Bluebasser86

Nice! Love those big hook jawed browns! That is a very nice, fat hen brown your wife caught too! Things head looks half the size it should be for that body.

I fish them with a 1/4 or 3/8 ounce weight and a 4/0 EWG hook on a Trig. I use the 1/4oz, unpegged, for pitching to laydowns, docks, and rocks. I use the 3/8oz, pegged, for pitching in weeds.

Good to know. Table Rock and Bull Shoals are the two lake I primarily fish a wart on but my pre Rapala warts are way too valuable to me to fish elsewhere. You just can't appreciate how effective they are on those lakes until you get on a good wart bite and they seem to be interested in biting nothing but a wart. I'll have to give a couple more of them a try. I guess for $4 a bait it isn't so bad if I can get one out of every few baits to run well.

Yes I fish black during daylight hours. Really the only thing that will make me change to white is an abundance of shad in the area I'm fishing and even then I'll usually throw black first. Trust me, it works. All 6 of these fish were during a calm, post frontal afternoon with lots of sun, in a strip pit with lots of shad on a 3/8oz black on black Cavitron.

Well I've told it several times but here we go again. I was camping at a little state lake with my buddy and his girlfriend. My friend and I were on a rock pier night fishing because the game warden had stopped by earlier and told us they'd shocked a near DD bass up out of the very spot we were camping. Of course I had high hopes with that news so I was flinging a big, black musky jitterbug just hoping for that one fish. After about half an hour of listening to that hypnotic "plop, plop, plop" I was about to nod off when I heard a slash like someone threw a brick in the water and the fight was on! The adrenaline dumped immediately and I was standing in the water with my rod buried in the water to try to keep her from jumping. There was a bright moon out but I couldn't see anything where my bait had been because of all the trees along that part of the shoreline. The fish was stripping drag and straining my rod when my rod suddenly broke! I kept trying to pull the fish towards me when I realized my line was heading up. I did what I could to keep her from jumping but my line continued up and up. About the time I realized that my line was well above the water was about the same time I saw a huge owl flying across the sky and my line seemed to be following it?! By this time my buddy had found a spotlight and lit up the sky and we discovered that I had indeed hooked an owl in the foot after it tried to pick up my Jitterbug. So I was holding onto my rod trying to figure out what we were going to do with this owl when it crash landed into some blackberry bushes along the shoreline. We were discussing what to do when it jumped back up out of the bushes and took off, leaving my bait tangled in the bushes with the hook that had been stuck in it's foot straightened. All of this happened in probably 30 seconds but it felt like it lasted 10 minutes.

Black and white are almost the only 2 colors of buzzbaits I fish, and I fish them a lot. The basic breakdown would be 3/8oz black on black 90% of the time, white 9% and translucent with silver sparkle 1% of the time. I only fish Cavitrons except for one home made one with the translucent skirt, white head and white painted blade for very clear water.

I've caught lots of bass out from under docks on Table Rock during the winter time. Of course some of those are over 50 or more feet of water. Huge schools of spotted bass suspend underneath them and if you can find them are super easy to catch at times. A jigging spoon or grub is my bait of choice for catching those fish.

Shake it off and try again next time. It's those days when you catch the skunk that keep you driving to learn and do better next time. This time of year if you really want to ensure catching fish I'd suggest live bait, otherwise I'd be expecting to blank more often than not.

Anybody fished the newer ones? I had a few of the older ones and they swam terrible and leaked water but they're supposed to have that problem fixed. They're supposed to be made similar to the old wiggle warts that work so well in some of our lakes. I'd like to try them again if the problem really is fixed.

I love War Eagle jigging spoons for fishing deep water. It's really effective late fall through winter anywhere there are schools of baitfish with fish feeding on them or concentrations of fish.

I use the same one. Not only great for retrieving my baits when I get snagged up but also very good at getting lures others have lost in the trees Paid for itself many, many times over.

You always have the option of fishing live bait also. Float a minnow under a bobber anywhere in the open water in you should be able to get bit. Not my favorite way to fish but sometimes the only way to get bit in really cold water.

That should do it. Christmas trees aren't really buoyant anyways so it doesn't take much to sink them. Since you're sinking them in a pond it shouldn't take much to hold them down either.

It was a tough year for me because it was so dry all summer that most of the crop fields we hunt produced very little beans or corn. I don't rifle hunt but we have a long bow season so I was out a lot. I shot a doe in December, first deer I'd had within range since October pretty much the only deer I'd seen since then. My buddy got us in on a small 20 acre plot on the outskirts of the city and after a month of having a camera out he had over 400 pictures! I spent the last 3 weeks of the season out there and saw some monsters but none close enough. It got me excited for next year though.

My heaviest 5 fish limit I've caught other than in Mexico was on a King Shad, 30lbs 2oz in February several years ago. I also paid $20 a pop for mine, broke 4 of them one day last winter, that hurts. I've caught lots of nice bass and tons of wipers on them. The one I caught my 30lb limit I also had a ton of wipers from 4-8 pounds, they tore my bait up pretty bad

I love fishing shakyheads and they're almost the only thing you can catch them on at times in a couple of our lakes. You're imitating small forage; crawfish, minnows, leeches, or worms. These potential prey items do not make sudden big movements which is one of the biggest mistakes I see anglers make fishing shakyheads, over fishing the bait. Dragging, shaking, and small hops of the bait are my most productive ways to fish them. I pour my own shakyheads with a screw lock keeper and fish a lot of finesse worms, trick worms, small craws, and small creature baits.

