Bluebasser86

They won't be gone that fast. They stocked the lake I fish for trout occasionally back in March and guys are still catching limits of trout from that stocking now in May. If I'm really targeting them, an 1/8oz Little Cleo in gold or copper or a micro jig under a bobber just floating on the waves are my favorite baits, but I can usually catch my limit on a Ned rig just about as fast.

Flatheads don't fight like big blues. They're not going to sit on the bottom and pull forever. Flatheads are more of an intense fight than an endurance fighter. You're going to need the gear to stop their first few dogging runs and keep them away from whatever cover is around, then they're usually done fairly quickly. It doesn't have to be a meat stick to stop them, just something with a good bend but plenty of backbone also. The Berkley catfish rods work well without spending a lot of money. The Abu 6500/6600 reels have accounted for countless flatheads of all sizes. I like 65-80lb braid to a mono leader with a sinker slide. I also like the Kahle style hook, 7/0 seems to be the sweet spot for flatheads. Circle hooks work, but I miss a lot of flatheads on circle hooks with rod and reel. I use to be a 100%, it has to be a live fish when I'm targeting flatheads. The last few years, I've gone more and more to being a believer that for flatheads, especially the big ones, fresh cut bait is better a majority of the time. I can't tell how many trips I've fussed with live bait, just for it to sit untouched while the fish eat the cut bait instead. The gar truely seem to appreciate my efforts though. Cutbait flatheads from the last two years. Versus the one lonely flathead that ate a green sunfish and will keep me fussing with live bait, just in case.

It’s very rarely flat calm in Kansas. It’s not a bait for rolling waves, but I fish it on straight 20lb braid and I think that helps keep the nose up. It definitely dives more than standard WTD baits, but I just pause it for a moment and let it float back up and it starts right back up again. I’ve had quite a few eat it when it dives under also, almost like they’re following it and grab it when it pops down in their face.

WTD, specifically the Berkley Drift Walker. They just seem to hate/love that thing.

I like flouro for bottom contact baits, don’t use it for anything else. I use to try to use the cheaper ones and that is when I had those unexplainable issues. Now I stick to primarily Tatsu and I don’t have the issues anymore. I understand people not liking it, I don’t like doing stuff that lots of other people like to do or use. The endless options and ways to “choose your own adventure”, are part of what makes fishing awesome.

Absolutely better than the regular rings. I don’t average much better life with than rings than I do just running the hook through the bait. I haven’t tried the VMCs, but I’m sold on the Neko Hacks. I don’t know if it would work on really soft baits like a GY Senko, but it’s great with the baits I’ve been using.

I've got a couple 100pks of Big Bite Baits craw tubes. I don't think I've ever seen anyone here fish them, and the big fish love them.

I've really enjoyed Neko rigging a lot more since I got some of the Geecrack Neko Hacks to rig mine up with. I really hate losing the plastics almost every fish it seems like, especially with the weight in the end of it. I can get so many fish out of a single plastic now, it makes it much more enjoyable to me.

I like the straight shank style flipping hook for braid for the most part. I got to EWG for flouro. I can't seem to get a consistently good hookset with the straight shank style of flipping hook with fluoro.

Spent the weekend at the lake with my wife and kids. I rented us a little cabin, something we hadn't done before, it was nice to not set up a tent and have a little more room. Weather left a lot to be desired as far as comfort, but it was great "fishing weather". We caught a ton of really fun sized smallmouth, a bunch of wipers, several crappie and drum, a few white bass, and quite a few blues and channel cats. Saturday when we set up for catfish, my youngest son Finn caught the first one, and it was one of the coolest looking blue cats I've ever seen. This lake is known to have a healthy population of piebalds, and I've caught a couple, but none have ever looked as good as his did before. We had a "biggest fish", contest between the boys for the weekend for a $5 prize. My oldest son, Lake, won that with an 8.5lb blue cat he caught right behind our cabin.

Bladed jig, really not a close second for me around here. For a majority of the year, if I’m after largemouth and trying to cover water, it’s going to be with a bladed jig.

Only had a few hours to fish this weekend with the holiday and soccer game. Went to a normally really busy park lake Saturday morning in the kayak. Water was dirtier than I hoped and honestly wasn’t expecting much but they started biting right away. I caught a couple dinks on a Ned rig, but the red homemade bladed jig was really doing work. Caught quite a few pitching a Texas Rig on the Okuma X Series with Smackdown and a 15lb Pounce Leader also.

