Bluebasser86

Yes and I think you’d be surprised how many fish will be suspended up in those trees, just out of sight.

Every day that I can go before work, I go. Some days it’s only a few cast, some days I have a hour or so. I have a milk run of spots on 2 different lakes I drive by on the way to work. Most trips produce less than 5 fish. One day last week, I caught 17 in 45 minutes before work, I haven’t produced those numbers in a short trip in a long time. I have a little box of baits and hooks with a few plastics. Most days a wacky rig does best. Lately a mini bladed jig and jighead minnow have been very productive. Most of the fish I catch on these trips average 12-14 inches. I don’t think I’ve caught one over 18 inches on one of those short trips all year.

Sometimes they’re not eating the little stuff. Sometimes, they’re not eating the normal sized stuff either. I had this happen to me at Table Rock a few years ago. I struggled for 2 days with normal sized offerings and finesse. Finally, the last morning I decided to go for broke and started tossing a Chad Shad. I ended up having a blast for 4 hours straight with fish chasing and eating my bait. I lost quite a few, kind of a common issue with big swimbaits, but I saw and caught so many more quality fish than I did the previous 2 days, it was really crazy to In hindsight, I did a terrible job reading the conditions. The water was up into the bushes and the shad were spawning in those bushes. I tried all the normal spinnerbaits, swim jigs, top waters, with limited success. It wasn’t until I put that glide in front of them that I started having wolf packs coming out of the bushes after my bait.

I was pretty torn on where to go Saturday. I think I ended up making a pretty good decision. Biggest 5 were 91.25” and the biggest of the morning absolutely crushed a Pop-R as soon as I twitched it. Sunday I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Anyone that has been around for a while knows that I use to only boat fish, and I almost always had some furry companions with me. Cassidee is my oldest Golden and she’s getting up there. She’s still just a puppy but after 13 trips around the sun, I don’t know how many trips she has left in her. I haven’t taken her and Chloe out in the boat in a couple years probably. I felt like I owed them a trip for being such great boat dogs for all those trips. They were excited the whole time we were out but still did a great job and seemed to still really enjoy spending time on the water.

You get what you pay for.

Yes it has, it’s pretty far past time to retire but it was rolling around the back of my truck with a wrecked mooch minnow and that’s what the fish wanted. Saugeye look almost exactly like walleye, since they’re a hybrid between a walleye and sauger. Saugeye have the splotches and a very small white patch on their tails (sauger have none, walleye have a prominent splotch.)

About the last thing I expected to catch on my before work trip below the dirty little city lake was a new PB Saugeye, but there it is.

Sad news, Catt was such a wealth of knowledge and experience. Could always count on him to give a unique perspective. RIP to one of the good ones.

The heat and humidity has been pretty intense lately. I went out Saturday intending on getting some scoping practice in. I guess I did, but it seemed like all I could find were crappie. I rarely catch them out of that lake, but I caught a bunch of them. The bass were much less cooperative. I finally gave up on the open water scoping and went more to the bank. Found a brush pile in 12’ of water and finally got a nice one on a T rig. Found a few more deep piles but only caught one more dink. Hit an old beaver dam in the back of a cove and pulled 3 off it with a tail weighted Trick Worm, one was one of the right ones.

Sucks about the elbow, but fish still have to eat. I caught my biggest of the day today in 3’ of 86* at 11:47AM with slick calm conditions, sunny, super humid, and 88*.

He did have that color in his lineup but I’m not sure he still has it. It’s not a hard one to replicate though and I have no doubt he can.

It’s not just Trokar either. I love Owner hooks also, but I won’t use any of the cutting point hooks because of that issue.

Yes it’s about a tab of each and then 3-4 strands of each of the orange and chartreuse.

It’s just watermelon Dalmatian, green pumpkin Dalmatian, orange, and chartreuse barbed wire.

I fish a lot of the standard line of Eagle Claw hooks and I even catch a fish once in a while. The black platinum ones are good quality hooks for a great price. I don’t like anything about the Trokar line of hooks. They cut big holes in the fish’s mouth and dull very quickly

No, it’s one of my homemade ones. Almost all jigs I fish are homemade.

Lake and I fished a little kayak tournament Saturday morning from 6-12 on a city lake I hadn't been on in a few years. I thought it would be pretty easy for him to get bit but it turned out to be a little tougher than I expected. A combination of recent heavy rains and stronger than expected winds made it difficult for him I think. Add onto that his difficulties keeping them hooked when he got bit, he wasn't able to get a limit but I was proud of him for battling all day and getting the fish that he did get. He had at least 6 other fish bite/hooked, but only ended up with 3 bass on his score. I did a little better, ending up with a limit for 85.75" and a 19" big fish, which was good enough for first and big bass. I caught all my fish on a black and blue bang stick or a blue bladed jig. My last cull of the day, the 17.25" that culled out a 15.50" fish, was caught with 10 minutes left, it was pretty exciting.

I had some weedless Neko Redlines I bought from Academy on clearence that I hadn't used, but I let my son used one Saturday for his wacky rig in a little kayak tournament. All 3 fish he caught with it were barely hooked, and he lost a few more. I chalked it up to him being an inexperienced, 11 year old using them. Then I tried one this morning on a wacky rig also. I had 3 bites, got 3 solid hooksets, and all 3 came off. Don't think I'll be using them anymore.

I've had a couple good days on the 60 fishing for smallmouth when the baitfish are very small and the water is really calm.

There’s a lot of different varieties of craws. I don’t know what kind we have but they’re more fighters than they are runners.

My favorite in clear water is my color I call grasshopper. I keep it simple in dirty water with a black and blue.

Doesn't really have to be a micro bait to be fished on a medium spinning rod. I've been using a Spro Essential Series E Pop 80 (7/16oz), on a medium Lightning Rod Shock with 10lb braid as one of my 2 regular options for my before work fishing trips and it works really well. A Super Spook Jr, 1/4 or 1/8oz buzzbait, 90 plopper, Baby 1-, really a wide variety of bait options. Spro also makes a tiny popping frog (a 50 size I believe?), that I fish on that same spinning setup that is a lot of fun if it's calm out. Really good around tall grass banks late in the summer where grasshoppers are ending up in the water.

The Strike King Hog Father Jr will take my money I'm sure. I don't "need", it, but it's a bait that I've wanted in the original version, but in a much more affordable version, so I'm sure I'll get one.

I hate buying live bait and I use it probably more than a majority of bass anglers do. Crawdads can be caught by hand easily. I cast net shad and sometimes shiners. Small bluegills and sunfish are easy to catch on rod and reel. Sometimes, I even have to food chain my way to bait, catching grasshoppers or worms to catch bluegills or sunfish to catch the bass or catfish I'm really targeting.

Had our 4th tournament for Kansas Kayak Anglers this past Saturday. It was a road runner tournament that we could pick from 3 different lakes to fish from. I ended up choosing the wrong one apparently, which is a commen theme from these style tournaments, as 1st-4th all fished a different lake. I ended up in 5th out of 27. The lake I fish is like a flooded jungle and I lost several nice fish to the trees and couldn't make up for it. I did catch a couple decent ones. My bigger bites were coming on a homemade sapphire blue slither rig with a black and blue Rage Craw on the back. I was fishing it on 50lb Smackdown on my Okuma X Series rod and reel. Even with the heavy action rod and 50lb braid, I couldn't get them out of that mess.