2019 year end review 2024
12poundbass reply :
Well it looks like I’m giving up the fight and putting the boat to bed for 4-5 months. I’ve been thinking about the year as a whole for a while now. It was an up and down year for me for sure. Here’s my year ‘hits’ and ‘misses’ on the year.
Misses:
The big one that really got me this year was the brown bass from at lake shut me out. I did get some out of the river, but none from the lake.
Fishing offshore kicked my @$$! There’s no other way to put it! I did a ton of reading, watching, and conversing about structure fishing but blanked!
The next few I’ll just group together, because the cause we’re all the same. I didn’t get out nearly as much as I wanted to, the wife and I only got to fish twice this year, I didn't get enough time with my Garmin units. Life just got in the way this year. My expectations I suppose were way too high when I set them last winter.
Hits-
I finally upgraded boats!
I finally got some quality graphs!
I finally tried pitching jigs and absolutely love it!
I learned a ton. This season was very frustrating and the brown bass out of the lake eluded me, I still learned quite a bit.
Probably the biggest hit of the year, watching my son grow leaps and bounds as an angler this year! After watching shows with me and watching YouTube videos last winter and throughout the year he’s morphed into a fishing machine! Jacob Wheeler and I know they get a bad wrap around here but The Googan Squad really taught him a lot. Last year he didn’t want to listen to his dad, he watched these guys for a few months, then all of a sudden he’s asking me questions all the time about using this and trying that. He’s watching his line, he’s pitching lures, he’s changing his retrieve, I’ve been really impressed with his progress.
All in all it was a decent season. I didn’t get the fish I was after, or have the season I was expecting, but a lot of good came out of it. I’ll be working harder this winter to learn from mistakes, study maps, watch videos, and converse on here.
So let’s hear your hits and misses on the year?
jimmyjoe reply :
If the Mississippi hadn't been flooded almost all year, I'd have never had to fish the lakes so much.
The people here were (and are) fantastic, teaching me about lakebound fishing in ways I never dreamed.
Hits:
Boot-tails. Never had used them. Still learning, of course. I caught fish on them, but that's all I can say so far. It'll improve next year.
Caught my first musky last fall, about this time. Accident, but an exciting one.
Got my first graphite crankin' rod. Man, do I love it! Now I successfully fight fish at half the weight!
Misses:
Braid. I spent more on braided line this year than I did on my new rod, all told. I've just come to the conclusion that God told me not to use braid. I wish he would have told me before I spent all the money, though.
Flukes. Let's not even go there.
River is still 2 feet above flood stage, but I'm not crying. I've got a whole new world of lakes to hit, and it's FUN!
Thanks, everyone! ???? jj
MN Fisher reply :
Hits:
1) My $99 sonar combined with the App on my tablet lets me fish like I had a much more expensive unit - despite not having DI or SI - the mapping and GPS are a great help all by themselves.
2) Pulled in a decent fish this year, the 3.9# in my profile pic. Still short of my current PB of 4.7, but a decent fish none-the-less.
3) Trial and error showed me some more things I need to do with the canoe this winter to make it a better fishing machine.
Misses:
1) Also didn't get out near as much as I wanted. Uncooperative weather and a hit-and-miss sitter for the wife led to most of the missed opportunities
2) Several skunk trips where I got nothing at all.
On 11/8/2019 at 8:15 AM, 12poundbass said:Probably the biggest hit of the year, watching my son grow leaps and bounds as an angler this year! After watching shows with me and watching YouTube videos last winter and throughout the year he’s morphed into a fishing machine!
Good on half-dozen - some day soon he'll far surpass the 'old man'. 
Way north bass guy reply :
Good read 12lb.
I’d say it was sort of similar for me this year in that I didn’t get out as much as I wanted to ( being self employed and with the wet spring and fall we had will do that to ya), but the times I did get out were all good time spent out there.
I didn’t get a chance to try many new lakes this year, due to not having enough extra time, and I really enjoy figuring out new water bodies, but I did try out some new areas of old, well known lakes.
Spring came late here so I didn’t get much early open water trout fishing in, it was straight to the big pike. We did pretty good for them, and did find a spectacular “new” local lake that’s full of nice pike, and will be explored much further next spring.
Bass season was pretty good, no giants this year, but every time I was out, I did fairly well.
Got some decent largemouth on flipping bites and frogging, and the smallmouth were good for numbers and a respectable size. The real gem for me this year was the later fall smallmouth on Georgian Bay.
This year I spent some more time offshore with the Helix’s, and when the smallmouth started showing up in their wintering areas, we absolutely hammered them.
The last time I was out, once I found the fish, I didn’t move my boat more than 40’ for over two hours, and it was a fish on literally every single drop to bottom. It was the perfect way to end the season for me. The Berkley Maxscent Flatworm on a drop shot was by far the best bait for me this fall.
