Bluebasser86

Find the food in the fall and you'll find the big fish.

When I'm not paying attention is usually when I end up missing a fish.

I sold a bunch of baits to a guy on another forum, box of 19 cranks I think. It was shipped priority and didn't arrive for almost 2 weeks. When it finally did get there it had 1 bait remaining in it. Nobody with the postal service knew anything about what happened and that was before I insured everything I shipped to other forum members. I refunded his money and chalked it up as a lesson learned.

Had one of those days last Wednesady. Weather looked good from the forecast the night before. Of course the weather guesser was wrong and a strong front blew through and left us with bluebird skies and tough conditions all day. Tried to go to a ramp I hadn't been to in a couple years, spent an extra 20 minutes of precious predawn time finding it. Had gotten up late so I didn't have time to tie anything on or spool up one of my main reels that needed it. Finally tied up I got into fish fast and furious until I mysteriously lost my chatterbait. Got the blade, snap, and undamaged split ring back but the body of the bait was gone Water was down 7 feet so a lot of my normal spots were high and dry. Bite stopped almost completely when the sun got up. Struggled all day, 12 hours of fishing to put 20 squeakers in the boat, not a single one over 15". Bilge pump quite working, broke off my back transducer on a stump, broke a good bite off one a hookset, couldn't hook a fish to save my life when I did get a bite. Just one of those days I should have gone catfishing instead, at least it's less work if I don't catch something then :eyebrows:

As long as you are fishing open water you could cut them off and not get hung up too much but I wouldn't do it. Most of the time if I'm fishing open water I'm fishing one of my football jigs that I put a much softer fiber weed guard on that doesn't take as much pressure to collapse down as one of my flipping jigs. I'd suggest just bending the very end of the wire guard down towards the hook at a 90 degree angle so it is harder to stick yourself with.

I like both of them personally. I believe the common train of thought is to use the baits with multiple BB's when fish are chasing shad and the single ball when they're after craws. Lately I've been using the XRK50 a lot because most people seem to use baits with lots of BB's so it's just a different sound that fish don't hear as often.

I tie my own also and wire tie the skirts. If I don't lose them in the rocks or a big catfish doesn't destroy them it isn't hard to catch a couple hundred on a bait before the skirt gets too thinned out to use anymore. Then I just clip the wire and tie a new skirt on and they're good as new. If I'm fishing a jig a lot throughout the day though it's pretty rare for one to make it through the day before it gets hung in the rocks and can't be recovered. That's the nice thing about tying my own, it's a lot cheaper so if I lose one it doesn't hurt as much.

Not a big fan of casting or weedless spoons but there isn't a much more effective tool for catching deep bass feeding on shad than a jigging spoon. I like either a silver or white War Eagle jigging spoon, 1/2 or 3/4 ounce. Good electronics are very helpful for this technique. I was lucky enough to learn it a little bit from a guy I fished a tournament at Table Rock with that had an old paper graph. It was amazing how well you could see your bait and everything going on under the boat. Still trying to learn the big flutter spoons. I caught a couple white bass on one last Wednesday but I'm still looking for that first largemouth or smallmouth on one.

It is a largemouth. His post said that Larry (The Largemouth) made an appearance but was by himself. You guys look just thrilled to have caught all those nice smallmouth and a nice largemouth too

We got a day or two of the cooler stuff then back into the high 80's/low 90's is what I've been seeing. It was so nice leaving work this morning at 8am and feeling that cool air on my face when I walked out of the building

"There he is" or "There's one" just before setting the hook.

I have the heavier round jig mold, I believe that's a 5/16 oz size. It makes it easier to fish in the heavy winds we normally have and to fish it deeper without losing feel of the bait. I'll have to try trimming the skirt on a couple down a little and see how that works. If the blade hits the head I don't notice it and it doesn't leave any marks. I may try to make a couple with the oblong split rings to see if that changes the vibration any. I took the chatterbaits out a couple trips already and they just crush those things

I carry 3-6 3700 boxes of hardbaits in the boat with me every trip, then there's the the 7-9 3700 boxes of backups or spares at home and dozens of baits still in the packages in totes. You can never have to many. After all, they don't expire or go bad or anything

Haven't fished Watkin's Mill a lot but it's a tough lake from the few times I've fished it. I like buzzbaits and spinnerbaits over the grass, squarebills along the edges or ripped through the weeds if I can. A weighless fluke or senko settling lightly into the weeds can be pretty deadly too. If you can find holes in the weeds with enough water under the weeds a Havoc Pit boss flipped into the weeds is a good way to catch the bigger fish.

