What's Working Now?Fishing Reports.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Awesome, glad I was able to help out! .. Keep that in your pocket now, it doesnt work all the time, but it will put a lot of fish in the boat for sure.

[Slyster]

Deitz.. is color really important? I mean REALLY? If you switched to a totally different color... would your hot bite of just stopped? Or perhaps only slowed a bit.

[Fishin4Life]

I find color makes a world of difference. Even with plastics and such. I will get absolutly no strikes on say a black or dark blue comida, then switch to greenish or brown and wamo, two fish in two casts.

Is it forsure the color, I spose it might not be, maybe I did a slower retreive after the switch, maybe I changed up something else, But I find that a color change will likely trigger or turn off the bite.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Do I feel color is important?... Sure.. not the most important thing in the world, I think presentation is most important. but a great presentation and a bad color you will still catch fish.. maybe not as many as you could have or would have.. but a great color lure with a bad presentation and you arent getting any fish!

[Tyler Holm]

I’ve been doing well with topwater presentations. The Rapala Skitter Pop #9 in the blue/orange color pattern as well as firetiger. The closer you can get to the weed edge, the better. We’ve found many fish taking cover under lillypads, and if you can get the Skitter Pop right next to the pad, your chances are greatly increased. Low light periods produce most fish.

Last time out I brought with a few Moss Boss lures and I had a blast with these. The brighter colored ones seemed most productive. The chartreuse did best. The hookup percentage isn’t as good as the skitter pop, but the boils are every bit as fun.

I’ve also been trying Spuros, Scum Frogs, and other weedless frogs and have been generating some bites from those. I’ve also found the hookup percentage on these is sometimes frustrating.

[Captain B.R.K]

Dietz- Saturday was probably the best ever for me with bassin'! Fishing was fantastic!

Here are some pic's:

Me and largie

BKLIMEK and I with a pair of dandy largies

BKLIMEK with a nice one

[Matt Johnson]

I took my cousin and one of my good friends out fishing for a few hours this evening. We found a consistent bass bite in about 8-11 feet of water along a thick weed line.

I was working a 3/16oz brass bullet-weight with a red bead and a 5/0 Mustad worm hook with an Exude Sand/Black, Red, Gold Flake Comida. Worked great for pitching the deeper weeds and keeping things weed-free. The fish were fairly aggressive and oftentimes bit on the fall.

My cousin was working an Exude Red Bug B-A-Hawg on a 4/0 hook and a pegged weight. He slow-worked the B-A-Hawg over the deep weeds and managed a few largies.

My friend threw a white spinner-bait and landed his fair-share of bass and pike. He was throwing shallower, up into about 5-6 feet for his fish.

A beautiful evening to be on the water!

Looks like the warm weather is going to take-hold again this week...

[Deitz Dittrich]

Here is how the fishing was for me the last few days....

Agape and Me.

[Tyler Holm]

Today I went with a Christmas Tree colored (watermelon seed) Exude Comida and I’ve found a new favorite bait. The fish absolutely pounded this plastic bait. In fact, one fish hit the thing so hard that my rod make the dreaded creeking sounds (the sound it makes right before it snaps into pieces). Well, the rod stayed together and at the end of the day, I can honestly say my wrists were a bit sore. Those bucketmouths would hit the Comida with aggression and there was no fooling around once they got hooked.

[Fishin4Life]

Tyler, watch out, I think I saw the hint of a smile in one of those photo's.

nice fish! I love all exude produces, but have also found success with the watermelon color. And also other greenish type colors.

[DeBo101]

I thought I read some where that some of the guys on here are over the 300 mark. Nice Work! I am sitting at the 221 mark and I have had some pretty decent fishing.

The fish continue to bite for me in the heaviest pads/weeds/reeds that I can find. One of these days I am gonna have to force myself to try some lakes with a good deep bite.

Good luck to those who brave the heat this weekend. A couple of the college bro's are coming up this weekend and we plan to fight the heat by going to the big city and tipping back cold ones while checking out all the scantily clad Mpls ladies.

[Deitz Dittrich]

I'm braving the heat this weekend... Going to mille lacs area(not sure if I will be fishing mille lacs at all, depends on the winds and such...then heading to Gull Lake chain for a few days.. will be back around tueday evening I think.

as of today.. bass total 357

[Mr. Pike1]

I will do a quick 6:00-9:00 am run in the morning at the lake by my house. Dietz is pulling away from the crowd. I am at 327

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Fished early today 530-10am. Tried shallow right away but quickly ruled that out as an viable option. moved out to the first good break and threw cranks and carolina rigs. Final tally was just 5 bass boated biggest being roughly 19" but many more threw the bait. Also picked up 4 decent northerns.

