Bluebasser86

I always have a "dead pile" in the bottom of the boat after a fishing trip. Any plastic that's too torn up to be fixed or used as a trailer goes into the pile to be tossed later. Can those old plastics be melted down and used to make new plastics?? I don't make my own but I know some guys that do. If it's possible I might start saving them in a bucket for them.

I tried straight shank flipping hooks and couldn't hook a fish to save my life. Went back to my EWG hooks and started boating fish again. What works for some doesn't always work for everyone.

Lots of the Zara Pooch on Ebay. The Lucky Craft Sammy comes in a tiny size. The Rebel Frog-R is a thicker bait but still a really small profile.

In my experience the original Senko is a superior bait when fishing weightless. If I'm doing anything else with them I'll go with a Bass Pro stick O. Honestly the only time I fish the original any more is during tournaments. I catch a lot of bass on the Stick O and they're way cheaper and more durable. The Strike King Ocho is a good bait and a little bit cheaper option than the Senkos.

Spro Bronzeye frog, shad, and popping frog are all great.

The mid sized Luck E Strike Freak is very small bodied and gets pretty deep on 8 or 10 pound test and a long cast. The 3XD would be another one I'd try for sure.

I agree, sounds like the spool tension knob is too tight.

That's not right though. I'm not sure when they changed it on the website but it's still a slot limit on that lake to encourage people to take the small fish out. Their length limits are messed up on a couple different lakes on the website for some reason. It's actually a 13-18 inch slot limit and you can have 5 a person. Get you and your boys out there and keep 15 12" bass and you'll have a pretty nice little mess of fish

You ought to go out to Douglas State Lake and catch a mess of those bass when the waters cold. I bet in that clear, rocky lake they taste pretty good and that lake needs a few thousand 12 inchers taken out of it. I know if I liked to eat fish I'd be out there doing exactly that in the spring and early winter.

Supposed to be great eating. Even if you don't want to eat it I'm sure someone else will

1/2oz shad colored rattle trap catches tons of them for me this time of the year. During the spring there's days you can't catch a smallmouth on a jerkbait because the whites get to them so fast, gets really annoying sometimes. Pretty much anything that looks like a fish will catch white bass. They're a blast when they're schooling on shad and hitting topwaters. A bone colored super spook Jr is a killer when they're chasing shad on top.

Peg it in grass, heavy cover, or when I'm skipping.

Even if you can't get them on a shakyhead they're still great on a split shot, C rig, light T rig, or drop shot.

Man I pray the wind will ONLY be 15mph when I go fishing. If I stayed home every time the blew above 15mph I'd rarely get to go fishing, part of life in KS and all of the Midwest for that matter. If you're running a transom mount trolling motor off a light weight johnboat I can truly feel your pain though.

Shad are very difficult to keep alive and therefore not a very good baitfish for bait shops to try to keep and sell. They're illegal to sell in some states because they look so similar to juvenile Asian carp that there is a concern vendors might accidentally assist with the spread of them.

I've fished the Elk a few times. I could probably fish that river for the rest of my life and never have to fish a different body of water. Even when it's busy during the summer I've always done well. I've had smallies to 19" and one largemouth that was 4.5 pounds and only 20" long. It's a beautiful river too.

Drag it, try to feel every rock down there with it. That's my favorite retrieve anyways.

I usually cast the same bait back at them. If they don't hit it on the cast back then I might toss a wacky rig at them if it looked big enough.

Oh there's a few here, I just need to actually get a chance to fish the lakes they live in!

Got that right! The fish in my avatar was nearly 8 pounds but only 21.5 inches long. But she was 17 inches around! I feel the same way about 10s around here. They happen once in a very great while, but even 8 and 9 pound fish are very rare in KS, 10 seems almost impossible.

Are you trying to catch them the same way you did the last 6 years? That's a bad habit fishermen have, we try to force the fish to do what we think they should be doing instead of figuring out what they're actually doing and fishing memories instead of the moment. Had it happen to me a couple weeks ago. Lake I was at historically has a great trap bite in the fall. I caught a few on it, but not nearly as many as in years past. Switched to a bladed jig in the same areas over the tops of submerged grass and started killing them.

You changed your PB, but I think you might need to change your favorite lake now too

Ethos rods are on sale at Academy for anyone needing to pick up a new one.

I frog fish with either a 7' M/F St. Croix Premier or 6' 10" MH/F Ethos, both paired with 40lb Sufix Performance braid. I see nothing wrong with using the rod and line you're using. Granted, I'm not fishing super thick slop, and if you are then I would certainly move up to a heavier rod. I'll bet it's your frog that's more the issue. Use some pliers to bend your hooks up away from the back of the frog very slightly, this gives your hooks a little separation from the back of your frog and allows a clearer path to the fishes mouth on the hookset. I did this after having problems with hookups on my Spro frog and I rarely miss a fish now.

Havoc Pit Boss, YUM Wooley Bug, Big Bites YoDaddy, and Netbait B Bug.