Like you, I also had the privilege of spending most days on the water with my 10 year old, and a few nice ones with the wife as well ( she’s more of a fair weather fisherman). My son is a lover of books, and when the fishing is slower ( in his mind), he’ll read for hours in the boat, which is great because he’s still enjoying it and I can fish. When dad starts catching them though, he’s right beside me with a rod in his hand, and this year he caught some of the biggest smallmouth in our boat.
Hopefully winter is NOT a clone of the long, cold one we had last year!
FryDog62 reply :
"Hits" for me were:
- Post-spawn Neko fishing was absolutely lights out. Hadn't utilized the technique fully in the past and now can't wait for next June!
- Re-connected with a college friend of mine that had lived out of state. Hadn't seen him in 25 years until he moved back - found out he has the same passion for bass fishing as I do. Lot of good times on the water this year.
The big "Miss" for me is:
- Our Minnesota climate is finally getting to me. This past winter was 8 months long and the year before was 7 1/2. Then back in 2013 our fishing season "opener" was cancelled in much of the state due to ice still on the lakes. 2014 was even colder with 57 days of below zero temps and ice on til May. Over the past 10 years we've had one very warm winter, 2 average and 7 terrible, long, cold, snowy seasons. I've about had it - staring out the window for 2/3 of the year, then trying to cram 12 months of fun into the other 1/3 of the year. Crazy...
TnRiver46 reply :
Hits: excellent June/July river smallmouth fishing. The current was ripping but a heavy Texas rig kept putting them in the boat. I also caught probably the two biggest stripers of my life on top water so that was awesome. I almost forgot about my non game fish, captured 2 monster gar and a lot of catfish. I think I caught at least 4 fish over 40” thus far in 2019
misses: two big largemouth that blew up frogs, one might have been the most violent strike I have ever witnessed. Both jumped several times and came off right next to the boat on the last jump. I also had a monster one lazily follow a frog in clear water, that particular bass informed me that my frog was made of plastic and he was not going to eat it....... but he might just keep looking at it for a while just in case........
pics in chronological order..........
side note: hoping for many more memories to come before the end of my 2019 season
JediAmoeba reply :
Hits:
-Caught 550 bass out of our local pond this year. Its about 8 acres and 20 feet deep. Made a friendly bet that I couldn't catch 500...I did.
-Won our local community tournament for the 3rd consecutive year.
- Caught my BP LM bass in April - 8 pounds, 1 oz.
-Didn't have a single day where I was skunked fishing and I fished a LOT.
Misses:
-Out of those 550 bass only 4 were over 2 pounds with the biggest being 3.25 pounds...
- Did not catch a muskie despite targeting them 3 times.
- Did not catch a striped bass
- Lost about 400 dollars on jerkbaits to pickerel this year.
A-Jay reply :
2019 started off and ened nicely. Mid-season for me was very forgetful.
A-Jay
TriStateBassin106 reply :
2019 was a great year for Me, I considered this year a redemption year for me in terms of fishing, I always fished for bass most of my life but stopped fishing in general in 2016, this year I have returned to this wonderful sport. It's great to be back!
Hits:
-Finally got back into bass fishing in April.
- Learned a lot of new things about the sport from bass youtube channels such as TacticalBassin, Flukemaster, Bassresource, Tacklejunky81, Realistic Fishing, and NDYakangler. also the Bass Resource forums.
- Mastered Baitcasting
- The Zman chatterbait and the texas rig win "Lure MVP" for me. (50+ bass were caught in total this year)
- Finally caught a bass on a whopper plopper.
- Caught my first bass on a normal spinnerbait. (always used inline spinners)
- Learned more about how bass are and what they do in each season.
- Caught my first smallmouth bass.
- Organized my tackle better than previous years.
- Won a local tournament after a 3 year hiatus from the sport.
Misses:
- Needed to slow down when the bite got tough.
- Missed out on trying jigs in the summer.
- Missed out on using braid when the bite was hot.
- Failed to reach 100 bass by November.
- Underestimated the NED Rig.
- Never got to try out Crankbaits more.
- Wasn't able to fish more locations.
Bluebasser86 reply :
Floods largely messed up my spring and summer and even still impacting it now with some reservoirs still 10-30 feet above normal pool. I ended up spending most of my time on smaller lakes with overflow dams as a result, which meant far fewer big fish this year, the one really big exception was finally running into my new PB smallmouth.
I also got Lake out with me several times, and finally got to start introducing Finn to it so hopefully my boat gets a lot more crowded in the next few years.
crypt reply :
- hits for me was beating cancer,catching 3 over 7,just getting to go as much as I could was great.misses............nothing really.................after the last year everything was a hit.......
