Latest Catch Pics Thread

[Swamp Girl]

@gimruis, your third bass is so fat it made me laugh!

 

Way to go, @Cbump!

 

@LrgmouthShad, I like the last photo of your big girl. I am terrible at discerning the size of a fish when the fisher's arms are extended, but your big fish right beside you really lets me appreciate her size. Cool how you caught her too. You are wily!

 

@Woody B, I hope you're not reading this because you're sleeping and getting well.

 

Cool that you're fishing new water, @BrianMDTX.

[LrgmouthShad]

5 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

@LrgmouthShad, I like the last photo of your big girl. I am terrible at discerning the size of a fish when the fisher's arms are extended, but your big fish right beside you really lets me appreciate her size. Cool how you caught her too. You are wily!

Thank ya! I'm stumped how to duplicate that into more good fish though, without first spending a lot of time graphing. So likely my last day tomorrow will be spent doing a lot of just that. Graphing. 

[Woody B]

15 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

@Woody B, I hope you're not reading this because you're sleeping and getting well.

 

I'm good, I'm just full of crap.  LOL    

 

Nice fish everyone.   

[NorcalBassin]

Always great getting out early enough to see the sunrise on the water.

 

Solid one on a spinnerbait

 

Pops with one on a Keitech

 

First whopper plopper fish of the year. Really lucked out having the hook fall off as it went into the net. Good reminder to check those split rings. ?

[BrianMDTX]

@ol'crickety New water is fun, but I went back to old water this evening lol. Only thing that got bites was a wacky rig. Caught two dinks then a decent 2 lb’er. Just as I got it in the boat, the knot broke at the hook. That’s on me, as it’s been tied on a while and I should have retied it. It fell on my fish mat and I lipped it and was going to snap a pic, but it headshaked itself out of my non-GI Joe kung fu grip and back in the drink it went. Caught two more dinks then I hooked one big enough it pulled drag. And then…poof! It was gone. It’s very rare I lose a bass on a wacky rig, so I’m guessing I barely hooked the lip. Darn. That was a good bass! I ended up working a Neko Macho Texas rig. Went to bomb cast it and it went about 20’ and I watched it sail into oblivion as my reel exploded line all over. Must have had a wind knot or something. Oh well, it was spooled with Big Game so respooling is cheap. Might try new “new” water tomorrow or Monday. 

[GreenPig]

4 hours ago, gimruis said:

I did some more damage on the brown bass today. These things are shaped like footballs. Thanks to @GreenPig I can now take some action photos by myself using a timer on my camera phone.

Excellent 

[TnRiver46]

Fun first couple days of vacation , got one with spinnerbait and a decent one ate a swim jig off the surface in water willow, fun fun fun . Then caught some in the middle of the day with some threadfins we netted. Tried a new spot below a dam this evening and we didn’t do any good but there’s big spotted bass potential (we think). 

 

[ironbjorn]

3 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Fun first couple days of vacation , got one with spinnerbait and a decent one at a swim jig off the surface in water willow, fun fun fun . Then caught some in the middle of the day with some threadfins we netted. Tried a new spot below a dam this evening and we didn’t do any good but there’s big spotted bass potential (we think). 

 

Ummmm excuse me but you can't just drop "caught one with a spinnerbait" and leave it at that. This is front page bass resource news.

[TnRiver46]

@ironbjorn, that’s two this month, not sure what to think. Might be a lightning strike headed my way 

[Jmurphy87]

I got out a few more times the past few days. I went Thursday for a hour and got skunked lol. I fished the river for a hour in allegan and caught a decent small pike probably 26 inches on top water, I was using a chrome shower blow 105 walking it fast and got within 20 feet of the bank and couldn’t see due to the sun and heard the explosion and set the hook and thought I had a good size smallie. Nope pike got it right beside the bank and tried to lift it up and he got beached and flailing and threw the shower blow back at me. I didn’t get hit, he slowly worked his way back in to the water, no pic of that one.

 

 I got out yesterday and caught a few small large mouth, got bit off by a pike because I seemed to have misplaced my titanium leader. Then on my way back to the car I checked a spot in the river where I know the smallmouth hide and saw one swimming. I sneak down to the bank and make a pitch and I was off, second one was perfect. I am looking at the fish and I don’t think it sees me, slowly working it back and come over the rock and it just smashes it. A decent little fish. 
 

