June Bass Fishing Report (what's working now)

[Ray Esboldt]

Add your June reports right here.

[SluggoMaster]

All fish the last two days were on the outside weed edge, 10 feet of water. They are very much post-spawn now.

[Corey Bechtold]

5" Berkley Powerbait Jerkshads fished in heavy cover. Un-weighted with a 2/0 hook. 7' Meduim (Series One)rod with a fast tip and a reel spooled with Fireline. Fish were in less than 4' of water and hit while walking the dog or sliding the bait through the weeds. Some hits were aggressive while some were subtle. Paying attention to the small details helped locate the fish and detect bites.

Good fishing,

Corey Bechtold

[bgreen82]

what lb. fireline do you use for that kind of cover?

[dave12341234]

are they post spawn up in the marcell area too?

[Corey Bechtold]

14lb Fireline.

Good fishing,

Corey Bechtold

[Standard]

Those jerkshads are awesome, they were working great for me last weekend. Hopefully will do the same tomorrow.

[TurnUpTheFishing]

I love 'em too. I just wish they didnt discontinue the old style for the more expensive new ones. Glad I had a good stockpile.

[Mr. Pike1]

That is excellent to see the report on the Jerk shads. I have some in the top of my box that I always plan on trying but then I go to the senko or tube.

Cory's report has forced me to give them a shot. I will be on Vermillion Friday-Sunday. For the smallies there I have my top 5 and 50 fish days have been the norm. However if I struggle the Jerk shad is going to get the call from the bullpen to toss a few.

[Mr. Pike1]

Well after seeing cyberfish in his kayak and float tube I decided to pick up a kayak for fun for some metro bass and panfishing.

I have learned a few things.

-Bringing four pre-rigged poles and a little bag of extra tackle is kind of to much gear.

-Pulling hard to get a rod free from the inside of the kayak and it breaking lose causes force that could capsize a guy.

-Hanging your spinner bait of the front of the kayak can lead to your bait hooking the front pull string and really nothing you can do.

-Having to go to the bathroom while a mile away from the access presents a unique challange.

-Hearing thunder and seeing storm clouds again presents a unique situation. In my boat I can run and gun to the access in minutes. In the Kayak that time increases dramatically.

-Bigger bass, pike, or musky really can be interesting battle. After being pulled around a bit there is a skill in bringing the larger fish in to be unhooked and released.

-Wind sucks while fishing in a kayak just like it sucks when in your big boat.

The report:

I again fished primarily Mepps spinner, buzz bait, spinner bait, senko, tube, and x-rap on the inside weedline and docks.

The dock bite has always been my prefered and favorite bass fishing but I have struggled to turn on a consistant senko or tube bite. The inside weedline again produced many fish but the smaller males 16" and under.

I will be on Vermillion at the cabin this weekend and hope to have consistant 50 fish days on the senko, tube, small crawfish cranks, and little torpedo spinners that have all been excellent the last three years up there around the docks. I also am hoping to tangle with that 22" football smallie that spit me right at dusk in a calm bay just outside a wooded dock post last year. Oh I know the wooded post and you can bet it will get hit a few times at dawn and dusk with a senko and a tube. A little knocking on the door if you will to see if Mr. pig smallie is home and wishes to come out and play. So hopefully it will be mono y fishmono...

What I have to watch out for is the pesky 50" musky that are begining to inhabit my smallie waters. Last year I saw 20-30 in the bays on calm mornings and got busted off more times then I can count by these bruts who destroyed my senko and tubes on 6 lb mono.

I did land two musky last year. One on a senko that I was not prepared for and surprised I could land on light tackle and one I was prepared for as I saw him in the shallows, tossed my monster spinner on my musky pole with 60lb test line and landed the 50" monster....

[ocf1]

Had my first tournament on clearwater sat. Got dead last, oh well, there is always a better tommorow, sounded like the fish were in the reids that had deep water 5-10 feet away, senkos were hot i heard also. I'm gunna get another go at this lake for the junior state tourny.

