Weekly Bass Reports

[bassfshin24]

Thought I would start weekly reports topic on how and where people are catching their bass. 

I'll get it started. I was up at the cabin on Mille Lacs for Memorial Day. I had more family time than fishing time which I had no problem with. Although it was pretty tough watching a bass boat in front of the cabin start crushing smallies while I sat there and watched. Oh well. Sunday I went out to a little largemouth lake on the NE side of Mille Lacs and only caught dinks. This lake can be hit or miss with size and this time I missed it. Most of my fish were caught on swimjigs up shallow. I did try to look for fish on beds but it looked like all the beds were empty. I'm guessing I should have drop back to some deeper water and tried for the big post spawn females.

Monday I got on Mille Lacs at 6am and right away caught a few on topwater. Nothing big but still fun to catch. Tried for some prespawners right away and caught a nice 4.25 on a tube and a couple other smaller ones on a tube. Wind started to calm down and the rest of the day was spent bed fishing. Well I should say rest of the day since I only fished 2.5 hours in the morning and then got out for a couple hours in the afternoon on the NE side. Ended up catching a ton of fish on beds but not real big ones. I switched between a drop shot and tube for the bedding fish. Biggest 5 went 21.5lbs with big fish being 4lbs 12oz. As a bonus I was able to have my wife come out and catch a couple around 4lbs as well. All and all it was a great weekend with family and some fishing thrown in. I'll be back up on The Pond in two weeks for a 4 day weekend. Hoping some of those post spawn females start moving back in shallow to feed. Hoping for calms winds and a good topwater bite!!

Did anyone fish around the metro for largemouth? Just wondering what everyone is seeing for patterns right now. Haven't been out around here for a couple weeks. 

[Fisherman45]

Northern Metro lakes that I have gone to in the past 2 weeks have had good top water bite near emerging pads in the morning with swim jigs and wack rigged worms working later in the day. Shallow square bill cranks have been working quite well also.

[RuddyDuck]

I've been struggling in my area out this way. Just been mired in curly leaf pond weed in some of my lakes and just not finding bass on the edges of it. Caught more walleyes than bass until Sunday! Thought they were supposed to be smart.  

Finally on Sunday I tried a lake I haven't hit for awhile and finally caught some. Biggest was 18.5in. Caught them in about 3 to 5ft on t-rigged cheemo creatures and weightless senkos. Even that took me couple hours and another walleye before I found them! The curly leaf here wasn't quite so thick. The wife has been happy though, since I actually brought some fish(the eyes) home to eat. She complains about my preference for Bass and lack of fish on the table!  Hopefully this Sunday was a good omen and the fishing will continue to pick up for me. 

[mille lacs muskie bum]

Bass24 I talked to you at the access on the largemouth lake the other day. There were some nicer sized fish up in the pads tight to the bank. It was way too windy for my little boat down there but we pulled a few decent fish. If it would have been a little calmer I think it would have been good fishing. 

[bassfshin24]

Nice to meet ya Mille Lacs ski bum. I was really hoping to fish those pads but just didn't want to deal with the wind. Those pads usually have some pretty decent ones in there. 

[mille lacs muskie bum]

Yea but the pad fishing will only  get better out there. I've found at times seemingly 90% of the bass in the lake are up there. It can be a crazy bite. I think I need to explore deeper water as well. I think Texas rigging the weedlines would produce some nice fish.

[bassfshin24]

Yeah those weedlines from the boat ramp down the south side and up the west side have been great for me in the past. Had a fun little 2 boat tourney out there last summer and the other boat caught about 5 fish total and me and my brother caught around 30-40 with biggest 5 being 18.5lbs haha. Swimjigs were money that day. 

[thatoneguy]

Had a really rough tournament on Leech on Sunday. The weather forecasters whiffed (badly) on the wind...water was so rough that we weren't able to fish the stuff we wanted, and we were too far down in the boat draw to have a shot at the smallies that inevitably won the tournament. We ended up fishing an area that I had found in practice that had huge numbers of fish with some really good ones mixed in with the little bucks...except by tournament day, all the big ones had vacated the area and we couldn't find em.

