Latest Catch Pics Thread

[RipzLipz]

First outing of 2024 was less than stellar. Will save any potential readers from any boring details.

Also observed first idiots near boat ramps in 4 females with vehicle parked directly in front of ramp, which has signs posted in either side saying "DO NOT BLOCK RAMP". Luckily, they observed us inbound & left without any nasty exchanges. Tire valve stem core remover will be in my truck for remainer of year.

[LrgmouthShad]

Really enjoyable but unremarkable day fishing today. Caught a few tiny dinks, losing a 2lber(ish) due to bank landing difficulties. I had many more bites as well, but I believe some were just small or bluegills. I’m away from home right now and just have a bit of gear. 
 

Swimming a bitsy flip jig proved to get a surprising number of bites and otherwise a shaky head with a magnum finesse worm was effective.

[OmegaDPW]

Had a couple hours this morning with decent weather. Mainly fished a Marabou jig for crappie or whatever would bite and had no luck whatsoever with it. Swapped over to Bass and wound up with two. These are average/low sized for this pond but I took the pics because I rarely get the lures in the pic. 😉 (still showing up crooked on here for some reason)

 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

Wow, only been like a day since I checked in and so many excellent new posts.......folks getting on the water for the first time of the year, @thediscochef getting rewarded after grinding so hard, @Team9nine continuing his hot winter, and @Woody B with another big fish fantastic day.      

 

From now until June, the fishing reports will only get better and better, and by more and more members.....it's like a beautiful butterfly emerging from its cocoon when everybody is back on the water.    

[BrianMDTX]

Today was my first wet line since October. Either no time or rain. Rain started this morning as well, but I was adamant. Just fished the bank. It was pretty dead. One light strike and finally this one. First bass of 2024 and no skunk! Thank you, Zoom Trick!

 

[thediscochef]

3 hours ago, LrgmouthShad said:

Really enjoyable but unremarkable day fishing today. Caught a few tiny dinks, losing a 2lber(ish) due to bank landing difficulties. I had many more bites as well, but I believe some were just small or bluegills. I’m away from home right now and just have a bit of gear. 
 

Swimming a bitsy flip jig proved to get a surprising number of bites and otherwise a shaky head with a magnum finesse worm was effective.

Them bitsy flips be doin work

[AlabamaSpothunter]

Last two days I've been sharing a big school of fish with a friend on the lake that has taught us so many fascinating things over about 16hrs fished b/t the two days.  

 

All day long schooling action, real Nat Geo stuff.  We tried like 50-75 different baits over that span of time and found only two baits they'd fire on.   

 

Yesterday my friend found the magic button, and I've never seen fish require something so specific.   They wanted a 3/8th Dirty Jigs Underspin with a Reaction Innovations Shiver shot 3.5, but get this, my friend had two of those baits being exactly equal except one had a silver blade, the other gold.   He couldn't get a bite on the gold blade model, yet he scored a 26.5lb bag(his PB) on the silver blade one.   Mind you I'm throwing the underspins I have as well(silver bladed ones at that).....not a single fish for me on the ones I had.

 

Then today I get the better of him on the Drift Fry and score close to a 25lb bag with two 7s.     He bought me two of those exact baits and a pack of those Shiver shots, and while that was the only other bait they would really fire on today, the Drift Fry produced the biggest fish.   The exact opposite was true the day before, he got the bigger bites and way more fish catches, but I was still able to catch my fair share and get some quality on the Drift Fry.    He still caught two 5s and had a 19lb day.  Both of us lost a 5+ as well.   

 

He caught a 2.15 Crappie yesterday, and I caught a 2.10 today.   Now I really want a 3lb one.   It's fascinating how the biggest class size Crappie will school with the Bass.  

 

We learned that we could fire up the school with our trolling motors, still trying to figure out the mechanics behind that.   