Catt reply :
To many misses to list!
One big win ????
scaleface reply :
My biggest hit this year was giving Toad fishing a try . I love and hate those lures but it got a lot of fish for me over the algae matts . I tinkered and tinkered with it and now I have the rigging down , just need to boat more fish .
My misses were too many lost big bass . I had some dandy's hit especially on the toad and just didnt boat them . I got one 6.5 lber landed but snapped my line three times on hook-sets . Finally I figured out that spool of line has been in a drawer for to long . Even sitting in a controlled atmosphere line will degrade .I got lazy and didnt change as often as one should . Lost a giant at LOZ . Was trying out a new hook and it just didnt penetrate . That one hurt .I had her at the boat .
Hook2Jaw reply :
I haven't caught the numbers I did in 2017 and 2018, but 2019 was a good year. My best fish was 6 pounds and change, from the kayak, with a jerkbait. Catching my best this year on hard plastic feels good to me.
The biggest hit for me this year was having a healthy baby boy who has been on quite a few bank trips this year. In no particular order after that, adapting the jerkbait throughout the year, catching my first few spotted bass, a 21 striper day all on topwater while they mauled herring, catching a fish on my swimbait rod, and jumping a 5-6' tarpon 10' feet away from my best friend in a kayak.
The biggest miss for me was losing a very nice fish on the swimbait stuff, the particular pond I was fishing is notoriously tough. Oh well, we don't get hard water here. I'll be at it again next weekend.
Good reads, friends! Congratulations on the good and I'm sorry about the bad.
12poundbass reply :
On 11/8/2019 at 11:59 PM, Catt said:To many misses to list!
One big win ????
Dang I completely forgot about you winning the truck Catt! Is that the one you got to take him?
MN Fisher reply :
On 11/9/2019 at 12:41 AM, 12poundbass said:Dang I completely forgot about you winning the truck Catt! Is that the one you got to take him?
With the pink 'dangly' off the dorsal fin - I'd say that was his winning bass.
MIbassyaker reply :
On 11/8/2019 at 8:15 AM, 12poundbass said:Misses:
The big one that really got me this year was the brown bass from at lake shut me out. I did get some out of the river, but none from the lake.
Bummer! I kept looking around here this season for a report on your impending Brown Bass Beatdown on Lake X!
My season is basically over too. I may get another chance to sneak out to the riverbank for an hour but even that seems unlikely until....(shudder) March. Maybe April.
For my part, I was busier than usual this summer and based on my logs fished only about 2/3 as many hours as the last few years. Bought a new kayak but ultimately didn't get to use it much.
However, for the 4th straight year, I improved my overall rate of fish caught per hour, while hitting a greater number of different individual bodies of water (or in the case of rivers and connected waterways, individual sections) than I think I ever have in one season (22), including 5 places I had never fished before. No PB of any species, though.
Catt reply :
On 11/9/2019 at 12:41 AM, 12poundbass said:Dang I completely forgot about you winning the truck Catt! Is that the one you got to take him?
Yes sir that little fish was worth $38,000 ????
A-Jay reply :
On 11/9/2019 at 1:29 AM, Catt said:
Yes sir that little fish was worth $38,000 ????
Un-Real ~
I am going to step way out on a limb here and call that one a Personal Best.
#whataretheodds
A-Jay
RB 77 reply :
On 11/8/2019 at 8:58 AM, FryDog62 said:"Hits" for me were:
- Post-spawn Neko fishing was absolutely lights out. Hadn't utilized the technique fully in the past and now can't wait for next June!
- Re-connected with a college friend of mine that had lived out of state. Hadn't seen him in 25 years until he moved back - found out he has the same passion for bass fishing as I do. Lot of good times on the water this year.
The big "Miss" for me is:
- Our Minnesota climate is finally getting to me. This past winter was 8 months long and the year before was 7 1/2. Then back in 2013 our fishing season "opener" was cancelled in much of the state due to ice still on the lakes. 2014 was even colder with 57 days of below zero temps and ice on til May. Over the past 10 years we've had one very warm winter, 2 average and 7 terrible, long, cold, snowy seasons. I've about had it - staring out the window for 2/3 of the year, then trying to cram 12 months of fun into the other 1/3 of the year. Crazy...
I honestly don't know how you do it. My hats off to you for your perseverance. That just sounds flat out insane to me! I was born and raised in Southern California and have lived two blocks or closer to the beach for the last two decades and couldn't even fathom this. Yes, we do pay a "weather tax" and gas is $4+ a gallon, but good grief that sounds crazy indeed. If it dips into the low 60's out here people start to pipe up and layer up...
