Bluebasser86

War Eagle jigging spoons are a staple in my tackle box.

Clear water when the baitfish are very small is a good time to fish the smaller sizes. I've actually done very well on some surprisingly sturdy largemouth with the olive colored size 4 Xrap. It can be cast with a baitcaster but it's way easier to do with a spinning outfit. The 65 Pointer by Lucky Craft is another bait I fish quite a bit, always on spinning gear. I've caught some really nice fish up to 4-5 pounds on them as well. They're fun to fish because you can really catch anything on them.

I use plain Plano 3700's, about half a dozen of them now packed to the gills with jigs. Get the smallest zip ties you can find and zip tie those skirts if they aren't tied on with wire or thread, you'll have way fewer of them falling apart that way and it isn't going to bother the fish. You can even get colored sharpies and match them to the color of your jig a little bit.

3/8oz tandem Colorado/willow leaf War Eagle in Sexy Mouse 3/8oz tandem Colorado/Indiana Booyah chart/white 1/2oz double willowleaf War Eagle Screaming Eagle in Spot Remover 5/16 tandem Colorado/Oklahoma War Eagle Finesse in white 5/16 tandem Colorado/Oklahoma War Eagle Finesse chart/white 1/2 tandem Colorado/willow leaf 50/50 blades custom chart/white I don't fishing spinnerbaits very often, hard for me to even come up with 6 honestly. Funny thing is, I probably carry 100 different spinnerbaits and these are the only 6 I fish with any regularity.

Only thing I've used it for it to lighten dark pictures and black out backgrounds to prevent spot pirates. I'm not technologically advanced enough to do anything else with it anyways.

I once caught a new world record on a 1/16oz pink crappie jig at a private lake in Texas on a 5' crappie rod and 4lb test. I think I had a crappie hooked and she ate it on the way up. Anyways, couldn't get ahold of any certified scales or a Game Warden to weigh it so we just went ahead and filleted it and ate it over the campfire, sure tasted great! I have a picture somewhere but it might have been on that camera that Bigfoot ran away with after we stole his beef jerky from him on a camping trip in Ozarks.... My one and only DD fish was at Lake Commendero, Mexico. She should have been 13-14 pounds if she hadn't been on such a strict diet!

IMO, spinning gear is the only way to go with #7 and smaller shad raps. It handles the light line and light lures much easier. Shad raps catch the wind so bad and fly so inconsistently that even if a casting rod is capable of casting them, you're still going to blow your reel up occasionally.

Got told to leave a couple different bars. I'm not one to start a fight, but I'm more than willing to end it

That was an awesome video! I'd be shaking like a leaf seeing those monster browns eating like that. I can almost see my cast collapsing on top of them and spooking them now!

Welcome to the forums and thank you for your service! If you every make it back to Kansas let me know and I'll get you on some fish. You also might want to check out the KC area thread in the local fishing forum to keep up with the fishing reports in KS so you'll be ready if you come back to KS!

It wouldn't hurt to bring your own blankets, pillows, towels, and TP. Not saying we'll need them, but not saying we won't either. We had plenty last time but there was only 7 of us then. Don't have that quite figured out yet. I know Curt and Peter are both planning on bringing their boats but not sure if they're going to fish together or not. Right now the teams that I know we have are; Scogg/Scrogglet basshunter0731/Christopher blubasser86/kanasbassfisher08 cbass12/partner Like I said, not sure if Curt and Peter are fishing together or not and then Sizzle is waiting to see if Chris S can fish or not.

A guy on another forum has been using an H2O Mettle for over a year now for nothing but A-rigs and says he's had no issues with it. He fishes Beaver Lake a lot so he's tossing 5 arm rigs and tangling with not only bass but stripers and wipers so take that for what it's worth.

The 6' 8" "Wacky Style" Mojo is one of the most versatile spinning rods I've owned, not many spinning applications you can't use it for. I used it a lot for shakyheads, drop shot, wacky rig, weightless plastics, light t rigs, small cranks, small jerks, small topwaters, small spinnerbaits, tubes, skipping docks, like I said pretty much everything you can use a spinning rod for, I used that rod to do it at one point or another and it performed well. I mainly fished 8 or 10 pound Red Label on it.

I have no doubt fish will eat it.

I'll bet there's bluegill in there for sure. Mattlures U2, ultimate, or hardgill would all be good options, as would one of his catfish or baby bass baits since there's obviously bass in there. The River 2 Sea S-Waver would be another good option along with a MS Slammer. There's very few lakes with trout in KS but I've caught plenty of bass on trout colored Hudds. I catch plenty of bass on shad colored baits in lakes with no shad also.

I fish a home made, very much like the flash mob. 1/4oz home made casting jig heads with 5" super flukes in albino. I like to spread them out fairly well but as long as they aren't tangling too much I don't worry about it being exact.