 

Think I'll take a break tomorrow with T-Storms predicted after 44hrs fished since Monday, which marks the most hours I've ever fished in a week.    

 

 

7.1

 

7.2

[TnRiver46]

Big ones @AlabamaSpothunter! 
 

@Woody B, hell hath no fury like a 3.5 lb spotted bass 

[PhishLI]

Awesome, man!

1 hour ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

It's fascinating how the biggest class size Crappie will school with the Bass.  

I've learned that when crappie are in the zone, stay put. If they're chasing bait, bass come alive in that zone and are probably keyed in on the same bait, so I keep it small.

[Pat Brown]

Beast @AlabamaSpothunter!  It's so cool that you've hacked the offshore bite!  Totally makes sense that you've also found the biggest crappie because they eat the same stuff as the bass!

 

Something I noticed last year's a couple times at the pond I fish: 

 

During the sunfish spawn after the bass got done I saw wolfpacks of catfish and bass in the 12-16" range hunting bluegill fry together!!!! 

 

Another thing I found interesting, I saw 8-10 lb bass in 3-4 fish wolfpacks roaming after the spawn and I saw 2+ lb red ear swimming with them peacefully.  Surely all hunting the same stuff and the redear know they're too big for the bass to want to eat.

 

 

[T-Billy]

@AlabamaSpothunter livin on a little slice of Heaven. Congrats brother. 

[Woody B]

9 hours ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

..............................................We tried like 50-75 different baits over that span of time and found only two baits they'd fire on. .....................................................

We learned that we could fire up the school with our trolling motors, still trying to figure out the mechanics behind that...............................................................................................................

 

 

It's funny how some days it doesn't matter what bait you use, speed and depth are all that matters.  Then somedays there's a magic bait.   

 

The trolling motor activating the school is interesting.  Occasionally I'll see Bass on sonar that simply aren't interested in anything.  I can run a buzz bait over them a couple times, then they'll hit something.   These are usually shallow Bass but I've had limited success doing this with a few Bass as deep as 20 feet.   Is the trolling motor driving the bait fish down toward the Bass?

[Swamp Girl]

4 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

During the sunfish spawn after the bass got done I saw wolfpacks of catfish and bass in the 12-16" range hunting bluegill fry together!!!! 

 

Another thing I found interesting, I saw 8-10 lb bass in 3-4 fish wolfpacks roaming after the spawn and I saw 2+ lb red ear swimming with them peacefully. 

 

Pat, when you land your huge bass, I'm simply happy for you, but when you get to SEE bass, I envy you. In all the water I've fished, I've only seen bass twice. They were both little and they were both at a ramp at a lake I was scouting. I was thrilled to see those two little bass, but you don't just get to see bass; you've seen three-to-four 8-10-pounders at once. 

 

Alex, consider this: 99.something% of all anglers will live and die without ever enjoying the month that you've had. TWO sevens and it's just another day for you! 

 

I've never seen your face. You're so young! 

 

I crack up whenever I see your boat. It's your version of my skinny, scuffed canoe. 

 

So, that first day, the bass there would hit one lure, more or less. Wow! Daunting. It makes me think that the Bait Monkey isn't our curse. He's our blessing. He's the one who gives us a chance to catch bass IF we choose well.

 

Gosh, I miss fishing. I'd just like to be on the water again. I would seriously be happy with a skunk just to be there once more.

 

 

[Pat Brown]

 

Just some little guys on the lipless.  It's raining hard and I'm hoping it gets nice and muddy so those bigger fish get up shallow!

[T-Billy]

4 hours ago, Woody B said:

The trolling motor activating the school is interesting.  Occasionally I'll see Bass on sonar that simply aren't interested in anything.  I can run a buzz bait over them a couple times, then they'll hit something.   These are usually shallow Bass but I've had limited success doing this with a few Bass as deep as 20 feet.   Is the trolling motor driving the bait fish down toward the Bass?

