Bluebasser86

You'll frustrate yourself even more trying to learn La Cygne. I've fished that lake dozens of times in the last several years and really don't know that much more about what the fish in it do on a day to day basis that I did when I started fishing it. The power plant has so much of an effect on them and they are so tempermental and selective about what they eat, it's insane really. Plus they get so much fishing pressure on them all year long. I've had times I killed them one day and went down the next with no weather or pressure changes and done the exact same things and struggled to get a bite. I have a navionics chip in on of my depthfinders and it has improved my fishing a lot now that I have a topo map of the lake on the boat with me that I can scroll around and help me find likely fish holding areas.

Atchison is a fun little lake. Lots and lots of dinks with a few bigger ones mixed in. The fishing piers on the south bank are usually good to run a crankbait along. The north side usually has a lot of milfoil that you should be able to run a crankbait over the top. My best baits out there are usually bandit 100's in tennessee shad or louisiana shad. There's lots of brushpiles that have been placed in the lake, don't be scared to run a crankbait into those trees, that's how I've caught some of my biggest fish out of there. Flipping the trees is hit or miss for me. Flipping green pumpkin baby brush hogs has been really good a few times up there. One of the best days I've had up there was this time of year on a Strike King Quad shad spinnerbait in white with silver blades. I would also suggest checking out Warnock Lake while you're up there. It's also called Atchison city lake 23. It's in the town of Atchison and it's even smaller than the state lake. It's very shallow and weedy with several brushpiles but it has very good quality sized bass in it. I haven't caught anything as big as I have out of the state lake but I've caught way more 3-5 pounders out of it that I have from the state lake. It doesn't have the numbers in it either but it seems like when you get one it's usually pretty solid.

Yeah we saw several on beds but left them all alone. No need to stick a fish on a bed out there. It's days like that where you see hundreds of fish and catch quite a few of them that make the days during the summer where you struggle to catch a dozen that much more frustrating.

Just slowly build up as you get the extra income to do it. I have dozens of combos but they've been bought over a period of time in the order I felt I needed them.

Silver '06 F-150 extended cab for me

Perry is tough until about May, I usually don't bother going out there until then. I've fished it several times this time of year and have never done well. Those fish are really color specific it seems to me. If you can get a hold of a Topo map of the lake that will help you find areas that the fish should be staging in to spawn right now.

Melvern has been really hot the last couple weeks, not sure what this cooler weather will do to them but we've gone twice the last 2 weeks and had 100+ fish days both times. There was some bass on beds at Wyandotte Co lake on Monday.

Fished a pond with a friend before work today. We smacked them around pretty good on squarebills, traps, and a pit boss. Nothing huge but a lot of fun. I had a couple dozen and my buddy probably had about the same amount. Up to 579 on the year now.

He seemed like a good guy and you could tell how much he truely loved the sport. I really enjoyed watching his show, he will be missed.

I've had days that a Bandit 100 far outproduced a LC 1.5. Lucky Crafts are great baits but the best? Not always. They may be the best at some things but fish catching isn't one they are always best at.

I'm going with bass fry/young of the year bass. Are they hanging out in groups around cover? Seems like schools of bass fry hang together in cover close to where they hatched for awhile even after their parents stop guarding them.

Like Hooligan said, it's a largemouth with something in it's genetics that gave it odd coloration.

I'd had a very frustrating day from a combination of things, my wife was a small part of it but like some of us tend to do I decided to put the blame on her. I was emailing a friend at work back and forth complaining and basically bad mouthing my wife. She emailed me and I tried to copy and paste one of the emails I'd sent my friend about how my night was going. Come to find out I had copy and pasted our entire conversation. I was in the doghouse for a long time after that deal.

Went to Kill Creek for the first time this year to do a little fishing before work. The wind blew a little harder than I was hoping it would that made boat control tough and my wrist is killing me from fishing a jerkbait so much this spring. Caught 14, all dinks and mostly on jerkbaits. Had a couple flipping a pit boss and a couple on a wacky rig too. Tons of moss right now made it pretty tough to fish the trees very much. Best area was the shoreline without trees on the west bank.

Another vote for the Pit Boss, Big Texan color too. Haven't caught a single fish on the Devil spears I bought, just can't make them work. Love the grass pigs, bottom hoppers, craw fattie, and I'm excited to see the new craw they're supposed to be coming out with, sounds like it's going to be like a chigger craw, only in the Havoc line up.

