Bluebasser86

I caught an owl on a jitterbug while I was night fishing several years ago. Thankfully it crash landed in some blackberry bushes and pulled the hooks loose or he would have been keeping my jitterbug.

It usually seems to me like the first couple cold fronts in the fall produce good fishing right after them. We just had a big cool down with lots of rain and the fish were really hitting a 7" Slammer swimbait but I'm sure spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, or walking baits would have produced a lot more fish.

Crappie can be bad news for a pond but it doesn't sound like they're overpopulated in your pond. If the bass are big enough to be worth keeping and your friend doesn't mind I'd get out there early in the year and keep a bunch of them to have a fish fry or give to someone else. If there's enough of them you may have to do it a few times. If there isn't enough food for them to grow big they'll get stunted like that sometimes. You may contact your state DNR. Some of them will sample the pond and give you suggestions on what you can do to improve the fish populations and fishing.

Nice fish! That southeast corner of the dam almost always has a few fish and usually some good ones.

I spun the head of my Endura around and put it on the front of my 12' john boat and it worked perfectly. I didn't even know you could do that until a friend of mine that works at Cabela's told me about it.

I used to fish 7.5" fire and ice all the time. Don't use them anymore but they're still a good bait.

I get by just fine with VMC, H2O, and BPS worm hooks. Trokars are scary sharp, great for light line fishing when you need a hook to penetrate easily with less force. I go through too many hooks due to zebra mussel cut offs to fish expensive hooks anymore.

Fished Wyco this morning after I dropped the dog off at the vet. The cooler weather and cloud cover seemed to help a lot. I went out there determined to catch a fish on my Slammer. Not only did I catch one but I caught 6 and missed that many more including a smallmouth that probably would have kept. Big baits certainly didn't equal big fish, 1 out of the 6 was a keeper and only had to measure one other that I thought might be close. Didn't fish much else, had 2 on a 4" ring worm and 1 on a C rigged FattyZ. I'm sure I could have caught a lot more fish on something else but I was having fun slinging that Slammer, the looks and comments I was getting from the bank was pretty good too.

I must spend too much time on here. I've only been a member a little over 3 years

5 bucks a day buys a lot of baits a month. I've never understood the appeal of it I guess. Paying to rot your teeth and potentially give yourself gum or throat cancer?? I've never tried it so maybe I'm missing something but I've had 2 people I knew die in the last few years from cancer as a direct result of chewing, one of them was just a few years older than me and left behind a wife and 4 kids, so no plans to ever try the stuff.

PETA members have bombed labs that test products on animals and have openly encouraged violence against people to protect animals. Sounds a bit like actions of a terrorist to me. With that being said I understand that's the far end of the spectrum and most of them are probably just trying to stop some of the more extreme activities. That's why when they protest fishing tournaments (like they did at the Classic a few years ago) they only get one or two people to show up. I agree it was a very poorly written article with nothing to back up the terrorist claims and then threatening violence for them giving pamphlets to your kids just shows you're no better than them. How about if they try to give it to your kid you don't let them?? The article seemed to be trying to get the same blind following that the author was bashing from the celebs that are PETA members.

I'm using a BPS Extreme 7' 10" H. They're normally $99 but you can get them on sale for $79 every year during their spring fever sale. It's only rated to 3 ounces though so if you're going to fish a real big bait it might not be heavy enough.

Black and blue flake is one of my go to color stick baits.

I have the tiny one and like it really well. It casts surprisingly well for how small it is and I have yet to miss a fish with it.

He's cold blooded so it will depend on the water/air temps. A little 5 pound snapper probably subsides more on a small bluegill or bass or craws than bigger fish. When the water temps cool down they don't have to eat very often either.

The sunfish wouldn't leave even a 10" worm alone for me on Thursday. It was even worse when I tried a Senko.

