How'd you do this year?

[Bankc]

I was more consistent than normal.  I didn't have any great days.  But I had a lot less bad days.  Best producer was probably a shaky head trick worm.  

 

It was hot and dry all year, so the conditions were tougher than normal.  But somehow I managed to avoid the skunk pretty well this year.  I got to fish a lot more in the spring than normal, because the wind actually cooperated, which usually keeps me off the water during the spawn.  So that was fun!  But I also didn't get out as much in the fall, because the wind did not cooperate as much then.  And I usually do my best fishing in the fall. 

 

Overall, I learned a bit, had some fun, and am looking forward to getting out there and catching some this winter.  Last year I caught my first winter bass.  This year, I'm hoping to catch a few and find some patterns.

[N Florida Mike]

I had my worst year in 15 years. Numbers and size.

On a positive note, I got to fish a couple times in a old favorite lake I hadn’t fished in 30 years, and we did well both times . 

[Aaron_H]

1 hour ago, N Florida Mike said:

I had my worst year in 15 years. Numbers and size.

On a positive note, I got to fish a couple times in a old favorite lake I hadn’t fished in 30 years, and we did well both times . 

 

You also caught a chatterbait fish finally, that's not nothing! ?

[Swamp Girl]

I didn't fish May, June, and half of July, but once I realized that there are bass pert near everywhere, I got busy and caught hundreds. My best session, morning or evening, was 57, but I had many sessions in the forties. 

 

As most of you know, my main lure was the Whopper Plopper, but I also caught fish with a wacky-hooked Senko, a wakebait, jerkbaits, crankbaits, Mepps spinners, and froggin'.

 

My challenges were:

 

1. Learning to fish weeds after decades of fishing rocky lakes in northwestern Ontario for smallmouth.

 

2. Froggin'! Man, it's hard, but it's the funnest form of fishing I've ever done because that frog makes them so mad and they often hit right beside my canoe and then you have to fight them in the half-liquid of weeds and water. 

 

3. My dang nets. I bought three of this summer, but became wary of netting a fish because the hooks would tangle in the net. I'm hoping my third net, made of rubber and aluminum, will be the winner next year.

 

4. Becoming  up-to-date on the new lures for largemouth. You guys reference so many lures and brands that I don't know. I made a little progress, but I have much further to go. 

 

5. The dark. I've had such good fishing before sunrise and after sunset that I started fishing earlier in the morning and staying later in the evening. In the wilderness, there's not much that scares me, but when people might be near, I get the heeby-jeebies. So, I started wearing a knife, a tactical flashlight, and seriously potent pepper spray that's about ten times as powerful as bear spray. And I stop and listen sometimes in the dark, to discern if someone is afoot. 

 

My current challenge is waiting for next year! 

 

 

[JohnFromLisbon]

Didn't go fishing half as many times as I had originally planned to, still only skunked once. No big ones, but felt I got better at adapting to the conditions when I did go. The plan for next year is to improve that while still going more often.

[Swamp Girl]

^I love that you participate from Portugal!^

[AlabamaSpothunter]

28 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

^I love that you participate from Portugal!^

Haha, it was the same way when I first met you and saw your amazing LGM reports......I was thinking "Maine, this level of LGM fishing.....WUT" ?

 

Agree 100% when it comes to seeing members from other places like John.   This is a Basss forum, but it tickles me to see folks all around the world and up North love the Largemouth like us Southern US folks do.

 

These fish are so special they unite us into a common and fantastic community.  

[Darth-Baiter]

this year has been a solid "C" year.  low lakes, more wind that i ever recall, and my best fishing bud moved to the midwest.  BOO!

 

 

[N Florida Mike]

1 hour ago, Aaron_H said:

You also caught a chatterbait fish finally, that's not nothing! ?

Caught several actually… Largely because of your encouragement!

[Aaron_H]

1 minute ago, N Florida Mike said:

Caught several actually!

 

 

That's awesome! I know the first one I saw was with that speed craw trailer, did you stick with that or did you find something else that worked for you?