Good luck man! Don't give up hope on catching fish. We fished hard in the rain most of the day Thursday and didn't get many bites but one of them was almost 6 and the other was 7 1/2. A couple bites like that makes a tough day very worthwhile!

TW is where I get anything I can't get at the local Bass Pro. My wife works at BPS in Olathe, KS so I get a discount on everything, up to 40% on their brands of gear. Pretty tough for anyone to beat baits at almost half price

Something as minor as 6" drop can be a huge draw in a pond with little cover or depth change so make sure you cover as much water in front of the water fall as you can. I would really be fishing several different colors/styles of suspending jerkbaits near that warm water running into the pond. A small, flat sided crankbait could be a good choice too. I have some shad raps with suspend dots on them so they float up very slowly just for cold weather. I can crank them very slowly and stop them often and they are killers at times. What is the water clarity in this pond? If the water is muddy that could be part of your problem, nothing much tougher than cold, muddy water.

He didn't get anything he wanted a picture of and only had a half dozen or so but I probably only had a dozen to 15 all day myself. Just the way La Cygne is a lot of the time. The fishing was tough but if you get the right bite it changes the whole day. Most of our fish were on shakyheads but I had 4 on crankbaits too. It was very similar to a trip we had down there a couple winters ago when we caught very few fish but I had a 7 and a 5 pound fish. Only difference was I caught my two big fish on different baits and off different spots this time.

A Strike King Series 5 crankbait, about a 10-14 foot runner. I was fishing the green gizzard shad color in the rattling version. That fish is actually the second biggest bass I've caught anywhere other than Mexico.

Well today was certainly not a numbers day but after catching lots of fish last week Chris and I decided to hit to La Cygne again today. We had rain off an on for the first half of the day and then pretty steady rain the second half of the day, at least the temps were in the 40's most of the day and wind wasn't terrible. The plant was not generating when we got there. No generation equals no action on power plant lakes. It took us almost 3 hours to get a bite and the first half dozen were serious dinks, only one would have even topped a pound. We came around the point and noticed the visibility had dropped to a couple hundred yards so we knew they'd started generating and the warm water running into the lake was creating steam so we figured we'd get to the outlet again because those fish react first. Not much going on other than one dink and one missed bite. I was fishing a Series 5 on a sand/gravel ledge where the current runs along when my bait got crushed. I wasn't sure it was a bass at first until she came up and wallowed. She was hooked good until she wallowed next to the boat again and the front hook popped out. She pulled like crazy and I thought for sure she'd come off but Chris finally got the net under her. I was shaking so bad I couldn't hardly get her on the scale. 24" long and 15" around and 7.51 pounds. We probably didn't catch another half dozen the rest of the day and it was raining pretty hard and starting to get dark so we headed to the ramp but decided to fish around the ramp for a minute before we left. I was fishing a Bandit 100 in mistake color off a rock pier when it got stopped. We both thought it was around 3 pounds when it first came up and wallowed around. Once it got to the boat and dove down it was obvious we'd underestimated her. She was barely hooked on the back hook but she stayed stuck and we got her in the net. Not quite as big as the first but at 21.5" and 13.25" and 5.88 pounds she was certainly a great way to end the day!

Well today was certainly not a numbers day but after catching lots of fish last week Chris and I decided to hit to La Cygne again today. We had rain off an on for the first half of the day and then pretty steady rain the second half of the day, at least the temps were in the 40's most of the day and wind wasn't terrible. The plant was not generating when we got there. No generation equals no action on power plant lakes. It took us almost 3 hours to get a bite and the first half dozen were serious dinks, only one would have even topped a pound. We came around the point and noticed the visibility had dropped to a couple hundred yards so we knew they'd started generating and the warm water running into the lake was creating steam so we figured we'd get to the outlet again because those fish react first. Not much going on other than one dink and one missed bite. I was fishing a Series 5 on a sand/gravel ledge where the current runs along when my bait got crushed. I wasn't sure it was a bass at first until she came up and wallowed. She was hooked good until she wallowed next to the boat again and the front hook popped out. She pulled like crazy and I thought for sure she'd come off but Chris finally got the net under her. I was shaking so bad I couldn't hardly get her on the scale. 24" long and 15" around and 7.51 pounds. We probably didn't catch another half dozen the rest of the day and it was raining pretty hard and starting to get dark so we headed to the ramp but decided to fish around the ramp for a minute before we left. I was fishing a Bandit 100 in mistake color off a rock pier when it got stopped. We both thought it was around 3 pounds when it first came up and wallowed around. Once it got to the boat and dove down it was obvious we'd underestimated her. She was barely hooked on the back hook but she stayed stuck and we got her in the net. Not quite as big as the first but at 21.5" and 13.25" and 5.88 pounds she was certainly a great way to end the day!

This one really surprised me because I'd never seen one before. My first and only goldeye from Milford Lake Kansas, looked like a little tarpon with needle teeth. Wasn't any doubt what this one was but this lake has some monster smallies so I was a little hopeful for the first 10 minutes or so of the fight. 40lbs from Wabunsee Lake, Kansas.

Rage craw or Yum craw papi.