Back on topic, biggest hit, hopefully still to come as I finally talked Pops in to a Picachos/ El Slato combo trip coming up here in a few weeks. Hope to end the year with a bang! Hopefully Santa shows up early and masquerades as our guide and puts us on some fish. Biggest miss is not spending more time on the water. Seems to be the case every year. Same resolution as always it seems, spend more time on the water. Here's hoping to that coming true...
MN Fisher reply :
On 11/9/2019 at 2:29 AM, RB 77 said:I honestly don't know how you do it. My hats off to you for your perseverance. That just sounds flat out insane to me!
We're hardy up here. Even my wife says she wouldn't move back 'home' if something happened to me...and I 'imported' her from SE Florida.
RB 77 reply :
On 11/9/2019 at 2:33 AM, MN Fisher said:We're hardy up here. Even my wife says she wouldn't move back 'home' if something happened to me...and I 'imported' her from SE Florida.
That's saying a lot since she's from some of the warmest weather in the country!
MIbassyaker reply :
On 11/9/2019 at 2:33 AM, MN Fisher said:We're hardy up here. Even my wife says she wouldn't move back 'home' if something happened to me...and I 'imported' her from SE Florida.
I grew up in Northern MN. I enjoy going back to visit July-August, but that's about it.
As much as the locals in southern MI complain about the winters here, they have no idea.
MN Fisher reply :
On 11/9/2019 at 2:56 AM, MIbassyaker said:I grew up in Northern MN. I enjoy going back to visit July-August, but that's about it.
Where - approximately - in North MN?
I grew up (mostly) in Central MA - 4 years of HS and 2 of college were in Bemidji before I went into the Air Force.
12poundbass reply :
On 11/9/2019 at 12:54 AM, MIbassyaker said:Bummer! I kept looking around here this season for a report on your impending Brown Bass Beatdown on Lake X!
I did go to Lake X once, but that was with my son, his friend, his friend’s dad. That was over Labor Day weekend, I was off by noon, still crazy busy the last hour.
Lake X is on hold for now. Talking to a kid on my lake and an old friend I ran in to, there’s a lake less than 5 miles as the crow flies from me that holds smallmouth. I never knew it did, I knew it had rainbows and lakers, but not smallmouth. So “sneaky lake” is my target lake now. We fished it a few times, no brown bass only green ones. I’ll be hitting it quite often next year. I was hoping to one last time this weekend but the temps and especially the wind made me throw in the towel.
Bankbeater reply :
Misses:
A back spasm in early May kept me out of a boat and fishing off the bank for a month and a half. Then I had a trip to the ER on Memorial Day to get a hook removed from my palm. May was not a fun month. Ended up breaking 2 rods, one was repaired, but it's about 3/4" shorter than it was originally.
Hits:
Broke my PB on numbers this year. I was able to keep the skunk off of me all year until the middle of October.
Bigassbass reply :
My biggest hit was catching a 8+ LM and I lost count on how many 2-3lbers sweet summer fishing. Learned lots about new lures and fishing equipment thanks to you guys! I hooked a fish this morning that felt like a tree stump and when it rolled the hook out I almost cried cause I knew that could have been a LIFE TIME catch. Ah there's always next year. I live in the south so I'll fish on warm days for crappie and whatever hits my hooks. Fish on and keep the line screaming!
N Florida Mike reply :
I have had a pretty good year fishing-wise anyway. Hit my personal best numbers day on the home lake(32) , and biggest fish was 7 1/2. I had friends over a few times and we did well.
Thats the high points.
This year has been a very hard year financially for us , so I took no road trips, and bought fewer baits etc than any year I can remember. Fished less overall too, and the grandkids only went with me a few times.???? Mackayla was with me when I got the 7 1/2 pounder though!???? As a result of the lean year, I didn’t grow much with new baits/ techniques- like I had done in previous years.
I also have been trying to catch at least a 9 pound + fish this year, but haven’t yet.( I still have a month and a half !!)
soflabasser reply :
I caught several new personal best, caught new species of black bass and other species of fish that I added to my fishing lifelist. Overall it has been a great year and I look towards to what I will catch the following year.
Dwight Hottle reply :
Misses
I moved from Erie PA to south Florida on a permanent basis so my smallie fishing has been curtailed. Now I need to travel long distance to get my fix.
Pluses
Maintaining my health & having fun chasing largemouth more often. Achieved a new topwater PB last week at 9-0 lbs even & just caught a new PB at 27"x19.5" which weighed 11lb-73/4 ounces.
roadwarrior reply :
soflabasser reply :
Caught another personal best fish and a couple new species added to my fishing lifelist since my last post. This might be my best multi species year in the many years I have fished. There is a couple weeks left this year so lets see what happens.
related Fishing Reports topic
previous topic
© 2024 - fishing.qciss.net. All Rights Reserved.