Bluebasser86

The fishing dock on the east side of Olathe is wheelchair accessible and has a railing all the way around it for your safety and there's pretty good fishing all around that dock because there's a flat on one side, a big drop off underneath it, and a rock ledge and deep water off the other side. Cedar Lake in Olathe has good shoreline access. Lake Lenexa off Prairie Star (95th) in Lenexa has paved sidewalks most of the way around it so that be another good one to check out.

Fished Melvern today from 5-2. Weather was beautiful, fishing SUCKED! Fished the entire day and had maybe 10 and all put together wouldn't have made 2 keepers. Jared finally caught one over 15" out of the far south end of the dam on a white Ned. Fished the marina for 1 smallmouth, again over 15" and this time on a white trick worm on a wacky rig. Best spot ended up being right by the state park ramp. Caught probably 20 fish off a 100yd stretch on the white or pink wacky rig trick worm. Probably 7-8 all day were even only 15" and almost all were skinny and torn up, nothing like normal Melvern smallmouth. I'm guessing maybe they were fish that had just finished spawning? Water is way up in the bushes and grass along the bank so the fry that should have recently hatched will have all kinds of places to hide. Ranger said it was at conservation pool for the first time in 2 years and they're planning on keeping it that way. I wouldn't go there if I didn't have to but dad wants to fish next Friday and that's where he seems to want to go so I might have to suffer through it again next week. Probably bring a catfish rod and drag a Santee Cooper rig behind the boat for blue cats instead of bass fishing

Critzer is a pain to fish. The trees are almost too thick to even get a boat through in a majority of the lake and don't show up with anything less than 20lb fluoro, I'd probably go with 65lb braid though. That's what it takes to get those dinks out of the jungle down there. Haven't fished Shawnee in several years but a buddy was out there last week and did not fair well.

In this weeks addition Well Jacomo was a little tougher today, probably had something to do with it having a LOT more water in it than it did last week. We still caught a good number of fish and some pretty stocky ones too. Got to do some frogging, which doesn't happen very often around here. Cbass got his first ever frog fish, and a couple more. Right towards the end I broke out a Funky Chicken colored Big Head Wobbler, wish I would have done that sooner. Had a 5+ follow it one of my first cast. Cbass got a good one on a Baby Gill colored Big Head Wobbler right before we left too.

Magnum Fin-eke worm, brown and purple was killing them at Grand Lake last week.

Good to see they were biting out there for you. I'll be back with Cbass in about 7 hours when I get off work

I wish you could measure a fish like that in a tournament! That gal has recovered nicely from the spawn!

Never had an issue with the ones I've had but it might have something to do with the reel seat being so minimal. Maybe try some rod tape to add a little cushion for you to grip.

How big is a giant worm is the same thing I was thinking. I've got some 17" hand poured C tail worms, I use an 11/0 Owner oversized worm hook. If it's a really thick worm you may need a hook with a little bigger gap though like an Owner Wide Gap Plus in a 6/0 or 7/0.

Both our BPS and Cabela's carries them. I don't use the Zoom version, I fish the BPS version of them. They're a killer on a swinging football head.

They don't carry the size he's asking about though. The series 2 realistically runs about 8-10 feet on 10lb line in my experience with them. They have a very tight wiggle and have been a killer little smallmouth bait for me. I didn't even realize they offered a mid range size until I saw them on the shelves, also at Wal Mart. There just seems to be no information on that size out there and almost no where that offers them, but they are a very good little bait. They come with much better hooks than any other Luck E Strike bait that I've fished so far also.

I fish a shakyhead a lot and have never had a problem catching fish on my plain round shakyheads that aren't the "stand up" style and my worms that don't float. Why is it an issue if a worm floats on a shakyhead but never comes up when guys are talking about a T-rigged worm? Seems those worms still catch plenty of bass. A dead sticked Senko is deadly (while being painfully boring to fish) and they certainly don't float off the bottom by any stretch of the imagination.

And now the bait monkey wants some more Savage swimbaits Where did you find that bottom hooked 3D line thru trout?? I've been looking all over for one and struck out so far.

Yeah, I was really just happy to see that size fish in the lake. I know there's plenty of them in there to see that many of them my first time on the lake, so I'll get more shots at them. It kind of reminds me of a couple years ago on a spring day we went from fishing suspending jerkbaits to fishing poppers and kept catching them. Mainly, when we were on a rocky bank I was fishing the shakyhead. As soon as we got to a weed lined bank though, I was back to tossing the Slammer. I'm headed back in the morning with Cbass12 once I get off work, got a BB rigged Hudd tied on already and he's going to be following up with a Slammer, hopefully we'll have a couple pigs to post up

Don't complain about that rain. If it stops you'll end up with a bunch of lakes that are 10' low or lower like a lot of the lakes are in KS right now, it sucks. I love a dark colored bladed jig when the water gets high. Fish it slow and steady around cover.

