Latest Catch Pics Thread

[GreenPig]

Pat, your fish and Jake's are very nice.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

The winter/pre spawn season is officially over here, males have finally flooded the bank and I've found a few huge female cruisers one with a mate but she won't lock down, two days in a row.    Fascinating watching the whole process with a year under my belt knowing what to look for.   

 

It was a great day with 22lbs and a 7.4 big fish on the pixie wand.   Drift Fry produced the 7.4.   

 

 

 

Lastly some have been interested in my dive down the mid strolling a minnow hole, and I found a secondary minnow I really like for slicker or sunnier days and that's the Fish Arrow Flash J 4" Split tail in Pro Blue Silver.    Caught a 5.9, 5, and lost a 6-7lb fish over the last cpl. weeks.   The Flash J straight tail has worked with some success but results speak and it hasn't produced like the Drift Fry or Split Tail model. 

Fish Arrow Flash J Split Tail Shad | Tackle Warehouse

 

 

[Swamp Girl]

Happy birthday, Pat. Whadda birthday gift! Way to fish, Jake! Your daddy's a sledge hammer, but you're still a 16 oz. hammer. 

[Pat Brown]

Duuuuuuude let's GO Alex!  Absolute gorgeous tank you got there.  Really need to start playing around with the drift fry.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

Thanks Pat!   I think you could catch a giant on just about anything 😎

[TnRiver46]

That’s a tank Alex! So big it ate your trolling motor handle plum off! 

[NorcalBassin]

1 hour ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

The winter/pre spawn season is officially over here, males have finally flooded the bank and I've found a few huge female cruisers one with a mate but she won't lock down, two days in a row.    Fascinating watching the whole process with a year under my belt knowing what to look for.   

 

It was a great day with 22lbs and a 7.4 big fish on the pixie wand.   Drift Fry produced the 7.4.

 

So... what do those places go for around your lake? I may need to start working a second job and then come join you in a few years.  😆

[Swamp Girl]

Wow, Alex. Just wow. You and Pat achieve the same feat, which is catching big bass in the middle of bustle and buildings. Whatever compliments you pay to Pat apply to you too, Alex. And vice-versa. I'm so excited to go strolling this spring. 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

17 minutes ago, NorcalBassin said:

So... what do those places go for around your lake? I may need to start working a second job and then come join you in a few years.  😆

Sadly the neighbor who property and boat I use listed her house recently, come buy it please and it will be a happy ending for all! 😁

 

Thanks Katie, and I can't wait for you be fishing again period!  Especially look forward to the reports from your new dream "home lake" 😎 

[Swamp Girl]

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I can't wait for you be fishing again period! 

 

Me too, buddy. I quit fishing too early last fall and regret it. Next fall, I'm going to fish into November. And in 2023, I didn't start fishing until mid-April. We hit fifty degrees today and will reach fifty again one other day in the next two weeks. Plus, tonight's low is only 38 and there will several other nights above freezing. So, we might have wet ponds and bogs by the end of March. It would be great to begin again in early April. I LOVED fishing last April before the weeds grew. 

 

Quote

Especially look forward to the reports from your new dream "home lake" 

 

This evening, I was replacing hooks on my childhood fishing lures: A South Bend Bass-O-Reno, a Creek Chub Plunker, a South Bend Spin-I-Diddee, a Heddon River Runt, a Heddon Pumpkinseed, and others. I wanted to do a vintage lure trip last year, but never did. I'm going to do it this year.

 

The lures I listed above are collectively worth hundreds of dollars to collectors and I know I reduced their value by replacing the hooks, but it'll be worth it to fish like I'm 12 again.

 

I have an old Zebco Cardinal too and I'm thinking of using that too.

 

Alex, congrats again on your incredible winter. So. many. six-and-seven pounders and I'm guessing you lost count of the four and five-pounders! I'd pity the pros who had to fish against you in a tournament. 

 

One more thing: If Bass Resource ever held a convention with seminars and Pat and Alex each taught one, I'd climb over attendees to sign up and I'd be sitting in the front row with an apple each for these bass whisperers. 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

You're too kind Katie, and I'd love to see you do an article about the vintage lure fishing trip.   That would be an amazing piece based on the writer and subject matter.  

 

The sooner you can be on the water before it's 50d the better I'd think, but after seeing what you do in Maine if somebody told me Mars produces big ones I'd believe them now🤣  

[Pat Brown]

7 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

Wow, Alex. Just wow. You and Pat achieve the same feat, which is catching big bass in the middle of bustle and buildings. Whatever compliments you pay to Pat apply to you too, Alex. And vice-versa. I'm so excited to go strolling this spring. 

 

 

Bama strolling right 😉😉😉?  I can't wait for your fish to fire back up and a vintage lure trip sounds incredibly fun!  I wanna do more fun trips like that this summer when they're biting really well!

 

Thanks for the kind words.  Can I wear the headset and cast to a see through swimming pool from 5 ft above it to show everybody what I'm doing???? 

 

I've always wanted to do that!  😆 

 

@AlabamaSpothunter maybe you can cut those straight tails with some scissors and salvage the bags!

