Tell Us About Your Best Bass Trip of the Year

Everyone?

Happy & Healthy Holidays to You All!

Oh yeah. The absolute best was the one to Osbornedale State Park in Derby to fish for sunnies from the bank with my granddaughter and grandson.

How much better can that get?

My personal best trip though was a spin off of a trip I took with another angler. I fished a tournament out of the back of the boat with Roy Price early in the summer. Roy died about a month ago, God rest his soul. Anyway, we fished a channel where he had some specific spots in mind. He did tie into one really nice bass in one of those spots, but he was blowing by spots at speed that I would normally take the time to fish. I asked him if he minded me coming back and fishing that area a little differently some other time. He shrugged.

I went back to that area with Hammer in an ABA tournament. The first place we stopped was a where a couple channels crossed. I let the current cary my bait across in front of a point. It was tough to keep the boatin position, but rather than keep going I told Hammer I just knew there had to be a good fish under the bruch on that point. I took three tries to get my bait in exactly the spot I wanted. As it drifted up under the overhanging brush it took off and I caught a 3.5 LM. The next place I called produced a small fish. I told Hammer out loud that I didn't believe that was the only fish in that spot. I worked around to a pocket in the tree, and nailed a 3.8 LM. As we headed down through one of the channels I had particular types of spots in mind, and I caught a fish out of almost every one of them. I was really starting to figure it out that day. At one point I turned to Hamer and said, "I think I have this figured out today, in those deep pockets with lots of shadows we are catchign the bigger fish, and in those tiny little indents in the brush line we are catch in the smaller fish," I was co cocky I punctuated my point by indicating a spot on a bank were drifitn past and I said, "See that spot. I bet I can throw in there and catcha small fish." I tossed in and nailed a 12 incher immediatley. We both laughed out loud.

When we got way back in one area there was a huge overhanging tree with lots of branches hanging in the water. I caught a small fish off one edge, and I said, "I bet there are two or three fish hanging in this tree. I tossed ina couple feet around the tree, and caught a little bit bigger one, and then when I tossed in on the downstream side of the tree I caught another one. The last one ran about 3.5.

I was high on life that day. In one section Iw as lettig the current sweep the boat along at a pretty good clip and I was justtossing into the best looking spots and skipping the marginal looking spots. I let the boat get me past a spot before I hit it. Instead of hitting the trolling motor and and wasting a lot of time repositioning the boat I pointed at the spot and told Hammer to make sure to get his bait in there. He nailed a 4.0.

We weighed in 16.5 lbs that day for our top five, and we culled smaller fish all day. It was the only day I had all year like that where I just knew where the fish were and how to catch them. I called every decent fish we put in the boat that day.

Southern Wisconsin lake, June..about mid-morning and rainy/misty. A light wind was blowing, keeping the top ruffled up. After trying spinnerbaits; plastics; spoons; plugs; etc. I went to a top-water. I was throwing a frog-colored small PoP-R. NO hits at all, when I dragged; popped; and slurped it, slowly, across the surface.

For some unknown reason, I started working it, across that same water, as fast as I could. It looked like a very scared baitfish trying to get away from something!

TEN Largemouth bass hit over the next hour or so. The explosions from underneath looked like bombs dropping from the sky. Three got away. The remaining 7 ranged from one lb to 3/ 4/ 4.5/ 5/ 5.5 and a 6. They all pulled me around the boat and were netted; admired; and released. No camera in the boat... but the pictures in my mind are indelible.

I never had a day like that before, and probably will never have a day like it again. I fished the same spot a dozen times later in the year. Occasionally caught a 3 or a 4lbr...but NOTHING like that one special day.

Thanks for asking!

Happy Holidays Chris S

So, I'd have to say that my best bass trip this year was Okeechobee! All the guys down there really kept me laughing and I even caught some bass! Weighed in almost 12pounds on day two with my partner, friend, and excellent steak guy, Rob Storm. It was an experience that will be remembered for a long time.

Another night that comes to mind was catching two identical 3lb'ers back to back on Priest, then followed up the next time with a 4lb'er. Thus began my love of Mega-Strike... Too bad it's so darn expensive! ($11.00/tube)

Rich P

Warren

Striped: A tie. Went to Kerr Lake (Buggs Island, NC/VA line) early in the season and mopped up, don't even know how many we boated, likely just shy of 25 that day. Largest one tipped the Berkley scale at just over 15 lbs. That was my first experience catching those fish on "Bucktails" and other jigs like the Crippl'd Shad. Up to then we had always slow trolled live shad for them. This was also the first time I can say I caught and landed a fish from a depth greater than 100' (right in front of the dam, which releases the Roanoke River to run down to Lake Gaston IIRC).