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Got out early saturday morning and found good schools of fish off shore. Some of the midlake structure that didnt produce anything last weekend produced several 19", a 20", plus several other fish. several fish came on t-rigged worms but cranks produced best since they were easier to fish with the high winds. Either the fish are just moving out to summer spots or the big females are coming out of the post spawn blues.

[Juan Grande]

Wish I had the same success to report. Hit Mille Lacs for some smallie action around 8 AM and stayed out until 2:30 or so.

Saw some nice fish on the shallow rocks, but couldn't get them to bite. We fished rocks in about 3' - 10' of water and tried senkos, tubes, cranks, spinners, topwaters, etc.

At the end of the day we spent $40 in gas and came up with zero fish. Are the smallies deeper right now or what? Most say thare rocks are the ticket, but we couldn't buy a fish and we threw everything at them.

Sorry for complaining, but six hours and no fish doesn't do a lot for the confidence.

Any tips on what we could have done differently?

[MedicineMan]

I decided to head out to my favorite lake saturday morning. The lake was packed with boats because of a club Bass tourny going on. Fishing was pretty decent, not a ton of fish but the fish were good sized. Here are some pics:

[TNFL]

Got out to Blue Friday with the wife, fishing was a little slow but we managed 8 bass. Tried some pads for a while with little luck. The few fish we did get were kind of on the outside of the pads near submerged coontail/pondweed/cabbage mixes. After the wind died down we moved out to try a point weedline. She caught one with a stupid-rig senko, and I caught one with a shakey-head senko 10 to 11 feet deep.

On Saturday, I went to George from 9 am - 11 am. Couldn't get anything, not even a snot rocket. Tried the reeds and an inside bend in 16 feet. ohh well.

[Matt Johnson]

Found a lot of fish on docks this weekend. Several docks pumped out 3-4 fish. Also found fish cruising in between docks. Always a blast sight-fishing for those cruising fish and throwing jerk-shads intercepting them along their path.

The good 'ol Scum Frog took a bunch of fish too.

The deep stuff was on too, but we had too much fun fishing the shallower patterns, so we spent 9 percent of the time in 4 feet or less.

Couldn't touch a fish larger than 4 pounds though... still waiting for that toad...

[RK]

Hiya -

Man did I have a fun weekend (when I wasn't helping clean up after the tornado that missed our cabin by 200 yards... )

Fished a couple different lakes - one for smallies, and one for largemouths. Smallies were up on the rocks, but not very aggressive. Could get the to follow a spinnerbait or jerkbait but not hit it. Ended up catching quite a few swimming a 3/32 oz jighead with a 3" smoke colored grub extremely slowly. I mean, nauseatingly slow retrieve... Brought my wife with, and she caught several drop-shotting as well. Most of the fish were on the edges of rock spines in 7-9 feet.

What was weird was how much tubes DIDN'T work even though the fish were sort of off. When I switched from grubs to tubes, I'd catch a smallie here and there, but couldn't keep the rock bass off. With a grub, I'd catch smallies pretty steady, but a rock bass only once in a while. I'm starting to think that the first question with smallies is whether they're looking up or down. If they're looking down, tubes seem to work great. If they're not, grubs work a lot better.

Fished largemouths a little yesterday afternoon, and they were a little slower, but we managed a few. Mostly smaller males though. I caught some flipping a Sabertail Bug, while the wife got quite a few on a Northland Dip Stick up in the rushes. Got a few more on jigworms on the weedline (and an accidental 26" walleye) and the wife got a 4 pounder on a drop-shot rig, but deeper fish were pretty scarce. Did see some fish on beds still.

All in all, probably 40 smallies, and 15 or so largemouths. fun weekend...

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Mr. Pike1]

Some good June reports.

My story I will simply call "Pike got schooled" and not in a good way.