[Duffman]

You guys put up some numbers, I'm going to have to try and keep track next year. I'd guess that I average about 5-6 fish per outing, but I'm usually going for quality over quantity. The tally was 14 for the two of us last Thursday, including two 18"ers, three 19ers" and two 20"ers. Best day of the year so far. Over the past three years Craig has caught a dozen or so bass over 19", but he finally topped the 20" mark, on the first cast of the day no less.

My bass came in at 20 1/4", but it was probably 1/2 lb less in weight than Craigs 20" pig.

Than I went up north and caught a 26" and 27" fish this weekend.

Oops, wrong forum, sorry bass guys. lol

[ocf]

wow sounds like you got yourself in a mess of pigs

[ikeslayer]

Tyler

Were you fishing around roch??? Those are pretty big for these parts. ike

[st.crioxfishin]

I was out on a north east metro lake last weekend and was still having plenty of success in the shallows. Ended up with 14 some lbs for 5 fish. Jigs and Frogs in the cattails, reeds, and pads seemed to work best. The dock bite was off at least for me. Got fish throughout the whole day despite the warm weather.

[OnTheWater]

Went out yesterday after the rain on a southwest metro lake. Fished docks, rocks, and timber for a few hours with only a few on jigs. Found out the ticket was on the 12ft weedline using a baby brush hog on a jig.

[Matt Johnson]

I made it out this morning for a few hours with a friend of mine who was in town for the weekend. We found most of our aggressive fish holding to the docks. The deeper fish were schooled up but were smaller. All our fish over 2.5 came off docks while skipping a Rootbeer/Green, Copper Flake Exude Comida on a 2/0 Finesse Wide Gap hook...

The wind picked up around 8am, but up until then we landed a few fish on buzzbaits working the edges of the lilypads. My friend sure got a kick out of that!

We tried cranks out deeper in hopes of picking up a few fish on the sunken humps, but only pike were found. All the deeper bass came of weed lines...

[Ralph Wiggum]

I made it out this morning on the Upper Mississippi with a few friends in search of some quality smallmouth bass. We didn't have a great day, but we boated a fair number of fish.

The day started nice and early as we launched the boat as soon as there was enough light to see. The water was extremely low so navigation was a challenge. I missed my first fish of the morning on a Rebel Pop-R, but followed it up on the next cast with our biggest of the day at about 5:45 am.

We didn't take any measurements, but estimated it at 18-19 inches. I landed my Pop-R right next to a nice boulder under an overhanging tree, and the fish took it before I even gave it a twitch.

After working that area for a while, we moved to a rip-rap bank and continued to work our Pop-Rs down the bank. We connected with a decent number of fish and missed on our fair share, too. Soon, the clouds gave way to sun and the wind kicked up, for the most part killing our topwater bite. The majority of our fish came off of the rip-rap bank. We had one more that was in the 18 inch range with the rest in the 12-16 inch range. Regardless, they were a blast on topwater

The rest of the morning, we threw tubes and creature baits. We started on the rip rap shore, then a broken trolling motor cable forced to drift fish elsewhere. We ended up finding some remarkably clear water and sight fishing, which was awesome to say the least. We didn't get too many fish this way, but it was great to be able to watch the fish browsing amongst the boulders (my new Costa Del Mars were awesome ).

All in all, it was an excellent experience as I look forward to learning new waters all the time. I learned a few new things about smallmouths and caught some beautiful fish in the process.

[jackfish]

Deitz

I just posted a question about Shakey Jigging. It is a new technique I guess. Well new to me. Bagley's has produced them for presenting longer worms. (hence, you would like to fish more worms, I would like to fish more cranks, I usually worm) Anyway, I had just a couple of these jigs and tried the system out. Fantastic results working weedlines and midrange rockpiles for smallies. Check bagleybait item #32 on the table on contents. Shows you how to work them too. It must be a great new technique because G.Loomis has produced a rod just for shakey worming.

Jackfish

[Deitz Dittrich]

Jack- Shakey jig fishing has been around for many years, its just a modification of a a Jig/Worm.. the only real change they have made in the last year that has gained popularity is they are using more of a stand up head and changed the retrieve some..

And your right.. its a great way to catch bass...

[Corey Bechtold]

As little as I get to chase Bass, the Spinnerbait is always a safe bet for an occasional fish...

Also, while fishing Panfish, Bass seem to be in the same areas as or targeted species...

Cole caught this fish on a Berkley Power Tube

Like a really wise person said at a seminar I attended, "Bass are curious by nature, and since they don't have hands the only way for them to pick something us is to use their mouths."

We'll see if I stumble into some more Bass this weekend.

Good luck,

Corey Bechtold

[Deitz Dittrich]

Quote:

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"Bass are curious by nature, and since they don't have hands the only way for them to pick something us is to use their mouths."

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Hmm, I wonder who said that?