Muskie seem curious about the transducers. Followers that don't bite will sometimes suspend directly under them. Sometimes for several minutes.

[Swamp Girl]

14 hours ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

He couldn't get a bite on the gold blade model, yet he scored a 26.5lb bag(his PB) on the silver blade one. 

 

I had a day similar to this in northwestern Ontario. There was ONE lure over two days that the smallmouth would hit and we only had one of that lure. Sure, they'd hit other lures and my fishing partner caught 50-75 bass per day using other lures, but I was catching two, three, four, five, six, and even seven bass on consecutive casts using that one lure. The fishing was so hot that I didn't want to waste time bringing bass into the canoe, so I pinched the barbs on the single treble hook and unhooked the bass with a twist of my wrist in the water. No net, no posing, no pics, no mid-day nap. Just my memories of two days of non-stop brown fury. 

 

47 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

Muskie seem curious about the transducers. Followers that don't bite will sometimes suspend directly under them. Sometimes for several minutes.

 

Muskies are fearless. They'd suspend under a Navy sub because they fear nothing. 

[LrgmouthShad]

14 hours ago, thediscochef said:

Them bitsy flips be doin work

I’m afraid they may have thinned the weedguard on them recently, along with the Hack Attack Jigs. Not a fan of that. I was getting hung a little more than usual. It may be time for me to look for an alternative. In the past, they stood head and shoulders above all other micro jigs just because of that sweet hook and thick guard. 

[Pat Brown]

I had days like this up north with my family as a kid.  Smallmouth can definitely get like that sometimes in the summer.  I'm a largemouth bass fisherman at heart from North Carolina, but I do love smallmouth and I owe them at least partly for sewing the seeds and lighting the spark all those years ago!

 

I would truly love to get back up to Huron to fish the summer smallmouth insanity someday!

[Team9nine]

What strikes me as most interesting with these reports is the apparent polar opposites in the fisheries between guys like @Pat Brown or likely @PhishLI vs., say,@AlabamaSpothunter, due to fishing pressure from what they’ve written about and I can tell. The effort and ‘trickery’ the former two have to go through to even get bit at times is crazy, yet they still produce fish, and big fish fairly regularly, for that effort. @WRB and Casitas/Castaic was probably similar back in the day. In comparison, along the lines of what Katie mentioned, “TWO sevens and it's just another day for you!” down Alex’s way. @Zcoker ‘s Everglades fishery, as well as @ol'crickety ‘s Maine bog ponds might fit in this category as well.
 

It’s an interesting perspective on the effects of fishing pressure and how it correlates with bass behavior, IMO. Most of us probably fish in a world somewhere “in-between” these guys on the scale most days, and correspondingly have to adjust our tactics accordingly, taking snippets of their baits, tactics and presentations as they might fit our situations.

[OmegaDPW]

Had a couple hours again this morning to throw a line before the rain started coming in. @RRocket was super generous to send me some micro baits and ways to rig them so I tried a couple out today. Guess what? I caught micro-bass! 😄 

 

I wound up with 4 bass in those two hours. All less than 2 lbs. Had a good one hooked on my ultra-light with a #6 EWG hook while trying to get a crappie bite but something went wrong and he got off after a good jump and head shake. 

 

 I rarely get to fish during the week unless I take a day off of work, so now the waiting period begins again until next Saturday and hoping the weather will be nice. 

[Zcoker]

It’s all about mindset. I’ve said this before many times: it wasn’t until I started thinking big bass that I started catching big bass. When I launch out in the everglades, for instance, I know one hundred percent that from the time that I start casting to the time that I finish casting, a big girl will hit. I make up mind from the get-go that she will be there. Whether I get her or not depends on just how ready I am. I try to have that mindset wherever ago on any body of water. The best fishing lure in the entire world is your own mind! 

