Bass fishing today

[SawyerTed]

If there's not a well used Zebco 33 in a closet, garage, attic or out building somewhere standing next to two or 3 cane poles, you were spoiled as a kid!  

I have a buddy who buys every Zebco 33 he can find.  He loves them, they make him happy when he catches fish with one. 

[Old Greenhorn]

If there is ever a FF Fishing Project I am sharing a boat with Jake. We can both take our antiquated gear and a 12 pack and have a good time without trying to sink the boat with fish.

 When I was a little kid, my Grandmother would sit in a chair on the after deck of the boat while everyone else was fishing with their fancy gear. She had a 2 section bamboo Snapper pole and a bait pail. While all the others were changing lures and bait all day, she would quietly fill her 5 gallon pail(s) with snappers and blow fish as she pulled in one after the other. Bamboo pole, no reel, cotton twisted line with a mono leader, and a little twist of lead foil was all she had.

 My son took his boys with their Cub Pack up to our local Scout Camp this weekend. Since COVID hit there has virtually no use of the camp in 5 years for several reasons. They are now reviving the camp. Anyway, the lake at the camp has been left on it's own with no pressure. It used to be a great place for kids to learn to fish and had a lot of panfish and a few bass. All catch and release. Saturday, on his first cast, my son pulled out a 5-3/4 pound Large Mouth, which we believe to be a camp record by a long shot.

[caveman]

We got the boat in and started fishing around 930 this morning.  My grandson had already boated two or three before I got my stuff rigged.  When I did start fishing, I was using a weedless chatterbait.  I missed the first eight fish that hit and then I cut the weed guards off and caught about half that hit.  I switched it to an Evo chatterbait and started catching almost all that hit.  

My grandson caught bass on a Texas rigged worm, jigs and a chatterbait today.  I caught them on a chatterbait, Berkley Bulldog crankbait, worm, jig, and a chugbug.  His casting is getting much better, but he still has a long way to go.  His thumb is raw from holding fish.  I don't think we caught any much over three pounds, but most punched above their weight and were fun to catch.  He napped on the way home.

A few pics of some of his fish.


reeling one in

We got a double.  I think his was bigger.

[TroyC]

That smile says it all!

[YellowHammer]

Yeah, that is so cool to see the "fishing smile!"
 
I remember when I was really "in" to bass fishing, wide open, hardcore fishing, dawn to dusk, tournaments, all that stuff, and my Dad would come along some times.  He had good tackle for the day, Ambassadors, Diawa's stuff like that, but once he slipped in an old ZebyCo 33 rod combo into the boat without me seeing it, because he know I would make him leave it, as I was "too good" to have that junk in the boat.  So I started  giving him ALL kinds of trash talk, and even said if he puts the rod down, I would throw it in the lake, because I was too embarrassed to have it in the boat.  What would happen if one of my "fishing buddy's" drove by and saw it?  So he says he's going to fish with it the whole day....of course...well real quick, he realized that the 1:1 coffegrinder retrieve wasn't good for crankbaits and spinnerbaits, so he put on a plastic lizard and fished it the whole day.   He never put the rod down, even while we were eating lunch,  It was hilarious!  And just like any bad TV script, he caught the big fish of the day, on the "spaghetti rod."  I learned a lesson that day.  Karma can be a you know what!

Fast forward 30 years, Dad and I we were out on the ccean snapper fishing, and he had a very nice, but undergunned Penn 5500 spinning reel and rod, and although he caught some small snapper, he couldn't ever get anything decent into the boat, as they would pull drag, bend the rod over and he couldn't do anything but watch them go deep and break off.  So in my most diplomatic fashion (not), I suggested he put up the toy and use a real rod, because there were necessary when "combat" snapper fishing.  He finally agreed after he lost some more lost fish, and he had a great time from then on, and when we got home, said he wanted a new rod and reel for Christmas.

Then, and @customsawyer can attest, a few yeaqr later, the exact same thing happened to my Brother in Law, he brought his favorite but undergunned catfish rod to the Gulf, saying it could land anything out there.  So on that trip, Jake shows up, we hop in the boat and head out about 30 or 35 miles, and I put us on a monster snapper spot, because I wanted Jake to catch a decent fish or two, and they were biting!  Well, my BIL was still using his "catfish pole" as he calls it, and while we were catching monsters, he would drop down a live bait the size of a crappie, set the hook, start reeling, and stand there and watch his line peel off, full drag (which wasn't much, maybe 30 lbs) while Moby Dick would take him to the bottom structure and break him off.  Time and time again, it was inevitable, and a I hate to say it, pretty comical, because it was fish after fish. So we started giving him a hard time, and I offered one of my rods and nope, he was too stubborn to take it.  He would just tie on a new rig, send it down, set the hook, start fighting and then, like clockwork, watch the reel unspool and break off.  It went on ALL day, beyond belief, but pride will do it, and me and Jake just kept whacking and stacking, hooting and hollering "I got a whopper" and "Look at the size of that fish!" and "Let's get another!"  Meanwhile, it got quieter and quieter in the bow of the boat, and we looked and my BIL had put his rod down and was steaming hot!  He was so mad, he had stopped fishing!  So I tried to be sociable and asked since he was probably out of hooks, if he wanted some of mine.  Wow, he really got hot at that, but it was fun.  He never did get a monster in the boat, for the whole trip!  Jake can back me up on that.  Of course, as is always the case, the next year, his kids asked me to held them Christmas shop for him, because he told them he wanted a new rod and reel, a "saltwater one" and was too embarrassed to ask me.  Here's Jake with one of the snappers, and yes, they were all that big.  