[JohnFromLisbon]

@ol'crickety @AlabamaSpothunter thank you!
 

BR is the most welcoming place on the internet, ever.

[Bankbeater]

With the high gas prices I stayed close to home this year.  I did find a lot of new ponds to fish.  Some of them produced bass and some didn't.

I managed to hit my numbers goal, which is good because with work picking back up and the weather changing I think I may have only 1 or 2 trips left.

My most productive bait was a 6" straight worm fished around vegetation. The best bite came weightless, or on a Texas rig fished on the bottom.

[scaleface]

I did great until late summer when a series of events kept me from catching bass, most notably a lot of bass died on my favorite lake . I had equipment catch on fire , fuel lines clogged and extremely windy days just kept me grounded.

[RB 77]

Well, just like so many other years recently, I did not get out nearly as much as I would have liked. However, I may have had the finest day of top water fishing for LMB ever. The highlight was a Fathers day trip with my father and we got on a 4 hour long drift of straight top water fishing. To say it was phenomenal would be an understatement. We've had better number days at this place, but I didn't put down my Sammy for 4+ hours straight...

 

Then there was the opposite end of the spectrum on a Tuna trip with my father, our buddy and my friends father. We had Tuna anywhere from appx 75 up to 150 pounds, but I was a little worse for wear due to celebrating a little too much the night before. When I should have been laying  the wood to them, I was laid up myself. Still pulled on fish, but was definitely not firing on all cylinders. So, thats my highlight and lowlight for the year. Everything else was just somewhere in between. 

[crypt]

I had a great year. I'm still above the ground.

[txchaser]

For learning, solid A. I learned a lot!

For fishing, eh, a B or B minus. Most days just seemed ... hard. I had to put in the work. Very few days where it felt easy and they'd bite nearly anything, or magically caught big fish all day. It felt like a lot of grinding hard. I guess that's why the learning got an A!

 

Learning:

1) From some time at baccarac in october of last year, I learned to get really comfortable fishing 20+ feet deep on soft plastics and jigs. That carried through the year and put me on some big fish. 

 

2) I've started to notice some subtle things about forage that have caused me to deliberately fish the "wrong lure" or the "wrong color" for the situation and the season and I've been rewarded with big fish. An example, I don't think our craws are supposed to be black and red in the late summer, but I noticed a fresh claw at the launch, and it was black and red. I resisted for a long time, and the first cast into a spot I had fished very thoroughly, but now with some red (soft plastic) I pulled up a 6+.And shades of that color basically doubled the size of the average fish for the rest of the day. I had a similar experience in a couple of lakes with very dark and muted bluegills.

In particular when the color is really divergent from a typical color forage is when I'm seeing the most keying. Size was more straightforward, just get in the range and it seemed to be ok. 

 

3) I put some time in with mid-depth crankbaits, enough to get confident. 

 

4) I learned that (at least for me) really erratic twitches/pops/burns/stops catch smaller fish. Two examples - I catch much bigger fish with a slow steady a-rig than popping it or stopping it or anything but slow and steady. Similarly, fishing cranks as slow as I can go got me bigger fish across prespawn, postspawn, and summer. 

 

5) I got on enough of a punching bite to get comfortable with the presentation, locations, and process. I'm early on the curve here, but I'm at least started, vs being frustrated about the whole thing. And given how much fishing around here is weed related, this has a big payoff potential next year. 

 

6) I'm not 100% on this but I'm pretty sure there's a real difference between on the bottom feeding down and on the bottom feeding up. Like when I can get a bite on a t-rig but it doesn't have much vigor and the fish are sort of half-way interested in it, and no real size to them. Sometimes a crank run a little above the bottom can be the deal (speed up) and sometimes a bubba shot about 1ft up (still slow, but up). 

 

7) learned that I am bad at fall in texas, at least this fall. All my instincts are backwards, and when I do the opposite of what I think I should do I catch more fish. Still can't find any big ones, but there's a lot of fall left in texas so we'll see. 

