5bites

I do think fish often recover better than we give them credit for. In my experience anyway.

I have my doubts that it happens anymore now than it ever has. Less probably for reasons already discussed.

You can carry but apparently you aren't supp to on corps ramps/campgrounds. Obviously a ridiculous, intrusive, arbitrary, useless, technically illegal, law. It's the federal gov though with liberal brains in charge so it's what you'd expect. Carrying in your boat is like carrying in any other vehicle and just as justifiable and necessary as any other time.

You flat revived this one lol. But yep. Bass are tasty.

Ha very cool!

Very nice!

Probably the truest thing I've ever seen you say.

Very! We have a good time. Thanks to all for the compliments. Hopefully we have more good reports to come soon.

Ha that's awesome. I hope all goes well with the surgery! My youngest son isn't as into it as my oldest is but it's still spending time together. Having them stuck in a boat all day with you is very valuable. I imagine we will have some good talks in the boat in years to come.

That getting the house picked up and heading back is for the birds. I was having to work that jerkbait pretty hard. I'm feeling it today lol. My oldest boy was working his hardest to get the right action out of the bait. I wish I had it rigged on a 7.1 though. It was hard to keep up with the jerks while cruising down the bank with a 6.3 reel. That luck-e strike jerkbait has pretty good action. I wish they had a deeper model.

Goodness man! Sounds like you flat landed on them!

John is a wealth of prop knowledge.

More of the same today. We didn't launch till 930. Since it was the last day down we decided to get all the stuff done before leaving the cabin so we could just leave from the ramp at the end of the day. We also let the kids swim around some today so it wasn't full on hardcore fishing. Anyway they were still smashing the jerkbait. Not everywhere but I did fish anywhere today that I fished yesterday and most places I never fished before. Basically spawning areas obviously but even some steeper banks held some. More than once when my bait came past wood for a split second I thought I got to close and hung but it was a fish that came out and ate it so wood helped some but wasn't a must by no means. I bed fished a few and for whatever reason they preferred or hated the green pumpkin paca craw the most. I colored the claws orange mostly for me. Several came of beds to eat the jerkbait too. Some would follow it forever and not eat it but making repeat casts would eventually get them. The biggest of the Brady was a spawned out 19" that my oldest son caught. There was a male and female loosely guarding an area about 20' in diameter. I couldn't find a bed but they hung around. Anyway after trying to make either one of them mad by pitching around the area and the bushes they drifted in and out of they always responded to the jerkbait the best. So my son was pitching it in the area repeatedly and I watched the fish after swatting and missing finally bolt up and crush it, then the fight was on. It was pretty awesome to witness. It's why I love sight fishing so much. It's frustrating but no other time do we get to interact face to face with the fish like this and learn their personalities or watch their mood change and try to figure that specific fishes key to getting him to bite the lure well enough to hook. It's addicting to me. Anyway we had another great day.

So I finally had to ask why he decided to ditch the shoes lol. Turns out his feet were getting hot. Like I said, kids do weird stuff. Hopefully we get more pics today. We are getting a late start but that's ok. Sleeping in a little is alright too. Especially when it means getting a good breakfast.

We went back out again this evening. More of the same thing. They kept on slamming that jerkbait. It's a cruel thing that I have to go to work this week. Still no crappie though I picked it up here and there.

You darn right that's impressive! I bet that fish made his day.

We love to fish. My oldest is absolutely and totally ate up with it but my youngest enjoys it too. Just not to the same magnitude lol. We fish a tournament series on Grand called Grand Lake Anglers For Christ. Great tournament to take a kid too. I'll admit I have my days where going from tournament/competitive mode to fun/family mode can be difficult. I'm getting better though. Dads gotta grow up too I guess. Thank you for the kind words. I really appreciate it. We are a blessed family to be this close and have something to enjoy together.

I really wish I cou figure out how to catch a mess of crappie but if it's not easy I can't stick with it long. I have no idea what to do right now since they apparently aren't on the bank spawning except for that one I guess.

I never knew that. It's an experience for me. I'll for sure keep it handy from now on. I love sight fishing but never considered the jerkbait.

Ignore my boys goofy pants lol. He forgot to pack actual pants instead of shorts and it was obviously chilly this morning. This was his buzzbait fish. No goofy pants. Ignore the perch pole though. No idea why it was out. This was his bed fish. This was my youngest boys first bed fish ever. Thank goodness it can pretty quick. Carters (previous pic) took exactly an hour. No idea why his shoes are off. Kids do weird stuff.

Started this morning thinking I wanted to pick up a few crappie then migrate to bass fishing. Well we caught one crappie sight fishing of all things and then it was all bass after that lol. My son caught one on a buzzbait right off. Then I proceeded to spend waaaaaaay to much time picking on bed fish. If I think they'll eat I have a terrible time leaving no matter the size or how long it takes. I got to coach both my boys on bed fish which was cool. Eventually I picked up a jerkbait and started really getting bt good. They were blasting it. Basically I was paralleling the bushes and doing a 3-2 cadence at a pretty good clip. I saw fish leave beds upto and more the 6' to hit the jerkbait. I had many many followers that didn't eat it. I bed fished a few fish intentionally with the jerkbait. I've never seen fish be so dialed in, or run down a bait, especially off a bed like they did today. It was a learning experience for me. I had one fish in front of a dock that had no visible bed at all. I lost it twice before I finally caught it. It was hilarious watching this goofy fish run at and swipe at this bait. I'm going out again later and also tomorrow morning. I'm going to throw a spook early because I believe these same fish will eat it early. If not I'll pick up the jerkbait pretty quick. Biggest today was about 3lbs. All my fishing was up river about a mile from eagle rock. We had a good day. I hope we get another before we head back in time for evening service tomorrow night.

I don't get how things like this are generally unheard of by 99.99% of people but one has multiple instances. Maybe people pick their fights wisely, I don't know.

I also wanted to add while you are looking look into the lakemaster map cards for the lakes you like to fish.

Any chance you are selling the x15? A friend might be in the market for a good used graph.

I would suggest looking into a humminbird 859 or 899 depending on which features you really want. Universalmania.com usually has the best deals. Compare those two and see what you think.