We scrambled around, and right at the end of the day found a good area that I think will be solid early in the season every year...a HUGE bedding area...literally dozens of beds. The only bummer is that the beds were almost all empty. Still, we had a really nice flurry in the last half hour of the day and caught all of our keepers in the same area in a 30-minute span. Tough to not make a check (or even come close) on the water I know best, but it was good learning for the future.

Most of the fish came on swim jigs until the wind laid down just a bit and the sun came out for a short while - then the frog bite went nuts.

[NELS-BELLS]

Last Saturday afternoon I took my son and daughter bass fishing on a small central Mn lake.  We could see bass cruising in the shallows but they spooked at pretty much everything you cast at them.  We tried swim baits, wacky rigged senkos, jig worms, jerk baits, you name it.  We caught some on various baits but my daughter kicked our butt's with one of those pre-rigged Lew's worms reeled real slow.  I'll have to add a few more of those to my arsenal for early season.

Nels

 

Edited June 2, 2016 by NELS-BELLS

[rascal23]

Went to Sturgeon Bay last week for the first time. We didn't get as many big fish as we would have liked, but we learned some stuff for next time. Since being back, we fished Green both pre-fishing and Wed. night GH tournament.  Keitech and skinnydipper swimbaits have been working best inside weedline with a few bigger fish outside the pondweed on t-rigged pitboss.

   Nels,  Great photo!  Nice to see some of those old school baits getting used and working. Might have pull have to pull my        "Bill's scented worm"  out of bait storage land and get it wet for a while.

[grab the net]

Went Mille Lacs for first time to fish smallies on Thursday.  Steady action from 6am til we left at 3:30.  Jerkbaits were the ticket in am with light rain and cloud cover.  After the sun finally came out hair jigs were the most consistent producer.  We had 4 over 5 lbs. biggest being a 5.87.  Got my personal best a 5.24.  I was surprised by how many eyes we caught.  Couple of dandies.  Saw some late beds and picked off a few, but most beds held Rockies.  Lots boats in the area we fished. Saw joe Thomas and Scott Bonnema filming a show for Stihl Outdoors.  Talked to them for a minute.  At first thought it may have been an UMF deal they were fishing in that wrapped boat with the red line.  We probably caught somewhere in neighborhood of 50 smallies and a dozen eyes.  So a great day.  Learned a lot from my partner who has been there before.  

[M1dwestF1sh]

Fished the Minnetonka classic yesterday, prefished Thursday and Friday. Caught all the fish I could ever want but only found four fish over 3lbs. Thorne bros guys won it with 25+ pounds, their biggest fish was 3.9lbs so that means all there fish were pretty much the same size. My guess is they got a school fired up on some weedline.

[bassfshin24]

Well finally made it out in the metro last night and it was on fire! Fish were schooled up on weedlines in 8-10ft and crushing a DT10. Probably ended up with 40 fish with the biggest being 3.75lbs. Lost one around 4lbs at the boat the very next cast. There was one spot where I had to have caught at least 20-25 fish off of. Would run a crankbait through there and catch a bunch and once that slowed down I would throw a t-rig pitboss, jig, and dropshot and start getting hammered again. The green milfoil is looking great right now and fish are starting to move out to their summer spots. I planned on fishing docks and topwater but ran into some deep weeds right away and started getting bit so I never even went shallow. Anyone else get out last night? 

[Craigums]

2 hours ago, bassfshin24 said:

Anyone else get out last night? 

I did 

[RuddyDuck]

Yes. Nothing too crazy, about dozen, but thats counting 12-13inchers.Biggest of the night was 17.5in. Got one on a frog and the rest on d-bombs. Oh and about 6 or more pike. They were going mad after horny toads, kinda funny watching them miss the same frog 4 times! Hey, it beat mowing the lawn or weeding the garden.