[Swamp Girl]

I've literally seen where @Pat Brown fishes. Imagine if a shopping mall turned its rear parking lot into a pond. That's pert near where Pat fishes. And @PhishLI and I have talked at length in PMs about the challenges of where he fishes. There are gangs and poachers. No lie.

 

However, there are challenges in the best of fisheries. I've read about the days when @WRB landed his world-class fish and that was a fishery where I wouldn't dare launch. Too many boats jostling for those bass. And I'm guessing VERY, VERY few of those boats saw bass like Tom's.

 

Likewise, I watch videos of anglers fishing the Everglades and nearly none of them catch bass the size of @Zcoker's. Same with the videos of anglers in Maine. Few catch the quality of my fish and even fewer catch the quantity.

 

Maine Fish and Wildlife says the number one determiner of water quality is development along the shoreline. When I look at @AlabamaSpothunter's shorelines, I see mansion after mansion. I'd bet money that nearly everyone of those over-sized houses is polluting that lake, with pesticides or herbicides or whatever. 

 

Then you look at @A-Jay's shorelines, @Zcoker's shorelines, or my shorelines and you see far fewer to zero houses. Heck, @Zcoker doesn't even have shorelines. To be frank, I do fish where there are shoreline houses, but I don't photograph them because I think undeveloped shorelines are prettier. But my point is that I agree with @Team9nine, that the playing field isn't equal and in my reactions, I pay all due honor to those are fishing in more challenging water. I'm not the only one who does this, as @Pat Brown kindly noted that my biggest bass have to measured with our long winters in mind, as do @A-Jay's, @gimruis's, and all the BR anglers who fish near 45 degrees north.  

 

Maine Fish and Wildlife says that a five-pounder in Maine is 20 years old, aka an old woman. On the other hand, with prime conditions, a Florida bass can reach seven pounds in two years. That's a toddler, albeit an enormous toddler.

 

 

 

 

27 minutes ago, Zcoker said:

It’s all about mindset. I’ve said this before many times: it wasn’t until I started thinking big bass that I started catching big bass.

 

This reminds me of musky fishing, but with muskies, this is never in play:

 

28 minutes ago, Zcoker said:

I know one hundred percent that from the time that I start casting to the time that I finish casting, a big girl will hit.

 

With muskies, there's ZERO certainty that you'll get your chance, but you still have to muster the concentration to give yourself the best chance. 

[T-Billy]

3 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

Muskies are fearless. They'd suspend under a Navy sub because they fear nothing. 

They're certainly a curious fish. I've twice had them come up vertically and raise their heads above water to look at me. I've also had them swim up and hang around the boat many times while I was working along a bank fishing for bass.

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

With muskies, there's ZERO certainty that you'll get your chance, but you still have to muster the concentration to give yourself the best chance. 

At least one complete 8 EVERY... SINGLE... CAST...

[Swamp Girl]

1 hour ago, T-Billy said:

At least one complete 8 EVERY... SINGLE... CAST...

 

There's nothing like the jolt of a Figure 8 musky when there's 24" of line between your rod tip and the fish. 

[Woody B]

I went today in the rain.  It was just a drizzle but started raining pretty hard about the time I launched my boat.   I decided I was going to do one and done.   I caught a 16 inch Spot.  The rain had slowed down some so I decided to fish some more.  A dozen or so casts later, at the same rocky point I lost a big Blue Catfish, along with a rod and reel.   It was the biggest Blue I've ever caught....or got next to the boat.  I doubt it was as big as the 53 pound Flathead I caught a couple years ago.   Like a typical Blue it made one run, and just gave up.   Blues, at least the ones I've caught will fight hard for a short period of time, then just kinda play dead.   I've had them "come back to life" in the boat.   I held this one next to the boat for a while, then decided to get it in the boat.  I don't know exactly what happened.  I was lifting it into the boat, it started twisting like Cats do, I turned it loose and it swam off with my rod and reel.  I suppose I had sit the rod down and was using both hands to wrangle it into the boat.  I came home after that.