I'll use any color frog, as long as it's black. If that doesn't work I'll also use black.

Spring time is a great time to use them, around vegetation and docks where you normally see bluegills is good also. If it's a brighter bluegill color it can be a really good stained/muddy water color as well.

War Eagle jigging spoon is my number 1 spoon by a long shot, chrome or white 3/4oz.

1.1/2oz homemade Texas Craw brush jig 2. 3/8oz homemade black and blue chatterbait 3 5/16oz homemade summer craw finesse jig 4. 5" BPS Stick O watermelon/purple 5. 1/2oz Xcaliber XRK50 in ghost 6. Lucky Craft Slender Pointer 97mr in gunmetal shad 7. SK KVD 1.5 green gizzard shad 8. 3/8oz Caivtron black on black 9. Zoom Trick Worm in watermelon magic 10. Keitech swing impact black shad

Early in the year a Rapala Shad rap with enough suspend dots on it to make it slowly rise up can be a killer. Another weighting option is to drill a small hole and add BB's and seal it up with epoxy. Obviously don't do that if your favorite cranks are Megabass or Lucky Crafts or some other expensive bait but you can change a baits buoyancy, sound, and action doing this, ending up with a bait unlike any on the shelf.

I'll trade you're 3 inches of snow for our 3 inches of ice that's on our lakes! Nice start to the year.

That's why I always feel like a scratched up crankbait catches more fish!

Right now I know we have; Hi Salenity (Curtis) Wachati (Peter) kanasbassfisher08 (Chris) basshunter0731 (Jon) cbass12 (Ryan) sizzlefry (Sean) Mr_Scrogg (Andy) Bluebasser86 (Clayton) Folks who aren't sure they can make it yet; CCCDrew (Drew) pbrussell (Blake) Chris S (Chris) 2003stratos (Jared) If I left anyone off the list, let me know so I can get you on there or if your attendance status has changed.

Alright, I'll try to give a run down of everything we discussed last night. We decided to try to do 3 different tournaments this spring. The first one is the Cabin Fever Trout tournament on Thursday, March 20th at Lake Shawnee in Topeka. This I think should just be a for fun deal, no weigh in or measuring fish. Since trout aren't hardy enough to cull, or even measure and release a lot of the time, we should either just fun fish, or we could do the 1 biggest fish caught. Either way, it should be a good way to beat the winter blues. Not going to do any cooking afterwards because it's probably going to be cold, but we could all grab something to eat somewhere in Topeka if we wanted to. Second will be a 1 day at Melvern on Saturday, April 19th, with a backup day of the 20th if the weather is a wash the 19th. This will be the same deal as last time, heaviest 5 per boat, weight them on a digital scale and turn them loose. No dinner here either but I guess if we wanted to get brave we could go to Beto Junction and eat. Finally, the 2 day will be at Grand Lake in Grove, Ok on May 31st and June 1st. We'll weigh fish just like we have been doing, 5 per day per boat, with the heaviest combined 2 day weight. We'll also do big bass for the 2 days. If there's a tie for first place for total weight, the winning team will be whichever team caught the biggest bass. If there's a tie for big bass, whoever's bass was longest will take it. Bob and Mel were nice enough to let us use both of their cabins for this so we'll have bathrooms, showers, kitchens, everything we need really. I'm asking that everyone pitch in at least $20 a person to give to Bob and Mel for letting us stay and to cover our water and electric use. You can't camp for that cheap so it's really a heck of a deal. We might be able to fit everyone in the cabins but if not there's plenty of rooms for tents and plenty of people have them so we're good on lodging and beds. If anyone has a tent and/or air mattress, feel free to bring them so we have plenty of room and beds. Saturday night will be the only night we're planning on having a group meal. We're going to get a pork butt and smoke it, everyone can just pitch in some money at the lake to eat. This way all we have to do is reheat it and eat instead of starting charcoal and cooking burgers and hotdogs like normal. We can grab some sides and buns in Grove so no one has to worry about keeping food fresh on the way down there. Snacks, drinks, and breakfast will just be everyone bring their own. Sunday afternoon I'm sure everyone will just be wanting to get on the road so we won't be doing food that night. We're planning on going out of Wolf Creek Ramp right in Grove, about 10 or 15 minutes from the cabins. Myself, Jon, and I'm sure some others will be planning on being down there Friday to fish a little bit and get everything set up and ready and hopefully have a good fishing report for everyone. One thing I forgot, Bob and Mel have asked that if anyone plans on drinking that we keep it in moderation. I don't think anyone was planning on making this a big drinking weekend but I know most everyone likes to have a drink after a day of fishing so just wanted to make sure everyone is aware of it.