2017 Picture Post Thread.
 

Post you fish pictures, and what bait you used, and how you caught it.
And where you fished , like river, lake, pond etc, and where you are located.

I've spent the spring fishing for stocked rainbows here in TX. Did pretty good on them.









All were caught on either a silver kastmaster


Or Pautzke Fire Balls


Getting ready to begin hitting the lakes for crappie, sunfish and catfish.

I spent a few hrs in my float tube on Lake Athens today. Caught between 20-30 of these:


They hit worms being worked slowly along the bottom in about 6 ft of water. All were released since the spawn hasn't happened yet.

Kastmasters have always been pretty good on trout here as well. However I find that the Superdupers work very well too...

I target those all year and open water have great luck using a 1/32 oz gotcha chartreuse jig tipped with a small piece of worm. In spring when they are in the shallows I hang the jig 2 to 3 feet under a bobber and then when they go deeper it is fished direct on 4 pound test. Most days I can fill a cooler with them since there are no limits on Champlain and they are all over the place. Great little pan fish.

Just an FYI those are identifiable fish

"these" as you referred to them as are called blue gill

I think that is obvious since it is one of the most common fish all over the USA.

Yep, I figured it would be obvious what they are. I really didn't expect the photo to be a mystery or identification problem for anyone but I guess by your comment that a certain "someone" is getting goofy again. Me thinks that guy has some sort of "issue." Perhaps he doesn't realize I have him on the ignore list? I don't have time for petty cheap shots so he is wasting his time and should just go sit in the corner while grown-ups are discussing matters.

Had a couple hour break in the torrential thunderstorms before the shut the whole lake down this weekend. Caught about 30 crappie, a few gills and this guy between storms

Spoonbill (paddlefish) taken in Oklahoma river systems. Took second place in a tourney we had going. Caught this one as time expired. The winning fish was caught 10 min before this one and weighed 72 lbs. Mine weighed 65

What I caught today.
It felt real good after it stopped hurting. :confused0024:
About tomorrow who knows.

lol well at least you only got one barb in there, really sucks when you get 2 or all 3 barbs dug in. Those are still hard to push on through even with just one barb in.

Snipping off that part of the hook, and pushing it through, then yanking it out hurt like crazy.
What hurt the most was snipping the hook so I could push it through.
Keeping the hooks realy sharp is a two edged sword. lol
You can never find the same size hook to replace the one snipped.
At least it's a good excuse to buy a new lure. :happy0001:

OUCH!!!! That made my finger hurt just looking at it. Hope you're keeping it clean with hydrogen peroxide, etc.

I've been tearing the sunfish up here in TX. In the last 2 days I've taken more than 50 really good ones. I only keep enough for a meal so most of them go back in the water. The cutting board these fish are on is 12 inches wide so that gives some idea of the size of these fish.





I've turned a couple loose that were bigger than any of these. Since I only want enough for a meal I only keep the ones that take it to the gills and are bleeding.

Looks like you really "set" the hook on that big one!

Truman lake in southern Mo

This morning on Lake Athens here in TX. All of the sunfish are more than 8 inches long. The channel cat was about 3 lbs. The makings of fish tacos!

Spent the day on my local lake today in my float tube. Kept 20 good sunfish and a 5lb channel cat.

Got my boy his first spoonbill. We were catfishing and it snagged itself on my boys live bait hook. We were fishing with shad. Spoonies don't eat shad of course but we weren't snagging for them at the time he caught this one. We ended up snagging later in the morning though and ended up with 7. We released them all.

Bennett Springs state park in Southern MO this morning

Fished there a couple of times. Interesting place.

lol well the place is great the people are "interesting". We try to make it down every year when its not so busy. We have a camp on a lake here in IL and chase catfish and crappie pretty hard all summer but we always have a blast on our trout trip. The fish are delicious.