I bought my wife her fishing license and took her and my daughter out to the lake where we buy the annual pass. My wife caught the only fish there and my daughter let it go before we got a picture of it lol. I am happy, my family should be happy now and things are sort of getting better in areas so that’s a start that I will take.

[TnRiver46]

20 minutes ago, Jmurphy87 said:

I got out a few more times the past few days. I went Thursday for a hour and got skunked lol. I fished the river for a hour in allegan and caught a decent small pike probably 26 inches on top water, I was using a chrome shower blow 105 walking it fast and got within 20 feet of the bank and couldn’t see due to the sun and heard the explosion and set the hook and thought I had a good size smallie. Nope pike got it right beside the bank and tried to lift it up and he got beached and flailing and threw the shower blow back at me. I didn’t get hit, he slowly worked his way back in to the water, no pic of that one.

 

 I got out yesterday and caught a few small large mouth, got bit off by a pike because I seemed to have misplaced my titanium leader. Then on my way back to the car I checked a spot in the river where I know the smallmouth hide and saw one swimming. I sneak down to the bank and make a pitch and I was off, second one was perfect. I am looking at the fish and I don’t think it sees me, slowly working it back and come over the rock and it just smashes it. A decent little fish. 
 

I bought my wife her fishing license and took her and my daughter out to the lake where we buy the annual pass. My wife caught the only fish there and my daughter let it go before we got a picture of it lol. I am happy, my family should be happy now and things are sort of getting better in areas so that’s a start that I will take.

Nice fish and a fine pair of liberty’s 

[Swamp Girl]

I took a couple friends to an area pond. The husband was fishing and the wife was paddling, so I did some fishing and some paddling, about 50/50. It was fun visiting with the wife and fun seeing the husband so happy, but he was fishing with 6 lb. test and lost a couple nice ones. I told him he needs to upgrade, that 6 lb. test in open water works for smallmouth, but not for the thickets were so many largemouth live. I caught a nice one, 21". Nice belly too and she had those strange bulging eyes like Alex's fish have. She took a Whopper Plopper in the Loon pattern right beside a laydown. I caught some smaller, fat ones too. It was cool to have the photo taken by someone else for a different perspective. I included a pic of a smaller bass so you can see they're all chunky, plus one of my friend's bass with a nice belly.

 

2 hours ago, Jmurphy87 said:

I am happy, my family should be happy now and things are sort of getting better in areas so that’s a start that I will take.

 

Well, ^now^ I'm happy too!

 

I enjoyed your photos, @TnRiver46. I'm a sucker for photos of kids with fish. 

[TnRiver46]

Morning session was pretty good, I got a decent one with a fluke on top in some salad, managed to get it out with 8lb seaguar basix on a spinning outfit. 
 

 

@ol'crickety, I was outfished by my buddy’s son in the back of my boat 3-2 this morning, he’s a hammer!

 

[Swamp Girl]

 

For your buddy's ^son.^

[DitchPanda]

No pics for me...got out from 730 til 10 today...caught 13 biggest 4 were in the 2.5-3lb range. The other 9 were between 1-1.5lbs. Caught a few on a swim jig but a Texas rigged big bite baby creature did the heavy lifting.

[bowhunter63]

It’s hard to put that Wacky Worm down. They have been killing it 

[Woody B]

I went out in the mid 50's pouring rain today for 3 1/2 hours.  I pretty much had the lake to myself with the exception of 2 jet skis, 2 law enforcement boats and one boat from the local fire department.  I'm guessing the LEO's and Firemen were scheduled to work this holiday weekend.  I suppose the jet skiers were just crazy like me.   I caught 17.  The "big" ones were only 17" and 18" but there were only 2 under 14".   Most were on a bladed jig on channel swing banks.  

[Jmurphy87]

Got out today to recon the lake for the family, all dinks. There’s really big fish of all species in here, bluegill, sunfish, bass, gar pike. This is the lake that I caught my pb out of multiple times. I was fishing and they were biting, that’s a great day in my book. My conquest 844c mbr is proving itself to be the do all rod that I needed. Baits of the day, weightless wacky rig, owner jig rig, lv500, weightless fluke and something else that I am probably forgetting. I was surprised to see the tiny fish on the treble hook of the lv500, that’s the first time I ever pulled that one off.

[BrianMDTX]

@thediscochef I tried that pond you told me about. Holey moley! I just fished Lake Raven yesterday and remarked about having little experience with hydrilla and weeds. That pond is absolutely choked! I fished for an hour, collected 42.5 tons of green stuff and left lol. 
 

