Show off your fish

Smallies are an absolute HOOT! My biggest is a bit over 4#. They pull so hard and they get so PISSED!!

My local lake is 20 minutes to launch ramp for me and though we really don't have a lot of impoundments with strong small mouth populations, this one is pretty good but 4# would be considered pretty big for this place.

Watching MLF tournaments (have a local buddy that is Pro and fishes the MLF Bass Pro tour and some others) this past season and seeing the Smally catches during the spawn back in the northeast, my God...some of those were insanely huge! I can't imagine what they're like to fish! Gonna have to try some time after I get out of CA in a couple-a-few years.

 

I would hope doing tournaments you don’t lose the love of getting that hook set. Almost like work, with the pressure of catching but from sponsors if one is lucky enough to have em.
I have fam in Calif and I keep telling them to get out, so overtaxed and…well, just not run well, and I prob don’t wanna take that discussion to this thread lol

 

I fished regional bass tournaments back in the mid-to-late 90's. It was fun for a while and then all of a sudden I had the realization that it was just like work. The fun of preparation all but disappeared, the constant strategizing of how you were gonna start the day and the pressure when things change up, which it always does. For me, it completely removed the fun of getting out. I already had forms of the same stresses with my own business and certainly didn't need to add to it. Then one day, I had about $10k (in 1990's money) worth of top quality gear stolen out of my boat and though I "could have" had fun in going and replacing all that shit, it just took the life out of it. I literally quit bass fishing for well over a decade and filled the void by flying airplanes, instead.

Some guys thrive on that like my friend and make a living at it. Those guys are cut from different cloth than me.

Now I'm back at bass fishing exclusively for the fun of it. Offshore for the FOOD fun of it!

 

The top one is a black drum from Delaware Bay. It was like reeling in a bag of garbage. The second one shows my real passion...large stripers in skinny water. She hit a Xrap in 3 feet of water on light tackle.

 

https://wvdnr.gov/plants-animals/sportfish/golden-trout/

and hold off on the bbq just yet in my experience they r flavorless and mushy just like any pellet head dog food eating stock trout

 

Cool info. Definitely mutants!

 

I have been pretty successful catching carp with a piece of bread wrapped in spawn netting designed for steelhead eggs. The upside is that the bread ball won't fall off or get eaten by bluegill. I've caught multiple carp on one bread ball. This video is the first on my new youtube fishing channel.

https://youtu.be/oDEd29zA0AY

 

Best I could do for today. Cold water fish don’t give a fuck.

 

What species are you graphing there? Good marks on the bottom and looks like they're hammering on the baitfish up above.

They weren't on the chew for you?

 

I'm guessing walleye or wiper. Original plan was to troll up some rainbows since the water is cold and the walleye/wiper action usually sucks in the winter. Didn't take any bait but I'd bet a live minnow dropped down while drifting by would've done the trick.

 

What would be the possibility of getting the model on the Lowrance and some of the general settings you keep on it. We have a hook7 and reveal7 still trying to work the kinks out on. Trying to get to where we can consistently see a rapala ice jig at 90 feet deep.

 

It’s an Elite 9 ti2. I’ll try to get out in the garage after work and take pictures of the settings pages because I don’t remember what I have it setup as off the top of my head.

 

Everyone around here calls them lightning trout.

 

Errybody at the pond was tryin to catch ‘em, and this was the small one! Fun to get!

 

Some pictures from a local fishing Facebook group I'm in.

 

Some toad trout!

That gold thingy looks like a rainbow and a goldfish got jiggy wit it!

 

Amanda

Jack

 

I bass fished college tournaments and it burnt me outtt. I quit after 2 years because I was just getting tired and I don’t think I have fished more than a few times the 3 years since. My one exception is I still enjoy snagging spoonbill.