Quillback

Nice looking fish!

Just hooked up the boat, I'll be heading that way in about 15 minutes...

Way to go Darren! Weights are higher this year than last.

I had on long underwear, and two hoodies, never took anything off all day until we got the boat on the trailer. That dang north wind never quit.

Good stuff Hammer, I have about 10 bags of Zoom Lizards, I need to start throwing them on that c-rig. Next week I'll have one rigged.

Kind of a tradition with Jerry. I didn't want to call him out.

Dang Jerry, you guys put a whoopin' on them!

Seen it plenty of times on cold water largemouth, but I don't think I've ever seen it on a smallie. The bios say that it is some kind of pigment thing. Harmless to the fish.

Met Muddy Water (Robert) at the launch at 7 AM. A bit cold with a brisk north wind blowing. Things started off slowly, fished a gravel point for one short fish and moved up lake to a smaller cove. Abut halfway back into the cove some schooling fish started to bust on the surface, sure looked like whites, but we moved within range and made some casts. We could not get them to hit the Plopper or a Yellow Magic, but did get a couple on a grub and a couple on the Ned - turned out they were black bass. They were up for about 5 minutes and stopped. Fished that cove and several other spots, not much going on, we managed a few shorts, picking up one here and there. Made a move down lake, picked up a few on a rocky bank, couple in the back of a cove - then on a windy bank about a third of the way into a cove started getting bites on the wobble head with a Strike King Structure Bug in green pumpkin. Getting bites, but I could not keep one on to save my life. Missed 1/2 dozen bites on that bank, and a couple that I had on for a second or two were solid fish. Just could not stick them. We moved again to another rocky bank, right off the bat I missed another 3 or 4 bites, I was getting a tad frustrated - then all of a sudden I was sticking them, caught about 10 or so on that one bank, no bigguns, but several keepers and a mix of smallies, spots, LM's and one keeper sized mean. Robert meanwhile was throwing several baits at them but hardly getting a bite - they wanted that Structure Bug and nothing else. We pounded that stretch until we could get no more bites, then moved again. We were back to just a few fish here and there for the rest of the day. Got to the last bank we were going to fish, and I got a nice smallie on a Ned, she was right on the bank, and gave me all I could handle on the light rod. She was just shy of 4 lbs. Best fish of the day. We caught about 40 total, maybe a half dozen keepers. Mainly wobble head and Ned fish, with a couple on the grub. Water temp was 53-54 no matter where we went and stained green.

If I'm out on the lake and a storm is rolling in, I'll be checking out the docks for an empty stall. Most normal human beings that are slip owners aren't going to have a problem with people taking shelter during a storm. I do avoid the ones that have signs that read something like this:

Did you weigh that spot in the 2nd pic? It looks to be a TANK! Congrats on some great fish!

There's a couple of different approaches you can take now, go for numbers, or go for size. If you want numbers of 12-16" fish, it is hard to beat the Ned rig right now, little finesse jigs are also working well, match your tackle to the fish and you can have a lot of fun. You'll still have a shot at a couple of bigger fish even with the Ned. If you want to go for size, well that's always a bit more of a challenge, if you saw Bill Babler's latest report, he has been throwing big jigs, cranks, wobble head, and maybe a paddle tail bait here and there. There also appears to be a bit of a top water bite developing. Good luck, and I look forward to hearing how you do.

I'll send you a PM thumbs. My neighbor got into some this weekend, but I can't post his spot in public.

Foggy here this morning, but it looks to have burned off - I think I'll go over to one of the Bella Vista lakes and do a bit of fishing.

Couple of nice fish!

Finding an original WW is pretty cool.

Some TANKS!

Looking good!

Congrats on some nice fish!

It's been years since I caught some of those jacks, but I remember them as being crazy hard fighters.

Seems to have been a early bite, look at Bfergs report, they got on them early also. But who knows, tomorrow might be a later bite.

Nice ones, that first fish looks like a meanmouth to me. Bass are pretty tough fish, I doubt that laying them on the carpet, especially this time of the year, is going to do any permanent damage. I'd bet a dollar that when you lifted those fish off the carpet, you didn't see any slime left on the rug. With big, heavy fish that flop around, yeah I could see potential for harm, but I bet those fish in your pics are swimming around doing fine right now.

Excellent, those are some great fish!

I wanna be on the list too...

Some nice quality fish there, fun to get on the buzzer I am sure. I've been thinking about throwing the wacky worm myself, maybe next week.