didn't get one bite from his spots. We finished with 7-10 and in 12th out of 41 boats. Not terrible but we missed state by one spot and that 4 would have put us top 5. 

Hit the river for a few hours on Sunday. My brother and I had a competition with my dad and other brother. We expected to win but they aren't that bad and it was a lot closer than we thought. We finished with a 12-6 bag and they had a 11-0 bag. Not too bad and it was a fun day of bed fishing. WE also doubled which made for a cool picture. Have yet to break 4 but I did learn from someone that there are 4s and 5s they are just in a section split by dams that I have yet to fish. 

[Biglittle8]

Back at the water today after a lack luster week of fishing. Not a lot of fish over dink status... Today was an excellent day of catching, didn't get out until after 9am. First cast caught a nice fish on a jig tipped with Zoom Chunk Jr. The wind picked up and after that it was all Chatterbait action, I stopped counting at 10. Couple of decent ones all from the same spot. They were stacked up in a weed bed off a point. Used a 10000 saw craw for a trailer. Couple of pics below.

[slonezp]

33 minutes ago, JWall14 said:

Tournament on Saturday. We did well but I failed to land a 4lber that would have qualified us for state. I didn't realize the hook was dulled until after he pulled off. I fished a fluke all day and landed about 10. My partner had different ideas about what to hit and all of my spots (or really @slonezp's spots) produced keepers and we didn't get one bite from his spots. We finished with 7-10 and in 12th out of 41 boats. Not terrible but we missed state by one spot and that 4 would have put us top 5. 

Hit the river for a few hours on Sunday. My brother and I had a competition with my dad and other brother. We expected to win but they aren't that bad and it was a lot closer than we thought. We finished with a 12-6 bag and they had a 11-0 bag. Not too bad and it was a fun day of bed fishing. WE also doubled which made for a cool picture. Have yet to break 4 but I did learn from someone that there are 4s and 5s they are just in a section split by dams that I have yet to fish. 

Glad I could help. 

[TheBasslayer]

Best fishing day I’ve had in all of 2021! 6 fish today, 4 of which were in the 1.5-2.5 range! First 3 were caught wading, and the last 3 were caught from the bank. I forgot to take a picture of a 1-pounder that I caught.

[CrankFate]

Got out for an hour and a half this evening. Yesterday was quantity. Today was more quality. Tried a much smaller pond that holds fewer, but bigger fish. Finessed one eyed willie out of a hole under a lay down. She’s definitely a senior citizen. I am assuming from the looks of her, this is post spawn. I will have to admit, when I got her into the shallow water, she jumped like 5 times.

 

 

[NHBull]

The bad part of this pre-spawn is that 3.5 has been the biggest so far.

The good part is that I haven't had one under 3 lbs.

......still have a few weeks before spawn hits.

[Biglittle8]

Took the old Ranger out to Sutton Lake this morning. Hit a nice hawg early... They were absolutely slamming the shad. Water temp was 78 degrees she hit a spinnerbait with a salty tube trailer.  Caught one more a little later in the trip on the same bait. 

[TnRiver46]

4 minutes ago, Biglittle8 said:

Took the old Ranger out to Sutton Lake this morning. Hit a nice hawg early... They were absolutely slamming the shad. Water temp was 78 degrees she hit a spinnerbait with a salty tube trailer.  Caught one more a little later in the trip on the same bait. 

Sheesh! Those are big uns. You have a boat???? And here all this time I thought you were a golf pond hopper