I guess like a lot of cat fishers the summer heat and dink bites stop me from venturing out much, preferring to wait till it cools down and the bigger fish start biting more consistently.

With the recent cooler temperatures and rain I decided to venture out last week on my local lake. I was surprised to find that fresh bait was scarce and it took me almost two hours searching for bait till I snagged some good sized gizzard shad. The second surprise was the fish had locked jaw and despite running 4 lines for over 4 hours I couldn't buy a bite. Skunked, made even worse by the weather, as the forecast 10-15mph winds turned out 15 gusting 20. Ugh!

Yesterday I ventured out again, this time with lighter winds and the bait less scarce. A beautiful morning but a slow start with the bite, but it started up mid morning and got hotter and hotter until it died early afternoon.






I caught a bunch of nice blues mostly 'teeners', with one reaching 20 pounds. I snagged around 100 pounds of fish which for me is a great day.












I know it's going to get better and better as we approach winter and those fish start to group up.

Great job BCB! I'm stoked about trophy season this year. As soon as I get my venison squared away, I'll be hitting it hard. Personally, I'm hoping to beat my Texas pb this fall. I say Texas pb because it'll be tough to break my overall pb here. My Texas pb is 58 pounds so it shouldn't be terribly hard to beat. I'm going to focus on Texoma mostly this year. I'm also going to fish Grapevine a bunch because I almost beat the lake record last year on GV, so I want to try to get that one on the books.

Good to see you getting some hooks wet! Good luck in the coming weeks and I'll try to meet up with you for a joint effort at Lavon!

Just think, pretty soon it'll be frozen fingers, loads of clothing and those huge, heart-stopping, rod-bending takedowns!

Great report and pictures. Conditions are definitely changing.

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Solid post and fish. Good job.

Good post. I can't wait to hit the Tennessee River tomorrow. My last two trips, the wind has been brutal. The places I hang out are at the upper end of Wheeler Lake where the river is still confined to the original canyon. It funnels the wind to almost twice its speed when it comes from either the north or south.

Nice work Bob!
I have been traveling with work, about forgotten what a fish feels like.
Hopefully soon!

Ken

Nice Fish Man.