Whooo Hooo ! :-)

[Fish Chris]

Well, after coming here, and getting myself all worked up over big Sunny's, I finally found a few today :-)

Ended up catching 11 Red Ears for probably 15 lbs total. The biggest two were a 13 inch, 1.70 lb'er, and a 13 3/4 inch, 1.90 lb'er :-) And geeez ! I had almost forgotten how hard these things fight ! I mean, sure, I was using my micro-light.... but I wasn't purposely babying them either. I fought them the same way I'd fight a good bass, or catfish, on the same gear, and still, they took a little bit to bring into the boat. I swear that 1.90 ripped 30ft of drag :-)

Anyway, here's some pics....
I think this was a 12 1/2", 1.5 lb'er.

13", 1.7 lb'er

13 3/4", 1.90 lb'er

Note the kitty in the livewell :-) Caught 4 of those too, to 7 lbs. Just kept that one around for company, but ended up letting it go anyway. Didn't feel like cleaning fish tonight.

Oh, this was a 4.9 lb Smallmouth from last week. Same lake.

And this was my underwater "money shot" from today :-) The fish in the front is a 5+ Largemouth which I had already hooked on a crawler, and was fighting (10 lb fluorocarbon leader... can't see it at all) but I really like how this fishes buddy is looking at it like, "What the heck are you freaking out about" ? :-) Caught 3 Largemouth's today too. This was the biggest one.

Anyway, fun trip :-) Different lake tomorrow. Not so great a chance for big Sunnies.... but Clear Lk. Weds ! Hopefully I'll smoke the "true" Bluegills and hybrids there.

Peace,
Fish

[IceWarriorGill]

Hey Fish, those are some Slab Daddy Crackers you got there!!!! Some real Hawgs!!! And a Beautiful Smallie and Largemouth to boot!!!! Congrats on a terrific catch!!!!! Way to go!!!!!

[Tony Milosh]

Awesome pictures! What a monster redear, way to go!

[Alex G.]

WOW! Monster redears! Very nice indeed. Those are some awesome pictures!!!!!!!

[Bruce Condello]

Great redears. Great photos. And even a really nice picture of a bluegill management device as well! :-)

[Jim Gronaw]

Just a fabulous catch! Good for you!

[Jay Fogle]

Wow! Awesome fish and I really loved the photos. Especially the underwater one.

Great job.
Jay

[Fish Chris]

Much thanks guys :-)

Well, I'm going to do the Clear Lk. trip tomorrow. So I'm really hoping that those big ol' Bull Gills, and big beautiful hybrid Sunny's are up and biting :-)

Some clear water (don't let the name of that lake fool you :-( would be nice to.... not only to help find them.... but for some underwater bedding Sunfish shots too :-)
I should have taken some underwater shots of those big Red Ears yesterday "before" I went and stuck them all.... But you can't blame me for getting excited, and then getting ahead of myself, when I found them, can you ? :-)

Will post the results,
Peace,
Fish

[Slimdog]

Whoa...

[Jim Gronaw]

Hey Chris...you need some soup, cos you sure got the crackers!

Hey, what did you catch them on? Looks like a worm rig with a split-shot and small hook. At a local lake where I have been catching crackers there is a no-live-bait reg so I went with Gulp! Earthworms as a pretty good substitute. Again..great catch!

[Fish Chris]

Hey Jim, yea, mini-crawlers. Thank God they allow worms, because as I've said, I can't hardly catch a sunny on anything else ! :-) ....but I'm going to have to give those spoons a try.

Peace,
Fish

[Frosch]

Awesome pics, thanks for sharing.

[Troy Dorman]

Those are some hawg daddy shellcrackers, certainly three trophy fish in my book. My dad caught an 11 1/4 inch cracker yesterday that weighed exactly one pound, I thought it would've weighed more but it was a brute.

I live in Southern Indiana and the biggest I've personally caught is around 12 1/2 inches long, to bad it was twenty years ago when I was kid. That farm pond routinely yielded 12+ inch crackers too.