I fished out of a 2 man for a lot of years and managed to find quite a bit of offshore structure with the help of a C-rig, heavy football jig, or deep diving crankbait. I wouldn't want to fish without a depthfinder with any regularity now that I have one, even a cheap one is better than none at all.

I've got proof that there are bass in Wyco too! All caught in the last couple years and released after their photoshoot.

Never happen, county would lose way too much money. There's much smaller lakes that allow jetskis and all that nonsense. They buoy off part of the lake and only allow them in the more open areas and all the coves are no wake. Not that I agree with it, but I bet if they allowed it they would draw a lot of people to the lake that don't currently use the lake. Could even make them buy another permit just for pleasure craft? Miola does that and allows fishing boats on for free. Not like they have to worry about the zebra mussels getting into the lake anymore. The return of sampling would be great, so they could at least have an idea of what may need done. The loss of vegetation has been a killer for the LMB like you said. I wish they would attempt to introduce some pads back into the lake in the back of the coves (they're all soft, mud bottoms, perfect place for weeds to grow). I would think that milfoil or some other vegetation that grows in a little deeper water would help a lot also. Years when the water is up in the willows, the largemouth seem to do very well. A few years ago it was up past the willows. That spring it wasn't uncommon for me to be able to catch a limit over 15" out of the willows and I had several largemouth in the 17-20 inch range, it was like fishing a different lake. Since then the water has been so low that a lot of the normally productive willows aren't even in the water. The trout and catfish will always be stocked in there, but that's mostly a put and take fishery. The trout almost all die once the water gets warm and the catfish aren't going to outcompete the largemouth. I'm sure the catfish are mainly eating craws that the largemouth seem to largely ignore anyways. I've thought the same about spotted bass. My main concern would be how much they might compete with the smallmouth. I love catching spots, but I'd rather catch smallmouth. I think the lake could really benefit from a slot limit, like 12 or 13 inches to 15 inches and maybe an additional 18-21 inch slot to protect those rare large individuals. I'm sure that would really rile up some of the Wednesday night guys but it's a rare fish that reaches the 18" mark in Wyco.

It's a rounded blade but I bend it so it gives as much, if not more, vibration as a coffin blade.

They sure do in some of our lakes. Bass that normally either live in the depths or suspend over open water and ignore almost everything you throw at them, suddenly are in the shallows cruising weedlines right along the bank and attacking baits with reckless abandon. They really do seem like a completely different animal once the sun goes down.

Where's Fish Chris with his monster bluegill and redears??

The smallmouth just keep getting larger because that lake is much better suited for smallmouth than it is largemouth. Years when the water is up in the water willows the fishing is much better than it has been the last couple years. The numbers of bass isn't the problem at all, that lake is loaded with 12-14 inch fish, which I believe is part of the problem. The clear water and lack of cover drives a lot of the fish to deep water or off the banks where they suspend and chase bait fish and become extremely difficult to fish for. I fished the Wednesday nighters the last couple years until this year and numbers has never been the problem. We had nights with 30-50 fish coming to the boat and not a single one would measure over 15" (with the exception of smallmouth but they have to be 18" so they didn't help either). Now they've changed the way the creeks flow into the lake that has greatly reduced the amount of runoff coming into the lake which has made an already clear lake even clearer and greatly cut down on the amount of nutrients coming into the lake. Stocking more largemouth in Wyco is going to do nothing but waste money and compound the issue even further by creating more competition for an already limited amount of cover. If anything, a lot of the bass need to be removed from the lake to reduce competition. The white bass and wipers are another huge mistake that has messed up the bass fishing. Largemouth are already at a disadvantage in open water, chasing bait fish as they've lost the element of surprise. Now toss in the fact that they have to out compete those swimming stomachs that are built for speed and open water feeding and their handicap becomes even larger. The results is a bunch of skinny, starving largemouth that for some reason seem to refuse to eat the thriving bluegills and crawdads in the lake. The smallmouth have no problem eating the craws and are much more adept at feeding in clear, open water and love the rocky bottom that comprises a majority of the lake. Now with zebra mussels in the lake, the smallmouth will have an even bigger advantage. Every lake with a viable smallmouth population that I've seen, the smallmouth have exploded when zebra mussels got into the lake, Melvern is a prime example. Provided nothing major happens I think you'll see the lake transition into a good, if not great, smallmouth fishery and the largemouth will become more of an occasional catch but the quality will become better as their numbers drop. It may take several years to get to that point, but I think it will happen.

Are you ordering one to pick up at the store or having it delivered to your house? Personally I'd go somewhere else if I was buying a rod, Cabela's and BPS are both overpriced on most of their stuff. A little more info on what kind/size of cranks you're wanting to fish would help a lot with answering your question.

I'd prefer casting gear for frogging but if you prefer spinning gear you should be just fine with that combo.

shakyhead with a trick worm or wacky rig.