[caveman]

I like catching bass, but anything that ends in snapper pushes the buttons for me.  I hope you or your BIL had some sunscreen for Jake's legs.  They came out with the gulf snapper dates recently.  I hope to get out there some.  The last few years I've had other stuff going on.

[customsawyer]

Yes Sir, we had a lot of fun that weekend. Had to come back to the mill to get some rest. Heck I got so tired I even drove the boat a little and let Robert have at them.

[caveman]

I took this incredible family fishing yesterday morning and this morning.  They caught a lot of fish and caught some good fish.  I've caught thousands of speckled perch (Crappie for you Yankees) but have never caught any on a big crankbait.  Here are a few of the fish they caught that I felt were worthy of pictures.
  
We have been dry as a bone for months.  The monsoonal rains are finally coming.  They will make the grass grow and the fishing better, but they do pose problems on our trips.   We have to follow a weather app and shutdown outdoor activities based on lightning strikes.  I had a 3pm fishing trip cancelled due to weather.  I picked up a 2pm clays trip that we finally got to take at 5pm.  We got most of the way through it when another thunderstorm rolled in and sent us scurrying.  





They had a triple a few times today, but I could not take a pic due to the wind and unhooking mayhem.

One on the front hook and one on the back.  Two of the plugs they used today need to have new hooks.

Caught on a popping frog around 10 am.

The patriarch got one on a chatterbait.

I think this one came on the last cast of the day on a whacky rigged Z-man worm.

[Jeff]

Kyle, my dad called crappies "specs"

[WV Sawmiller]

   We called the Chinkapins (Chinkiepins?) where I grew up. My uncle used to fish on the Suwannee River and would talk about specs and I thought he was talking about speckled trout down in the Gulf.

[caveman]

We usually just call them specks or specs as well.  Regardless, it'll be next Sunday before I go back down there.  

[Magicman]

Perch or White Perch here with no differentiation between White & Black Perch.

In Louisiana they are called Sac-a-lait which I reckon is a French word.

[caveman]

Yesterday, three of us went fishing for recreation.  I did not get any pictures.  At one time, I had a 5lbr on and my friend had one on that was quite a bit bigger.  Our lines got tangled and his fish came off.  I would have liked to have gotten a picture of us holding large bass.  We've been friends since we were nine or 10 years old and I don't think we have ever had a picture taken together.

Another friend, lost one that got around the trolling motor shaft that was north of 8 lbs.  I got a look at it and was awaiting his approval to raise the motor.  I was a tired boy when we got home.  A thunderstorm blew up around 2pm and we loaded the little Tracker boat in the rain and headed home after seven hours of catching.  We fished two separate pits, and combined, caught over 130 bass.

The second pit we fished was phenomenal.  I'd only fished it briefly once with my grandson back in the winter.  After a few minutes, we pulled out of there due to the filament algae that I was constantly having to help get off of his baits.  

It was worth the hassle yesterday.  We caught them on topwater, crankbaits, worms and chatterbaits.  I thought I had a monster bass on a worm.  It hit like a bass, and I could tell it was huge.  When I got it to the boat, it turned out to be a softshell turtle with a shell about 20" across.  Unfortunately, my new-to-me Spiralite 7'2" heavy action rod shattered while I was trying to unhook the savage beast.  Regardless, it was a day I'll remember until my brain completely fails me, or I die.  I was hoping JMoore was going to accompany us, but he wanted to spend time with his boy.  I can't fault him for that.

[WV Sawmiller]

Kyle,

    Softshell turtles are really good eating but they are fast if you drop one in the boat.

[caveman]

I've eaten softshell turtles.  They taste a bit like chicken, but a little tougher.  Heck, I've even eaten sea turtles down in the keys, before that was taboo.  I have not been to the keys in over 30 years.

I have a couple of friends who are now deceased that have told me manatees (sea cows) are really good to eat.  There are 50 x more people here than years ago going after the same resources.  Things get tighter.  I saw on FB today that the most dangerous invasive species in our area is the out of state real estate developer.  Apartments and storage places are springing up like weeds.

My maternal GP owned 100 acres over near where Cape Canaveral is now.  He bought it for $0.50 an acre and sold it for $1.00 and thought he did well.  This was back in the 1930's.  He used to get sea turtle eggs out of nests for breakfast.  That land is over $1 million an acre now, easily. 

[aigheadish]

Man, 50 cents an acre is bonkers. 

[WV Sawmiller]

Dad worked with a guy who talked about somebody trying to sell him land down around Panama City Fla for 50 cents an acre but he looked at it and it was old pore sandy beach property and he knew you could not grow anything there so he turned it down