 

Fishing:

1) My five biggest fish of the year were on flatside (one pre-spawn, one mid-summer), a silent lipless, a mid-depth (4m) crank, and a chatterbait.  Lots of nice fish on "big fish" presentations, but for whatever reason these three baits were really doing well this year.  I lost two of them, but they were big enough to be unquestionably larger than most of what I caught this year.  Both losses were my fault, one boatside using someone elses net and I was too dumb to just grab the fish, and another one where my phone dinged in the middle of a jump near the boat. 

 

2) I got some other people on some really nice fish, and that was a blast. I've learned so much here so the opportunity to pass some of it on has really meant a lot to me. 

 

Experimenting: 

I think I catch more fish sitting down, regardless of bait. Maybe because I'm presenting more slowly, maybe because I'm more stealthy. Need more time to see if this is true. 

[papajoe222]

My season started out great. From ice-out until the week after Memorial Day I boated more than my share of +16in. fish. Numbers increased after the spawn, but overall size went down considerably. I don't think I boated 6 bass over 4lb. all summer.  Post Labor Day has been hit or miss for quality fish also. 8 or 10 dinks to one over 16in. was the norm. 

I put the boat away on Nov. 1 and I've had a few opportunities to do some shore fishing. I really can't complain about the last couple of weeks.  It's November and I'm still able to wet a line.

[Swamp Girl]

I caught a lot of fish, but I also got some big fish...for me...for Maine. I know they're not Texas/Florida/California-sized, but here are some of them:

 

 

[Dwight Hottle]

My largemouth season this year plain sucked. Didn't get out as much because of unfavorable weather & my trip down south was a major disappointment. On the other hand I made my first trip back to Lake Erie in three long years chasing smallmouth and was rewarded with a new PB smallie at 7.47 lbs. Halleluiah!

[gim]

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

for Maine. I know they're not Texas/Florida/California-sized, but here are some of them:

20 inchers are dandies for the north.  I only caught one that big this past season, although I probably caught 30 that were between 17-18 inches, which is still much better than the average fish up here.

 

Northern strain don't grow as big as Florida strain and the cold water limits their growth up here.  A 20 inch/5 pound bass is about 10 years old here.  I was told that directly by a Biologist at a BASS event years ago.

[Zcoker]

Killin it this year out in the glades! My last few outings saw a few 8's and 7's and one 9. Been catching giants every time I go out. Lot to say about putting in the time, learning the ropes, and narrowing things down only to get better and better at catching these bigger girls. 

[Swamp Girl]

acoker, please keep your Everglades bass in the Everglades. If you bring them north, they'll eat our biggest bass. Thank you. 

[Scott804]

Pretty good, considering the hand I was dealt. Fished a ridiculous amount of tournaments in the spring, did well in most of them. Had some good skill development too which was nice. Just wish I could've gotten out more, gas prices really stopped me from being able to fish as much as I normally do, had to go without prefishing most of the tournaments. 

[throttleplate]

I set out for 2022 to do 3 things. #1 fish rivers #2 catch smallies in river, #3 catch walleye in river. I was awarded a bonus #4 catching muskie in the river.

I succeded in all 4. To catch river smallies i inadvertinally caught walleye and muskie all on jerk baits, crankbaits and ballheaded jigs tipped with plastics and real minnows.

You will be surprised at my 2 best catches this year. I base my best 2 fish on the lure and rod i caught them on being a $15.00 berkley cherrywood med slow 7 ft with pfleuger president spinning reel, #30 braid with a # 20 lb fluoro leader.

Along with their tremendous power, pulling drag along with the difficulty and pure fun of controlling the fish in current, letting it run as to not break my line or bend out the hook to the landing of the fish and actually holding it in my hands.

The first fish in the pic i caught on a 1/4 oz ballhead jig with a pink 3inch tube. The 2nd fish, a buffalo fish was caught on a suspending jerk bait.

 

 

 

[T-Billy]

7 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

I caught a lot of fish, but I also got some big fish...for me...for Maine. I know they're not Texas/Florida/California-sized, but here are some of them:

 

 

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