Depends on the lake. Some of them around here if I don't get one over 4 I'm pretty disappointed. Others if I get one over 15" I'm excited and happy to have them

I've never caught a big bass from that lake in an area that could be reached by a bank fisherman. They seem to be strictly catch and keep fishermen out there, mainly for catfish but I doubt they'd be shy about keeping a big bass either. I was out there one day they were shocking the lake, the number of fish over 5lbs in that lake is insane. The number of fish I normally catch over 5lbs from there is humbling.

Retro asked about Nebo last year I believe, this was my reply to him. Don't bother going to Nebo, they're making that stuff up about 8lb bass in that tiny lake Acutally if you catch her she'll look something like this. That's from a couple years ago out there. Don't expect to catch many but there are some big ones swimming in there. It's a shallow, muddy little lake with several brush piles and lots of lilly pads in the north end. That one ate a red shad Yum wolley bug in a brushpile straight across from the boat ramp. If you do catch her or one of her sisters, please put them back. Those fish are my Kansas version of Dottie. That one is missing part of the bottom of her tail and I've caught her a couple times and watched her get bigger from catching her and from pictures of when KDWP shocks that lake and rolls her up. I'd be heartbroken to know she went on someone's wall Also don't bother with the lily pads. They look great but I have NEVER caught a single bass from them or even had a bite for that matter. My biggest bass of the year this year was also from Nebo. Just have to emphasize how important catch and release is on a tiny lake that is capable of producing bass like that because the balance could be upset so easily. Don't expect many bites. When we fished it this spring we might have put 15 in the boat and that is probably one of the best days numbers wise I've had out there with a 4 and my 6.1 being the biggest. Most days I can expect it to be more like 5-10 fish though. Banner Creek in Holton can be really good too. Much better numbers, lots of standing timber, largemouth and smallmouth with a shot at a good sized one of either.

Couldn't have said it better.

As long as the air temp is going to get above about 25 degrees and the wind isn't blowing too hard I'll be headed to one of the power plant lakes we have close by on my days off all winter long, some of the best fishing of the year at times.

He wasn't joking, it was like she'd sewn a couple eye patches together and decided that covered enough. Definitely looked better from a distance, got up close to help her and it was something like this I was really surprised Perry was not better than it was. If we'd been after drum it would have been a great day. I had 8 largemouth and 2 smallmouth all day along with at least that many drum, several white bass, and a little flathead. We were getting tons of quick "tap tap" bites and that was all they were doing. The ones that would pick a bait up and run either dropped it quickly after picking it up or just didn't have the whole bait in their mouth. You'd set the hook and see the tooth scratches on the bait but it would be back from the hook a ways. The water is way down (I'd say at least 7-10 feet) leaving lots of my normally productive areas on dry land or with almost no water. I think the front must have really been influencing the fishing a lot. I say this because I fished the Wednesday nighter at Wyco with Chris that night, after my boat when through a good carwash/bleach bath We fished hard all night and caught a total of.......7, no keepers, only one I even had to measure actually. Our normal spots and baits were just not getting bit. Everyone pretty much echoed our results, they just were not biting. We did have a massive school of white bass erupt behind the boat and spent 20 minutes catching those and 1 nice wiper almost as fast as we could get our jigging spoons to the bottom, and sometimes it didn't make it to the bottom. If I'd known how bad the bass fishing would continue to suck I would have kept catching them all night, at least we were catching something. 2 fish and 3.18lb won it, only 5 fish weighed in but one was a nice 3.12lb largemouth, that's a hog for out there.

Got some new paint and a new mold I needed to try out. Finally poured a bunch of assorted jig heads the other day and getting around to tying a few up. First is a black/red chatterbait, think this one will be a really good night fishing bait. Next is a black/purple/blue with a junebug head, really like how that paint looks . Should be a good night fishing/stained water color also. Last is a finesse jig with my new round head mold. I know the top of the skirt is a little long but I like it to help slow the fall a bit even though it doesn't look "right".

That's how I usually end up looking when the old man and I are jigging for walleye He loves it but it's like watching paint dry to me.

Some fish will stay shallow all year round, more will stay shallow the warmer the climate. A good way to find fish is look for the first deep water near areas where you were catching them late in the fall, they shouldn't be far from there. Wintertime fishing can be slow until you find the fish but once you find a school it's a blast!

Most small ponds like that seem like the fish really like to hold very near the shoreline. With little to no cover the shoreline is a good place to chase baitfish to so they have fewer escape routes and are easier to catch. Spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, swimjigs, and chatterbaits fished right along the edge of the bank should catch you some fish. Dark colored jigs or soft plastics fished slowly along the bank or around any visible cover should work also. One trick I like in small ponds is to take a 10" worm and rig it on a 3/8oz or heavier bullet weight and cast as far as I can, usually across the pond. They I just slowly reel it in. I catch a few fish doing this but most importantly it acts as my depth finder and helps me find any pieces of cover that I can't see from the surface. Try it and you might be surprised how much stuff just might be in that pond.