Went to my local pond as it was now after 9:00. Caught 13 bass in 3.5 hours. All on soft plastics. Most were dinks. These five were the biggest. The last was #13 and the biggest. The dinks were true dinks. Like fugitives from a sardine can. 
 

[Mbirdsley]

Yesterday the family and I hit up peach lake in west branch.  First 1.5 hrs was fishing for blue gills.  My daughter caught her very first fish by her self ( made the cast, set the hook and reeled).  Wife also caught some blue gill I caught. I caught one bass on a wacky rig before we went back to my grandpas cabin.

 

today I fished clear lake also near west branch.  I was lucky to grab 1 of 3 parking spots at the ramp. Spent a little over 4 hrs on the lake.  Hour after I started fishing the lake turned into a zoo but, I still knocked out 3 smallies.  All came on GB Hayes spine craw.  The first fish was a bed fish. I had made the cast before I realized   I had stumbled upon on some bedding smallies.  caught the one than left the rest alone.  I’m not judging any one for catching bed fish but, I just can’t do it.  So I released him and continued on.  Even with all the rec traffic still caught 2 more and lost 2 more. 

[Eric 26]

@BrianMDTX I’m sorry as I’m the only one who left a laughing emoji but holy heck “refuges from a sardine can” I laughed out loud and I thank you for that. You should moonlight as a sitcom writer during the writers strike ?

[BrianMDTX]

1 minute ago, Eric 26 said:

@BrianMDTX I’m sorry as I’m the only one who left a laughing emoji but holy heck “refuges from a sardine can” I laughed out loud and I thank you for that. You should moonlight as a sitcom writer during the writers strike ?

I saw that and immediately figured out you must have left it due to that overly descriptive yet “factual” statement! You know it’s bad when the Zoom Trick is longer than they are! 

[PhishLI]

I'm never thrilled about missing two weeks of fishing, but it really doesn't bother me much either during this part of the season. Up until last year Bass fishing was closed from May 1^st through June 15th, so I've been conditioned to not fishing during the spawn. I'm not into bed fishing regardless and have no desire to pull guarding males away from their broods. That's a self-defeating enterprise in lakes so depleted that catching 5 bass in an outing elevates one to god-like status. I think the powers that be had it right all along by closing it previously, but somehow that changed, but the "why" isn't a mystery at all. It was a revenue-generating decision dressed up in flowery language about access and opportunity, and one not made because of excess fish populations. That's for sure. That situation is worse than ever because of the commercial poaching problem coming out of NYC. I almost fished last Sunday night but left after finding an entire shoreline populated by the merciless bucket brigade who were live-lining under bobbers which is totally illegal. Taking bass here is not allowed in the first place, and so is selling them. The idea of a 15 year old lunker sold for peanuts then ending up in wonton soup or an egg roll really burns me up. Ultimately, it's depressing.

 

My brother and I stayed far away from that scene last night by heading 60 miles east of the big city. The heat wave of 6-7 weeks ago during the still-cold-water period caused an algae bloom everywhere. Spring-fed natural lakes with an outflow along with dammed millponds with some flow have been affected, but their weed growth hasn't. A degree of water movement in those places seems to have alleviated the algae problem somewhat, however, particular natural lakes with no flow have been hit hard. Other than lily pads and arrowheads, weed growth there is nonexistent. Zero. So it was at the lake we'd mistakenly chosen last night without gathering any recent intel first. It's usually lush with weeds, but not a sprout was found while grinding crankbaits on the bottom. Fishing in zones where we'd caught them well in the past was a dead end. The entire place has been rewired and it was tough, but eventually we got some after we found the right spot and the half-moon dropped below the tree line. The spawn is over around here for sure as we ran into a bunch of starved-out males away from cover, but also landed two decent fish on the Spro BBZ1 Shad and a WP75. Honorable mention goes to the Keitech Noisy Flapper for getting work done too.

 

I realize that most of this report is a downer, but it's nothing but awesome having my brother to go fishing with. We always have laughs no matter what. And to all you youngsters out there, honking-loud farts are still hysterical well into your 50's, especially in open spaces. Shoutout to barbeque with steakhouse baked beans.

 

[Chilidog]

I caught this one this evening on a wacky worm.  It measured 20.25 inches.

[Jar11591]

@Chilidog that looks like a brute!