Also, later in the Spring we went for Stripers out at the coast (where they are called Rockfish more often than not) and ended up in my neighbor's boat this time (I have the bass boat, he has the 23' Grady White). Some locals told us the rockfish were nailing the "Stretches" out in the Oregon Inlet. So we spent the rest of that day/night looking for the "Stretches" (turned out to be the deep diving Mann's cranker know as the Magnum Stretch series) since the wind was coming from the NE and the next day called for a shift to wind from the West (a must for inlet fishing at the Grave Yard of the Atlantic). Went out that next morning with a new collection of 25'+ diving crankbaits, enjoying the nice Westerly that had the ocean and the inlet laying relatively flat, and again mopped up. This time the fish were enormous (to us). We each boated fish over 35 lbs that day. We kept a couple total of the 20#ers for the table, and I took some photos of my largest one (37#) so one day maybe I can get a repro done. I am relatively sure that is the largest fish I have ever caught, fought and landed in my life. I have boated several large king mackeral before, but none of them broached the 30 lb mark if I had to guess. All I can say about that day is thank goodness I was already a Power Pro convert. The rig ended up being Power Pro line with mono "shock" leaders at the bait. We tried mono-only rigs that day and lost every fish we hooked on them, even using 30# Big Game Trilene (our go-to saltwater line).

(Our "saltwater" striped record here in NC is 60#0oz, frestwater is over 54#, and our largemouth record is 15#14oz, so no records were threatened or harmed in any of these tales...though we did keep a couple of our big stripers from the beach...lol)

Next week, Warren, you need to solicit "worst days" stories, so I can share with y'all about the day I went out in perfect weather, perfect water temp/clarity, to my local and most favorite lake, Harris Resevoir (where I caught my personal best 10# bass, and caught nothing but 5 chain pickerals and a mudfish...). The pro that runs this website fishes there often and has one of Harris' 10# bass in a photo with him on the front page:

http://www.carolinaoutdoors.net/

He also took his "friend" Ken Cook out there once and had a decent day:

http://www.carolinaoutdoors.net/kencookHarris.html

Not a bad lake to be a cooling lake and only displace 4500 acres. It's about 20 minutes from the house, so needless to say, I'm there more often than anywhere else. Never freezes and the winter bassin is great there (no PWCers...). Hang in around the cooling flow/lagoon and one can find all the fish you want if you can brave the air temps, and entice them into actually biting once you find them. I caught my lifetime best hawg in a February there.

Good fishing all, Phil

This summer I took my 4 year old grandson Alex out in the boat fishing for the first time. He had never been fishing or in a boat in the water. You have to understand this is the kid that picks up sticks and when you ask him what he is doing he answers fishing! I have described it here before so I will spare you all but the answer he had when, after 2 hours or so, I asked if he wanted to leave. He looked up at me and said in a dead serious voice, Just one more grandpa, can I catch just one more?

Needless to say he spent 5 plus hours catching Bluegills, Perch, Crappies and some nice 1 1/2 to 2 pound Bass.

Second was the Classic here this summer. Great guys, great boats, great time!!!

Good health, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all. BTW, at Thanksgiving dinner I was mistaken by a 2 1/2 year old for Santa. HO HO HO danl4x@charter.net Remove the x for e-mail reply www.outdoorfrontiers.com

Had to be the day I caught a 5.5 lb bass on the outside edge of a small pad bed on a jig-n-pig. I decided to try another pad bed and on the way threw the jig next to a little stick-up and caught a 6.5 lb bass. Big bass for a shallow 57 acre pond. Richard g www.bassstalkers.com

sket

Congrats on the 10's!

Best non-bass trip (I know Warren will forgive this OT :-) ) was when my step-daughter was home on leave from Iraq. Never wet a line, she just wanted to drive the boat and feel the wind and the spray on her face. Damn, now I just got teary. God willing she will be out of there for at least a year by the first week of January. Merry Christmas all. Joe Z.

Maybe we can get together again this coming March, Ronnie? I hope to be making another trip down to see the grandson, and plan on having a boat with me this time!

I'll be sure to give you a little notice if I head that way!

I took out my brother-in-law Eric, to Lake Barkley. He had just got back from 1yr service in Iraq.

We caught fish here and there, and missed some nice ones. But hadn't caught anything real big over a few days. I wanted him to catch a big fish before we left.

On the last night around 10:30 pm I was fishing a point where I have caught many nice Largemouth and Smallies in the past. (Charles knows the spot).

I made a cast on the side of the point, and before it made bottom a smallie smashed it. After I fought it in, I weighted it at 4.08lbs. I put it in the live well to take a picture of it later. (later released).

A few minutes later on the other side of the point, Eric hooked into a big smallie. I helped him get it in, weighted it at 4.07lbs. It was my personal best for a smallmouth, and his biggest bass he had ever caught. We took some pics and let them go.

I was so happy to have helped him catch his biggest bass! And I know he was happy to be home, and will always remember our trip. Justin Hires www.SecretWeaponLures.com www.USABassin.com