Well something just seemed off yesterday. Maybe it was the 25mph wind making it tough to fish and control the boat but it really just felt like something wasn't right because even when we got out of the wind we were struggling and most of the fish we caught were smallmouth for some reason. I think it's probably just because the water is cooling down and the fish are trying to adjust, I doubt the full moon helped either. Scrogg's walleye was an absolute monster, bigger than any I've seen in person since my dad's friend caught a 9 pounder at Milford. It was every bit of 7-8 pounds and may have been pushing 10 depending on how fat it was, and it looked really thick. That one tiny little hook it had in the side of it's face just didn't hold on quite long enough. The first couple fish I caught were dink smallmouth, then I broke off a fish where I caught a keeper last trip, then again off another spot I caught a keeper last week. Good thing about that was I tied those 2 jigs just for Wabaunsee the day before I flipped another dock, stuck a good fish that make a really big boil, then it popped off. A little ways further I flipped a boat lift and my jig sank about 2 feet before it stopped. I stuck a good fish that had me wrapped up for a few seconds before it worked loose and I finally got one in the boat. 18" and 3lbs 1oz. We didn't do much else for a long time. It was probably over an hour before I caught another fish. I started fishing a weightless Havoc Flat Dawg and catching some fish but they were pretty small. I hooked a heavy fish off the dam on a jig but the wind had blown such a big bow in my line I didn't get a solid hookset and then couldn't keep up when it steamed out to deeper water and it came loose. Right towards the end of the day I finally caught a 17.5" largemouth on a Senko. I took my jig off and started fishing a Zoom Mag II worm and catching some fish, more largemouth than with the jig. The last 5 minutes we were there I think I caught 5 or 6 more largemouth in way less time than I had at any point all day and one of them was another pretty solid fish. Would have been pretty lucky to scratch 12 pounds today. Scrogg caught more fish on a Luck E Strike Series 100 than anything else I think.

Bass aren't shy about eating each other. I've had big bass attack smaller bass while I was reeling them in several times. To a bass another smaller bass is just another baitfish.

I've done it several times. Some places there's so many big bullfrogs it gets really annoying when they keep chasing the frog and I keep having to reel it away from them. We used to use a grub on a aberdeen hook to catch bullfrogs for frog legs when I was a kid.

That lake is pretty tough in the fall a lot of the time. There's tons of shad in the lake right now so the fish don't have to work very hard to get food. Really about the only area I don't occasionally catch fish is the flat shoreline by the golf course and southeast of the island where it gets really shallow. We fished there Wednesday morning and it was pretty tough. Most of our fish were on a 8" redbug colored worm but a small squarebill and a pitboss caught fish also.

I take 56 there, it's the most direct route. You can take I70 to highway 4 too but it's a really windy, twisty road when you get close. You have to detour around Baldwin City right now but if you want to go that way I can give you directions or you can just follow me out there if you want.

They're still $3.99 a pack for all their baits here, more baits and same price is a win for fishermen.

Ok, so I talked to the lady at the ramp (not THE lady but the lady that was at the gate) about the get together. I guess she'd already heard about it and asked about our tournament and if I was fishing in it. I told her I was going to be there with a group of guys the 5th. She said she'd talked to city reps and they said no go on any tournaments. I explained that it wasn't a tournament but a group of guys getting together for some fishing and BSing and food. She lightened up a little when I told her that and asked that I just let everyone know not to call it a "tournament" and make sure everyone knows not to have their boats anywhere within 7 days of the get together. She also thought it might be a good idea for everyone to take their boats to a car wash and spray them off before hand. She said as long as I'd promise to get the message accross to everyone that she'd be there before 7am on the 5th to help check us in. So if you read this and get a text from me to read it just ignore my text.

A 4.5 would have got us a little more money but only 1 more point so it had pretty much the same effect. Mainly now I'm done out there until the water cools off and I don't have to fish next week which makes my wife really happy!

I'll ask tomorrow. I know they have small tournaments from time to time with outside groups so it shouldn't be a problem.