[Craigums]

All of the fish I caught yesterday were in the 14-16' range. Jigworm, grubworm and 3/4oz grass jig

[thatoneguy]

Got out on Trout on Tuesday evening for a couple of hours, and decided to see if the smallies were ready to eat Spooks yet. Caught a dozen or so fish, biggest around 3 lbs, all on a bone Spook except one that ate a tube. 

TONS of halfhearted blow-ups... fish that just didn't quite commit. I think by the weekend the topwater bite should be rockin' and I will be able to pile em up

I was fishing a sand/rock point that drop from a 2-4' flat sharply into 12', with a second break nearby that goes into 30+'.

[rkhinrichs]

Edited June 16, 2016 by rkhinrichs

[rascal23]

On WBL,  swimbaits and jig/trickworm, 9-11 ft, inside weedlines on structure. Lotta 10-16" LM and 1 big, "kicker" smallie.    Windy. Stood on the trolling motor most of the evening.  Sure was thinking about having spot-lock.

[sicheneder]

I guess I have totally missed the mark on the bite is spring.  I was out on wbl last night as well and it was a butt kicking.  Tried to pitch foil for postspawners, but only caught one.  I did make it out there a before memorial day(wbl) and was surprised by how many smallies were on beds.  Biggest was about 3lbs.  Lots of small male and cruising fems. 

 

I also fished a lake this week and  was surprised to see little packs of postspawn females patrolling the inside weedlines.  The one good one I did catch was a postspawn cruiser.  I have been surprised at how slowy it has taken the fish this spring to move out deeper.  I has been a learning experience thou.  Same thing going on on Green lake derby last week in Chisago.

[RuddyDuck]

Anyone out last night?

I got out in the evening. Tried some deeper water, but only got a 2lber on a carolina rig in about 16ft. Switched to about 8-9ft and finally broke 20" this year! Too bad it was on a diet and was just shy of 4lb. Go figure. Got that one a big grass jig with grasspig trailer.  

Edited June 21, 2016 by RuddyDuck

[thatoneguy]

Welp, I was right in my post from last week that the topwater bite was about to heat up! Saturday was straight bananas throwing spooks for smallies. I quit counting fish in the 50s, probably ended up somewhere in the low 60s fishing from 6am til just before noon. First stop was a rocky point with a gravel/rock flat extending out. OK action there, but not much size. Humps/sunken islands more in the main lake turned out to be the hot ticket. Once I get back from Canada (if I remember) I will put up some pics and maybe a little video.

Friday I'm heading to Leech to chase green fish before departing for Lake Savant. Good luck to all!

[Juan Grande]

I was off work the past week so I got out fishing 4 times.  Had a two day trip up to Mille Lacs planned for my 40th Bday, but had to cancel due to high winds. Is it me or has this summer been extremely windy so far?

 Fished a couple local lakes this past week and did well with swim jigs with a paddle tail trailer.  Also got fish on t-rigged worms and bluegill pattern lipless cranks pulled over emerging coontail beds.  Fished a new lake with milfoil that had a hard weed edge in about 10' and did pretty well pitching Havoc Pit Bosses to the edge. Got some fish on swim jigs along the edge as well.  

I haven't fished swim jigs much until this year, but it's a fun way to get them.  Very versatile depending on your retrieve and the fish just crush them when they hit.  I love the fish that hit on the initial fall, so much fun.  I had a 3 1/2 pounder hit my swim jig boatside last weekend. Scared the heck out of me as he hit as I was pulling the bait out of the water. Must have followed it all the way back to the boat. 

 

[RuddyDuck]

Not you, always seems to be windy when I go out too!

[rascal23]

Been fishing swimbaits more this year myself. It's splitting time with the squarebill, mostly on a jig, but sometimes t-rigged if the weeds are really thick. So far, I like the Keitech fat or BPS speed shad. Also Skinny and Little Dipper.  Pricey plastic, but super glue to the jighead makes them last a lot longer.