Leaderboard

10.7 on the MobWalker fish sucked it down. Bait is just insane. It’s practically only caught me big fish

I have been in Sweden for the past 3 weeks for an internship I got with the Swedish University of Argicultutal Sciences studying the fisheries in the Baltic Sea. The experience has been absolutely incredible, and I am having the time of my life. Attaining a rod while here has been difficult to say the least, as I was only able to bring a reel and baits on the plane. I finally found a local shop to order one in for me, but in the meantime I decided to grab a rod from the school until then and stop waiting. I ended up catching 5/11 fish, a function of using a spinning rod I believe, not yet having it dialed. My biggest was over 30" but I didn't have a tape. Seems like the Pike fishing is pretty good here! Also, here are some photos of fish from sampling for fish. Needless to say I am in heaven!

2023 grizzly tracker, 40 mercury, terrova 80 # 24 V with lithiums photo courtesy of @NJSwimbatslinger

$1,050 worth of Andromeda's (Don't worry, they'll get some rash on em')

- caught these 2 fish a day apart but same conditions both days. I caught the first one (5.44 lbs) early morning on the THUT DRT K9 Sake Bomber up shallow and got plenty more follows. The next day can’t seem to even get a follow early morning again…decide to go out on some main lake points and fish the WCZ 7.5 BS Silver on a slow roll bringing it up some ledges and it worked. Just crazy to see how fish change so much even on a day to day basis, love learning these little changes that can change a bite!!

Also really diggin’ Stray Rats!

These look great! Excited to put mine to work soon too!

With my success from Tuesday, I decided it would be worthwhile to get out again, this time in a new section of shoreline. I found a portion of shoreline with almost 2 miles of fishable area and relatively difficult access. I hopped on my bike and rode the 3 miles there, a difficult feat when the bike is stuck in high gear and hiking another mile or so in through the woods without a trail. I arrived at the sea and it was full of bird life, which I took as a good sign. Unfortunately the first half mile of shoreline I fished was unproductive, likely due to its lack of visibility and depth. I made my way out of the basin and into the sea more and immediately started catching fish. With the same average size in the low 20s I wasn't upset, but deffinitely looking for something bigger. I made a cast a few feet off of a reed bed into some deeper water and started slowly retrieving, feeling a tick. I set and instantly knew this was the biggest fish I have interacted with here so far. After 5 minutes of the fish pulling me through reeds and making runs I finally landed it, I didn't have a tape but using my hand (~8") it was somewhere between 32-35", one of my biggest pike ever. I continued fishing the rest of the shoreline, catching a total of 9 fish and missing/losing 4 others, my most productive day of pike fishing ever! For the time being I have been borrowing a rod/reel from work until the one I ordered comes in. That has presented an issue as it is a spinning reel with what I can assume is 20lb braid. I have lost every lure I have used to thing I shouldn't be breaking off on, like reed stems. I am now out of mid-range soft baits which is quite disappointing, I will have to see what the local shops have. I can't wait to have a set up where I can feel confident in my line again! Overall a great trip but I think I am done until I can get my setup together

I assume you're talking to me? LOL. I'm not Butch Brown or Josh Jones, but I've caught a few... Here's a little sample sir: - 12lb 8oz - 10lb 12oz - 10lb 4oz - 10lb I plan on putting the Andromeda's to work also...

From 40 miles offshore to the local lakes, this sled gets it done. 1988 Team Baja 18ft center console

The newest baby in our family, 2023 Lund Impact. 250hp Mercury, 15hp Honda kicker, our multi species slayer. Received October of last year, we’ve already hit Striper boils, crappie piles, and banged the banks. If I could do it again I wouldn’t do it any other way. Sold a 2005 Lund with a 50hp to help finance…

I’ve been on the pursuit for a lunker for some time now just like every one of you crazy’s. That’s what really made me gravitate to large swimbaits here the past few months. Going in to this season, my personal best was 7lb 6oz while losing some bigger bass along the way. Since I started throwing swimbaits, I’ve now topped that weight twice, and shattered my previous PB this past weekend. This old heifer absolutely cranked my Biggs Denali and weighed in at 9lb 3oz! When we boated her, I thought no doubt she was a 10+. Just goes to show how big and special these fish really are. The feeling of being so close, but yet so far will really fuel my quest now. I had 3 others that were of the same caliber swipe at it, just didn’t get a hook in’em!

Having fished for pure floridas, pure northerns, and hybrids (or at least the odds of them being hybrids are high) here in California I can confidently say that different strains of bass have different personalities, and different fish even within a lake or water system live and eat in different places and ways. Now considering that many of the share lunker fish come from eating a rigs and what not offshore it doesn’t mean that all of their offspring will be like that, and to be fair the likelihood of a lot of those offspring having different traits from their parents that were underlying or mutated which are different from their parents makeup that made them more inclined to live offshore in a given environment show up is quite high considering the amount of offspring that bass have from a single spawn which means that sure a decent majority of the fish might be oriented towards offshore life in old age but not all of them will follow that. Bass are highly adaptable and it seems as though some orient towards different depths, forage sources, and speeds of eating based on what the conditions are and even change from year to year and season to season, but they certainly show signs of preference. There are fish that only live in heavy grass and eat craws, gills, and maybe the odd trout, there are fish that swim over 300 foot of water and eat trout and Kokanee, there are fish that sit in one tree for their entire life on one point as long as the water level is right, then there are fish that only eat Shad and follow them wherever. What I’m getting at is that there are patterns that certain groups of fish follow for nearly their whole lives. Not to mention the fact that northerns tend to be more nomadic and less structure oriented, swipe at baits more, and run for the fences once they’ve eaten compared to floridas which seem to be more territorial, slower to bite, more likely to sit around after eating a bait, and more likely to eat bigger baits on the whole. All of this is combined theory from what I’ve heard and personal experience but that’s my long 2 cents lol.

