Bluebasser86

For small parts you can use regular Plano boxes, 3600 or 3700 sizes work fine. If you spray paint the underside of them white or some other light color it makes tiny screws and parts easier to spot also.

The Z man Zeros are great on a split shot or C rig because of their floating qualities.

Wow, and I thought we were spending a bunch of money buying a $200 jogging stroller Honestly I'm more concerned about all the money I know my wife is going to spend on all the outfits for him

Care to share the dimensions, and materials you used to make it? You can tell with most of it but not all.

Bass still aren't biting down there huh? I keep thinking about heading out there but the terrible reports don't inspire much confidence.

The old Bagley Bang "O" with the propeller on the back used to be a very popular bait to catch walleye after dark on top around here. I know a guy that swears he caught a 5 pound walleye on a spook in the middle of a bunch of schooling bass that were chasing shad over 30' of water. I don't know why he'd lie about it but I've never seen one hit any kind of topwater. I've caught a bunch on spinnerbaits burnt just below the surface when they get up shallow chasing shad though.

La Cygne?

X2, I also prefer a shorter rod for jerkbaits to prevent slapping the water or smacking the side of my boat. A faster action with jerkbaits also makes it easier to make the bait do what I want it to do. No glass rod I've ever fished would be sufficient for all but a couple swimbaits I fish. I'd go with the graphite rod out of those two if you're really set on 1 rod to fish all those baits.

Alabama rig if I'm somewhere it's allowed. For the places it's not a suspending jerkbait, boot tail or curl tail grub are my go to baits.

In case anyone that might be interested hasn't heard yet, the Bassmaster Elites are coming to Table Rock next year April 3-6. I'm sure it's not as big of a deal as the Classic but it's a cool chance to meet some pros, watch them do what they do, and spend some time on the water. I got my request off in at work

Doubtful there is still a thermocline if your water temps are cooled down like they should be by now. If there is one during the heat of the summer it's often where you'll see a majority of the fish over deeper water suspending.

Nice buck! I'd be happy just to SEE a deer this season

The white bass have saved many a winter day of fishing for me. They get packed in tight chasing shad in the power plant lakes during the winter. I'd much rather catch the bigger hybrids but a bunch of 1-2 pound whites are a whole lot more fun than a blank! Sounds to me like the place you're fishing would be a great place for a 3 or 4 inch Storm Wildeye shad. I've also done well in moving water for them with spoons like a 1/4oz Little Cleo or a #3 Mepps inline spinner.

Personally I like the rigs with the added spinner blades like the Flash Mob. Cooler water months are the right times to fish them so it is about that time of year. Unfortunately we aren't allowed to fish them in KS so we miss out on that amazing A rig bite.

I don't enjoy losing expensive lures, but I understand it's part of the risk of using them. What I can't stand for is a $25 bait that mysteriously cracks or breaks, something that Megabass baits, especially the Vision 110, is infamous for. Personally, I'll take 3 STX Stick knockoffs for the price of 1 Vision 110 any day.

X2, our schedules are set at work a year at a time. I'm quickly running out of time to be able to request time off without having to find people to work for me.

If my gear ever got put away for this terrible "offseason" thing I keep hearing about, this is what I'd suggest doing also.

2 power plant lakes within an hour of the house=I never stop fishing

Coffey County was real good again Thursday, just saying

I have no doubt they are extremely thick in that river right now. We had this happen to us really bad at Lake of the Ozarks way up the Osage River, then it's happened to me a few times on Olathe since then. It's extremely frustrating to literally see fish eating shad (not really chasing hard, just looking like they're opening their mouths and swimming through the schools of shad) and not being able to get bit. I had to leave them alone at Olathe and get away from the shad and schooling fish. I started catching fish when I did that at least.

Nothing quite a sickening as casting off an expensive swimbait. Have yet to have it happen with copolymer, and haven't had any problem handling any of the swimbait fish I've caught with it. I'm going to try to do this without sound like a jerk or bait snob, as I understand how hard it is to pop for a $50 bait when money is tight as it is for me. Would you rather buy 1 really good bait that cost $50, or a mediocre bait for $20? I've had a couple of the BBZ baits, and they're solid baits and will catch you fish, but never did they produce anything near what my Mattlures or Bull Shads have. Once you buy them they should last you a long time as long as you don't let any toothy fish steal them from you, which I understand is almost impossible to prevent at times. If you do go with a BBZ, I would highly suggest the 6" floater over the BBZ shad. The BBZ shad just never did anything to impress me and I believe only ever caught me one fish out of all the times I threw it.

1/2oz Strike King Premier Pro model jig with a Denny Brauer chunk on a Shimano Bullwhip pistol grip rod and some junkie Diawa with a flipping switch. I was casting to a riprap bank that had a lot of brush and crawling it over the limbs. Fish grabbed it and started swimming back towards the trees, probably 2.5lbs. I'd had lots of unsuccessful trips with a jig prior to that so it was a major victory for me. Much better equipment and thousands of jig fish later they're now my favorite bait to fish

Of those 2 I prefer the RES but I also fish the Xcaliber a vast majority of the time.

Some beautiful bookend brownies there!

The fish I'm chasing are mostly shallow and so are the baitfish. Several times this year I've seen this scenario play out, most recently last Wednesday. There's massive schools of baitfish that have been pushed up onto a big flat by wipers, whites, largemouth, and saugeye. Fish are blasting shad and swirling everywhere. I threw; 3 different 1/4oz traps, 2 different 1/2oz traps, shallow X-rap shad, 78 pointer, 95 Gunfish, Super spook Jr, Zara puppy, Zell Pop, 3" grub in 2 different colors, keitech swing impact, 1/2oz war eagle jigging spoon, 1/4oz Little Cleo, and a 3/8oz chatterbait. The results; 2 small bass, 1 small wiper, and 3 saugeye on a 1/4oz xcaliber one knocker and 1 big white bass on the little Cleo in 3 hours of casting into actively chasing fish. The school of shad was thick enough to walk on and probably covered an area close to a football field and all the shad were 2" or smaller and the flat is no deeper than 6' deep. I really believe that there is just so much food for them right now that if a bait doesn't about run into their mouth then they aren't going to bother with it.