Bluebasser86

You could catch a ton of them off the dam at Hillsdale right now. Wipers are tough from the bank. Only place I've ever caught very many from the bank is the outlet at La Cygne and that is pretty hit and miss also.

Well doesn't seem to be any walleyes on the dam at Hillsdale right now but the whites are loaded on it in 7-12 feet of water. I caught somewhere between a boat load and a ton of white bass. They seemed to be biting best on baits that were in the water but might have been able to get one to jump out of the water and grab one too. I caught a ton on a #5 Glass Rap, 3" twitchtail minnow or beat shad on a 1/8oz jighead. Did catch one nice keeper crappie and a really little bass that was just a little bigger than my jerkbait.

inline or regular spinnerbait?

Get any off of the spot you guys fished in the tournament or all on the spot in the picture?

My garage The Sooie is one of my favorite C-rig baits I've ever fished. Got a ton of bags from when they discontinued them. I was still working at Cabela's then and bought loads of them for $1.50 a bag. Seriously though http://www.eburch.biz/yum_sooie.htm

Good to see this weather didn't knock them down out there. I'll probably be out there with basshunter on Friday looking to finally break the 5 pound mark.

Nice brown! They're a blast to catch and about as pretty as a fish can get.

I use Red Label as my mainline for jigs, plastics, and shakyheads. I used to use InvisX until I tried Red Label and couldn't really tell the difference.

VMC inlines are what I put on just about everything.

Right now my go to bait is a jerkbait. They've been eating them so well I can't hardly put it down to even try anything else.

Bass can actually see a lure (or angler) from a surprising distance in the right conditions. That's why wind is such a big factor in clear water lakes, it helps break up the surface so the fish can't see the boat or angler as well. You're right that they can detect vibrations from a long ways away as well and will become almost completely dependent upon it to find food when they live in muddy conditions.

I've caught some really big bass in the summer on tiny cranks and plastics. If you hit them on the nose with it they'll still eat a little bait. There's always some fish shallow too, even during the summer. Some of the big guns in pro fishing like Denny Brauer, Tommy Biffle, and George Cochran made and still make great livings catching fish all year round out of skinny water. Summer and winter are great times to catch schooling fish but you can get them schooled up pretty good in the fall also.

Got to pull a bunch of those little ones out. I grew up fishing a lake that had the same problem until I started keeping dozens of them each time I'd go out (semi private with no size/bag limits). I started culling out every fish under 12" unless it looked like a very healthy individual. It took a few years of doing this but now the average size has gone up to the 14-15 inch range with 3-5 pounders pretty common and occasionally one in the 6-7 pound range. The bluegill population is much healthier now also. Bass that size are very easy to fillet and you get a surprisingly good sized fillet off of them and just ask around and you'll find someone more than willing to take them if you don't want to eat them.

From the same lake as that little crappie on the jig, also on one of my homemade jigs and 14lb test.

Some of the lakes they stock with trout in Kansas you have to have a state trout permit regardless of whether you're even going to fish for trout. One of them has some of the biggest bass in the state so I have to spend $12.50 on a trout permit...to fish for bass

A 78 pointer was the only jerkbait we could get them to touch Wednesday, very specific about the colors they'd eat too. If we could ever get some stable, warm weather I think they'd flood the shallows looking to spawn. The only consistent thing about the weather so far this year is it's been very inconsistent.

I get a lot of lures that others have lost out of trees with mine, including some Lucky Crafts, and the Frabil retriever I have only cost about as much as 2 Lucky Crafts. It has paid for itself so many times over I'd never go fishing without one in my boat again.

Same here only about 10 minutes away. Now I will have 2 BPS, a Cabela's, several DSG, Roger's, and Academy all within 30 minutes of our house. I'm going to have to get a second job at this rate

What a tremendous fish. I wish catching one that big was even a real possibility around here but sadly that fish is larger than our state record. Congrats to you on achieving your goal!

Doesn't work very well in lots of the lakes around here. Some of them have lots of snot moss that fouls your bait and sinker, some are really shallow and extremely muddy, some have zebra mussels so bad your sinker gets cut off almost every drop.

I like to fish them with a 1/4oz bullet weight and a 4/0 EWG hook, Texas rigged. If the water is dirty I'll often add a tube rattle too.

They also make transducer shields that you can mount on the back of your boat to protect a standard transducer. I have one, just need to get a replacement transducer after I broke the last one on a stump

I have some lakes and ponds that are loaded with dinks that will eat anything that I go to when I want to learn a new technique. Catching fish on a new bait or rig gives me confidence in it to fish it somewhere else where the bites will be a bit fewer and further between.

Nightcrawlers on a small hook and slip sinker rig is what I catch mine on. They fight really well on light gear. Sometimes it's tough to get the nightcrawlers past the drum, cats, and bluegills though. If you can find river worms along the bank they'll really eat those things even better.

I fished for musky for several years with traditional muskie gear at a the only two decent muskie lakes we have "close" (3 hours drive to each of them) Canada, and Minnesota. In all that time I caught 1 on a bucktail, 1 on a 1oz Terminator spinnerbait, and 1 on a 1/16oz crappie jig. Then last year we went to one of the lakes in Missouri that I've muskie fished before to fish for bass. We caught 9 muskie that weekend, 2 on spinnerbaits, 1 on a tube, 2 on buzzbaits, 3 on squarebills, and one on a bucktail. We also had 1 follow a worm to the boat and 1 follow a deep crank to the boat and one blow up on a muskie chopper bait. If you're on a lake with muskie and they're actively feeding you'll know.