Well I boasted of 50 fish days for small mouth on the big V and was there this weekend fully expecting to pound the smallies.

I was pre-rigged with 10 of my favorite go to rigs with the top three being Senko, tube, perch xrap.

The biggest lesson I learned is that what worked in July and August of 2006 does not apply in June of 2007. Thus again the reason it is called fishing and not catching.

The report:

On Saturday morning I got on the water from 6:00-10:00. My top three in some of my favorite spots were not working. I went to rigs 4-8 and they also were not helping light up the scoreboard. I was fast approaching panic mode and hoped rig 9 and 10 might produce. They did not so I made the call that it must be more location then presentation.

I moved off shore a bit and started to look for rock type point and piles that jutted out. These locations began to produce on my Senko but the bite was still very very slow. I finished Saturday morning with 8-10 smallies and none landed were over 17. One lost fish could have been a 18-19 inch fish but in the water they always look bigger and in my distraugth state on the water I can not trust my judgement, it may have been my mind playing tricks on me.

On Sunday morning I again hit the water at 6:00 am even though a crow jolted me out of bed about 3:30 with his bone jarring cackling.

The day again started very slow and picked up about 9:30 which may be telling me the bite is not a morning bite and I need to adjust my time on the water. Final tally 6 smallies on this day and again nothing over 17. The other interesting thing is "all" fish were caught on a Senko. Nothing on the tube or any other presentation. In years past the pumpkin or watermellon with pepper sprinkle tubes have been killers. This trip they produced zippo.

Oh well I will not be there again until a couple of trips in July. If the bite is slow I will have to focus on Walleye or Musky but I still believe I can get on more 50 fish days in the future there.

[Lunker]

Was up fishing north of Grand Rapids this week, and the bass were definitley active. At dawn and dusk I was fishing a big black spinnerbait(light colors weren't as hot) over the outside weedlines coming up(approx. 10ft deep) and getting into some chunky fish, though they are not really big fish lakes so most were in the 14-17" range. Once the sun would come be high in the sky they took cover in the expanses of pads and I fished topwater frogs and plastics with some success. Also fished a couple of inlet/outlet streams and while the fish had mostly vacated the real shallow areas I caught quite a few fish in the pools above and below the beaver dams and bridges using senkos. Also caught about 30 pike fishing those spinnerbaits, so it was a rod -bending week.

[Matt Johnson]

Caught some bass tossing Scum Frogs on Thursday evening. Also found a few fish out deeper along the weed edge pitching Exude Wide-Ribbon Tails before they moved up for the evening rush We texas-rigged the worms and worked the 8-13 foot areas...

[bassNspear]

Was out this afternoon on the lake that i have to fish in a week for league. I was getting fishing on a weededge what was in about 8-12 feet of water, where the weeds were tight until i got of the edge.

Jig worms were doing ok, but throwing texas rig with a senko was awesome. Getting 15-17 inch fish like nothing.

Once it the sun was going down, top water was on FIRE. I was throwing double bladed buzz bait with a twister tail. Slow rolling it in about 3-6 feet of water, ontop of the weed edge that i was getting the fish before i started throwing top water.

[Doonbuggy]

Shaky head jig w/ a wacky senko on the break did well yesterday on a west metro lake.

The set up is one of the goofiest things I've ever seen, but I caught a 17" on the very first cast and got into a nice little school of them.

Funny how quickly my confidence grew in such a silly looking bait.

DB

[Ralph Wiggum]

I was out in West Central MN this weekend and didn't find anything out deeper yet. I did very well Saturday and Sunday mornings still working inside weedlines and open areas in the shallows with a wacky-rigged 4" Dinger. I also picked up a couple fish on spinnerbaits, but the Dinger was the ticket. I had one fish in the reeds, as well.

[Cyberfish]

Got this big ol toad on a tube, rigged backwards!

[Trucker Jim]

Wow! Nice fish! Did you weigh or measure it?