I've got Lucky Craft pointers and an Xcalibur Zell Pop I'd bet my boat on that I've caught over 1,000 fish on each of them, they barely have any paint left. A $15 bait really isn't that expensive if you're catching numbers of fish on them. I've had expensive baits that didn't catch fish for me, or at least no more than cheaper baits. There is no guarantee anything you buy is going to work, it all depends on how and where it's being used. Like others have said I refuse to buy expensive plastics. Maybe if I tournament fished for big money where every bite counts I would. I can't justify baits like GYCB senkos for $8 a bag when I can buy BPS stick-o baits for under $4 a bag and get twice as many and still catch lots of fish on them.

Since the first time I heard Mark Zona say it all the big bass I catch are "fence pandas". No idea what it means but it made me laugh and it stuck ever since. I guess maybe because pandas tend to be large, heavy creatures and big bass seem to like fence rows??

Some of my favorite "other" fish. Wipers or hybrids. Catfish Buffalo Probably my favorite individual fish is this 20+ lb catfish I caught on 4lb test crappie fishing. It ate a 2" power minnow on a 1/32oz jighead under a bobber and took me 55 minutes to land by myself. It was funny because I was giving my wife a play by play of the whole fight over the phone. I had it on speaker phone sitting on my pedastal seat the whole time. You can see my phone on top of my tackle box in the picture. The gentleman that was nice enough to take my picture also did an excellent job.

I've got 8lb on a spinning rod, 15 on one baitcaster and 20 on another. It does have some memory in the heavier pound tests but a couple sprays of line conditioner and it's good to go. I really like the stuff, especially for $5 a spool.

Lucky Craft 1.5's H2O squarbills Luck e Strike square bills Bandit 100's Strike King series 5 and 5XD Storm wiggle wart

Went down to a little creek today to play around with my ultralight. The creek is about 15 feet across and 6inches to 3 feet deep in the area I was fishing. It's not far from where it runs out of the lake and eventually runs into the Kansas River. Since it runs into the river it gets a fair amount of fish that you wouldn't expect to see in such a tiny creek. I was catching sunfish and bluegills on one of my homemade trout jigs in an olive color and a 1/80 ounce when I stumbled across a flathead that was laying out of the current in some rocks. I couldn't get the tiny jig down to him because the current kept pushing it right past him. I switched to a bigger one of my jigs, a pink and white one that was 1/8oz. I was tossing it on a 6' Avid ultralight rated 1-6lb test on a 750 Shimano Sedona with 3.5lb D.A.M. Techtan line. I dropped that jig right on the flatheads nose and just shook it a little bit. I know the hair had to be touching his lip and the shaking must have done the trick because he tipped down a little and very gently sucked the jig in. I set the hook on it and new right away that it was going to be lucky if I ever got to touch that fish. After about 20 minutes of playing tug of war in the current and doing everything I could to keep it out of the rocks and laydowns and after a few missed attempts to get a hold of him, I finally got my thumb in his mouth. I didn't have my camera or my scale but I wasn't far from home so I filled up a rubbermaid tote with water and hurried home to weigh him and get a couple pictures. He registered 9lbs 12ozs and to my surprise, was blind in both eyes. I got a couple pictures of him and drove back to a deeper portion of the creek, closer to the river where he'll be less likely to be caught by someone who would love to have some deep fried flathead nuggets.

Fished Wyco with a couple friends a few days ago. Young Bradley was on his spring break and has really wanted to go fishing again since I took him to Miami State Lake last year. We all caught fish all day long and had a really good time. Bradley caught several bass and a little wiper. My friend Jon had plenty of fish himself including a couple pretty nice smallmouth on jerkbaits. I ended up with 57 bass, mostly largemouth, 14 crappie, including one on a popper, 3 wipers, 1 white bass, 1 green sunfish, and 1 warmouth. Most of my fish were on jerkbaits or poppers with a few on wacky rigs, shakeyheads, and a jig also. They were really eating the popper. We didn't catch anything real huge but it was still a really fun day.

You may have just not gotten the plug in all the way. I do that sometimes and it's surprising how much water can come in if the plug isn't just right. I have never had any success at Olathe this time of year, seems like the water is always really stained and the fish are even fewer and further between than they normally are out there. Gardner on the other hand tends to have a pretty good jerkbait/wacky rig bite going right now, the fish just tend to average pretty small but there are some bigger ones there. I'd pick Gardner without question if it was me.

Man that is a nice looking combo. Should stand out pretty well, I'll keep my eyes open for it while I'm on the water.

I can cast across a couple of the ponds I fish pretty easily and have caught fish up to 7lbs out of them. I think it has a lot more to do with the ponds having enough forage and depth than how big it is across.