[Dwight Hottle]

@Pat Brown  

@AlabamaSpothunter                                                                                                                                                                                                                  All I can say is "Sweet".

[Swamp Girl]

3 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

Can I wear the headset and cast to a see through swimming pool from 5 ft above it to show everybody what I'm doing???? 

 

Yes, please. I always loved those pools. Wonderful teaching tools.

 

3 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

I can't wait for your fish to fire back up and a vintage lure trip sounds incredibly fun! 

 

Heck, yeah! Several of the lures are wood with chipped paint from bass caught 55 years ago. I'll go chip them some more! What's weird is how I struggle to remember the makers of the modern lures I use, but not the old ones. I remember their makers and names after more than a half century. 

 

9 hours ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

You're too kind Katie, and I'd love to see you do an article about the vintage lure fishing trip.   That would be an amazing piece based on the writer and subject matter.  

 

I didn't think about ^this^ possibility. Great idea! I'll do it. 

[Pat Brown]

I was shaking a jig under the surface on some nondescript banks and some GIANT bass were waking on it but I instinctively slow down and they swerved.

 

I adjusted my presentation and *sped up* after seeing the wakes and got these bass.

 

1/4 oz @Siebert Outdoors shot caller in 'Pats Gizzard' with an Arkansas glow largo shad on the back.

[Swamp Girl]

[WVU-SCPA]

First trip to a bigger body of water (non pond) of the year over lunch and took a skunking. 

 

Going to blame not catching a DD on not having FFS from the bank and not being on a lake named after a utensil.

 

Excited for day light savings time to able to take the boat out after work.  10 day is showing 50/60's here in PA which should make for a fishy March.

[Jmilburn76]

My first fish in 2024. I haven’t been on the site in a while, 2023 wasn’t too good for me health wise . I just found out I got carpal tunnel in my right hand to go along with my partially disabled left. I’m trying to kayak fish as much as I can while I still can. Managed three around the same size pictured.

[MIbassyaker]

Achievement Unlocked:  On the board for 2024, with my earliest ever bass of the season (by 4 days, apparently).

 

Finally getting a chance to escape a crushing work schedule, I spent a couple hours bank-hopping some river spots.  My stream thermometer consistently said the water was still only about 38 degrees, but these brown bass showed up (along with a few escape artists).  They were small but still satisfying ( biggest two went about 13").

 

 3" Kalin Sizmic Grub

[Choporoz]

 

 

Pictured above are the fish I caught yesterday.

 

 

Put kayak in on a lake that has always been very good for me.  48 degree surface temps, beautiful day, between slick and light breeze; cloud cover in morning, clear in afternoon. Post frontal - 24 hours after moderate rains - lake level up considerably in recent weeks.   Five hours and change with only two missed bites...not one fish.  I'm flummoxed.   Lake is under 600 acres; I didn't get in all the creeks, but I was pretty thorough on main stem, pockets and a couple creeks.  I marked most fish in schools at 14-21, usually related to bottom, but not always.  

  Two behavior observations that I couldn't turn into bites:

1.  Marked fish generally were not stationary...at all...I would move off them, work that spot for a while, go back over to recalibrate...and nothing...they were moving

2.  I found myself in a smallish bay, maybe 75 yards point to point with average depths about 6-12 FOW, full of mostly submerged brush/stickups.  This place exploded with a school of no less than ten huge bass herding and annihilating bait.  I could disturb them and agitate them, but could not get them to touch a lure.  Only place on the lake where I could actually see a wolfpack... or any active bass, for that matter.  Fascinating to watch, but at the end of the day pretty frustrating. 

[TnRiver46]

@Choporoz, they reportedly blast shad like that on Watts Bar all the time, and are next to impossible to catch. I don’t fish there much myself, but it is a very common thing to hear about.

[Swamp Girl]

1 hour ago, MIbassyaker said:

Achievement Unlocked:  On the board for 2024, with my earliest ever bass of the season (by 4 days, apparently).

 

Finally getting a chance to escape a crushing work schedule, I spent a couple hours bank-hopping some river spots.  My stream thermometer consistently said the water was still only about 38 degrees, but these brown bass showed up (along with a few escape artists).  They were small but still satisfying ( biggest two went about 13").

 

 3" Kalin Sizmic Grub

 

They might be small, but being smallies, they all have BIG hearts.

 

55 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

@Choporoz, they reportedly blast shad like that on Watts Bar all the time, and are next to impossible to catch. I don’t fish there much myself, but it is a very common thing to hear about.

 

Below are all the photos of berserk, wolf-packing bass I failed to catch on consecutive days in 2023:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bp_fowler]

Welp, back at the Gun Club today.  71 degrees, partly cloudy with winds out of the south.  What a difference a week makes!  The shallows were crawling with bait.  Only managed two on a watermelon seed fluke.  But since it will be in the 70s again tomorrow with overnight lows in the mid 60s I think it shouldn’t be long now until I start seeing big ones cruising around.

 

[Swamp Girl]

@bp_fowler: Atta, Buckeye!

[GreenPig]

Struggled for these four today. They were pumping water into the lake out of the river and fish weren't happy with the muddy water.