Keepin' it poppin'

[Esox Luciano]

Been throwing the homemade popper at almost every spot I go to lately. Have had some good success with it and decided to throw on a bigger hook on to try for some teeth. Was able to move a few around and oddly enough the popper was the only offering they wanted that day. Nothing crazy, but stayed busy and had a blast with it!
With the high temps the following day, I decided to get off the Passaic and get to some clean water spot I found in the woods so I can take a dip while fishing. The popper got to work immediately helping me land the 1st 2 bass. They get picky in this water and will only bite on soft plastics when using subsurface lures. So after the popper stopped being effective, I threw on some cool soft plastics I got from a bass guy in NY. Some weird looking leech/tentacle looking sticks. Whatever they're supposed to mimic, the bass loved it. Got a few more on that and some nedded kietechs and stayed busy for a few hours. Biggest that day ran 18" @2.2.
Also, was meeting up with a buddy at a northern river to do it up again. Got there about 15 minutes before him so I was intent on wetting my line before he got the chance. This I learned from his brother! With that, after 3 casts my lure gets sucked down by this 1st fish and after a small battle, was able to jump in and land this lil fattie. After snapping the pic solo,(all pics are done solo) and getting her back in the drink, my buddy pops up right at the release. About 3 hrs later he actually caught the same one right near the same area! The mark on the lip & tail were easily distinguishable. No need for him to take measurements either cause I took them 3hrs earlier. Starting & endind the 93° day with a 20" Larry @3.9! Not too bad for these doggy days!