After beating the bank for years, I jumped into the kayak game in 2020. Bought a Vibe Sea Ghost 110. Added a homemade crate and Garmin 4cv which helped me maps some local spots and find schools of smallies on bigger bodies of water. Unfortunately my back has had enough of yak fishing so I’ve been looking to upgrade. She is stable but not enough for standing (in my opinion, I know others do). I spend more time paddling and positioning than fishing. Having two young kids, my time is limited as it is so time on the water is a premium. She been a good little “boat” and I’ve had my share of sleigh rides in her.

Ok I get the next one that’s on black market damnit lol

Flickr is a dope topwater that acts like a dying shad. It's a simple bait to fish too. Just turn the handle and it flops side to side. Snap the rod tip a few times and make it a little erratic and boom. It's a great shore banging bait.

Couple more tests to get this clear coat down and I’ll be making a couple that will be available for sale!

It was my best ever, but I hope to beat it while I'm here. I don't know the exact salinty of this basin, but the one we have been sampling has been around 3ppt, I believe this one is saltier so I would guess closer to 4 or 5ppt just based on proximity to the sea. It's saline enough for my sinking hard baits to float. The coastal fish assemblage is almost entirely composed of "freshwater" species, Zander, Pike, Perch, Roach, Bream, etc. My internship is with the Swedish Univeristy of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Aquatic Resources (SLU-Aqua). The professor who I am working with back home is a visiting professor here and found a way to send me over for the summer, partially to work on my research project, and partially to be a research assistant for the researchers and PhD students here. It's quite a unique circumstance but it's been absolutely incredible, we hope that I am the first of many from my university to spend their summer here!

I used the bass pro extended handle version all last season; for the most part no issue, but did miss two fish, one of which would have easily been a new pb this year I upgraded to the Butch brown/Mike Gilbert net. Thing is absolutely massive in comparison, handle can slide into the hoop for storage/transport and fits end to end over the side of the grizzly. Only had to use it once so far and made a 5.9 look like a 2lber inside it

thanks for lettin me try out the bait @griffin.geeslin

Little brother was itching to try out a new rod and reel combo I put together for his birthday so we drove out to a new spot that's been popping off this spring. He caught squat but I got my new PB smallie! Pitching the Deka Dodge crawler to submerged timber where the reservoir was refilling and got a blowup so big I immediately assumed it was a large pike! Didn't even think it was a bass til I flipped it through the floating debris on the shoreline to the bank. Previous PB was just 3.76 so this is a sizeable upgrade! Not to mention that it's not the biggest smallmouth in this lake. Upper size class for sure, but we're expecting to see bigger fish get caught in the future from this spot.

As a lot of you know my summertime go to wake bait is the Jinxd Gill made by fellow SU member @Jinxd12 - for 2 straight summers I’ve put some high quality North Jersey fish in yak and bait for me so I asked Jinxd to send me a bigger version to see what kind of fun I can have with it. Here’s what he came up with an approximate 8” 5 oz 3 piece waking gill that has huge presence, incredible wake with out being “ obnoxious “ - smooth is definitely a word that applies to the action on this bait. I’m heading to NC / SC in a few days and it will definitely be tied on and we’ll see how it goes. thanks @Jinxd12 BTW if you guys are looking for wakes or cranks that get bit hit @Jinxd12 up and def check out his IG page @bc.baits.co for more info on his baits and the fish they produce. 9563fbf1a1a24ea6a952c27fe165b7f3.mov 181ad3f27b104e10b258bce8bd4d7108.mov 52a0547210cc40c88d8974881ee4b42f.mov

Bettencourt is back making baits. Check him out on Facebook. Just ordered one. Looking forward to trying it. Don't use rat baits but was excited about this one

That blue gill pattern is cool

The head reminds me of an evergreen es flat glide. Idk if they made multi joints

That’s an epic day! Is the section of the Baltic your fishing mostly freshwater or just a bit brackish? The fish nerd in me is curious about the internship you landed. I’ll admit that the wheels in my mind started spinning.

Got stuck in the rocks …popped it out and this guy smashed it on the way back down.. almost snatched the rod out my hands

Sweet rig. I’ve been wanting to get something similar for the smaller lakes and when we have no accessible launch ramps out here in Southern OR and Northern Cali. It gets pretty lame when the waters are so low I can’t launch the Ranger. First boat was a 12ft aluminum. Second boat was a 17ft Bass Tracker. 6 years ago at age 35, I was finally able to afford my dream boat. Bought my 2004 Ranger with a 150 Yamaha F150 from the original owner in Minnesota. It was 13 years old when I bought it and was mint and barely used (can only fish from a boat in MN for a few months, the rest of the year the lakes are frozen obviously and boats are winterized.) Couldn’t pass it up. Have had zero issues…..a little outdated electronics for todays standards, but will be upgrading here shortly. There was a similar post years ago about this topic, can’t wait to see all of the new rigs that get posted on this one.