Big M area, July 21

[Quillback]

Launched early and from 6 AM to 7 AM the fishing was great, landed a dozen bass, then after that I fished until 10 AM and I landed one more bass.  They were biting a NuTech jig and a pencil popper early.  Once the orange ball of a sun popped over the horizon it was pretty much done for me.

Gravel point was where they were, anywhere from 5 to 20 FOW.

Surface temp 83.

[Bill Babler]

Quill were these surfacing fish or did you just work them up?

Guys at the dam are catching about that number, with some chasing early the same location on crawlers. Almost all on gravel

thanks nice report and pics. 

[Quillback]

1 minute ago, Bill Babler said:

Quill were these surfacing fish or did you just work them up?

Guys at the dam are catching about that number, with some chasing early the same location on crawlers. Almost all on gravel

thanks nice report and pics. 

They were coming up chasing shad.  They were on a gravel point that you have fished a time or two.  Once that sun came up they pretty much stopped.

[m&m]

Sounds like a 7:15 am breakfast reservation could have been made and it would have been a perfect morning. Nap at 11am. 
Mike

[Dutch]

So that’s where the keepers are.  My neighbor and I fished between Cape Fair and Thompson on Tuesday.  We caught fish on plastics all day long but keepers were rare.

[Quillback]

Barely keepers.  Being mostly a fun fisherman, I'm fine with catching 13 and 14 inchers too.  Those little sub 10 inch fish are the ones I don't like, especially if they are on a treble hook lure.  

Speaking of treble hooks, I have been switching out my top water hooks to Gamakatsu Aaron Martens nano deals.  They are some SHARP hooks.  

[Dutch]

34 minutes ago, Quillback said:

Barely keepers.  Being mostly a fun fisherman, I'm fine with catching 13 and 14 inchers too.  Those little sub 10 inch fish are the ones I don't like, especially if they are on a treble hook lure.  

Speaking of treble hooks, I have been switching out my top water hooks to Gamakatsu Aaron Martens nano deals.  They are some SHARP hooks.  

We wound up catching 34 but only 2 were bonafide keepers.  A couple of others would have been measured before going back if there had been a monetary reason involved.  I’m hoping for half that today as the boss will be today’s passenger and she doesn’t fish any longer.

[liphunter]

I would prefer to catch keepers, but I get excited catching 13 and 14 inchers. I just want to feel that tug and fight. It's a bit relative. On some lakes a 13 or 14 inch is a keeper.