Largemouth taste like eating what I imagine a big handful of pond muck and algae mushed together and deepfried would taste like. The whole "You're not cooking it right or you've never had it cooked right", arguement, no, it just taste like crap to me. I like other kinds of fish, and I'd eat bass if I liked it. There's some slot lakes around me packed with dinks I could keep 5 under 13" and have a great meal if they didn't taste awful. They make pretty solid catfish bait though, and it's legal here, so when I'm after bait and I catch a legal undersized bass, in the bucket he goes. I've heard smallmouth and spots taste better, which makes sense since they tend to live in cleaner areas and not buried up in the debris and vegetation like largemouth do, but I could never bring myself to eat a smallmouth or spot because they take so long to grow here and spots are so few and far between, especially keeper sized.

Those preserved baitfish at Walmart are very fragile and get knocked off the hook very easily. I wouldn't bother with them for bass, or really anything for that matter.

I tie some of my jigs with living rubber and haven't ever had any issues with the skirt melting. I don't leave the trailer on them and that probably does make a difference.

The Arky would be my choice for a first jig mold. It's a good all around jig and also works well if you decide to make bladed jigs.

First Kansas Kayak Anglers tournament of the season was this past Saturday on Melvern Lake Kansas. Air temps were suppose to be nice, but the winds yet again, were supposed to howl from the south in excess of 30mph. We had 30 anglers braving the wind, plus there was a boat tournament with another 15-20 boats on the water, so it was more than a little crowded. It was actually pretty calm for about 45 minutes in the morning. I launched in the marina, not where I wanted to fish but it was going to give me the best combination of fishablility and productivity I felt. I got to work quickly, catching a few very small keepers on a jerkbait and Ned rig. I passed across the boat ramp and was fishing my Ned rig down the rocks along the side of the ramp. I got stuck on a rock and popped it loose. I was waiting for it to sink and it just never stopped "sinking". I set the hook as the line got all the way tight and knew it wasn't another small one. She pulled and dove under the boat and thrashed around on the surface before I slipped the net under it. First good fish of the day went 17.50" on a Coppertruese Ned. I caught another small one off the boat ramp dock, and then another off the other side of the ramp on a Ned then a jerkbait. Lines in was 7AM, it was now 7:32AM and I had my limit. I caught a few small culls on the jerkbait and Ned, before I caught another decent fish at 8:35AM that was 15.50" on a Besotted 110 jerkbait in a color I could only describe as "smallie clown". It just looks like it was made for smallmouth, and they were eating it like it was. I fished all down the bank that had been productive the week before, nothing, but there had been about 3 boats and as many kayaks already down that bank. I fished the back of the marina where I had no luck the previous week hoping the water had warmed enough to push them back there, no dice. The wind was howling now. Small whitecaps were rolling through the marina despite the fact it was out of the south and the marina is on the south side of the lake and surrounded by trees. The wind whipped the lake so violently in small bursts, it looks like tiny tornadoes spinning across the surface in spots, I've never seen anything like it. I fished back down the productive bank from the previous week and lost a heavy fish on the Ned. I switched to a Megabass Nanahan +1 on a spinning rod, running it carefully down the dock cables suspended out in the marina cove. I managed to pick off a small cull doing that. The fish had seen my Ned rig a bunch, plus the previous week, I felt like it was time to switch it up a little. I took off the Coppertruese TRD and switched to a Purple Rain Hula StickZ. I don't know about other places, but our smallmouth love purple. Sure enough, 3 cast later, I culled up with another 15.50" smallmouth on the Ned at 11:41AM I was getting close to 80". I felt like that's what I needed to get paid. The Nanahan was getting bit, but they kept coming off or not fully commiting, something wasn't quite right for them. I took the Besotted jerkbait off and switched to a MB Vision 110+1 in Stain Reaction. I fished it down the bank with the dock cables, nothing. I went back up the bank and got nothing to the very end. I had to go around a boat and almost skipped the corner, but decided to give it a quick driveby. I fired a long cast and ripped the bait down and thought I hit a rock one of my first snaps but a few rips later, a fish loaded up. It jumped immediately but I couldn't see it, just felt like a nice one. Then it got closer and I saw it was my biggest of the day for sure. I also saw the jerkbait flopping around by a single point of the back treble. The fish dogged down and jumped, the bait getting flung all over, I was sure it would get slung off. Then the front hook caught it's belly, I felt a little better. I reached with the net and right when I did, the front hook let go and I thought the fish came loose, but that back hook kept holding on all the way into the net! The old warrior stretched out to 18.75" and made it all the way until 12:43PM before someone fooled her. I bounced around and picked up a few more smaller fish and culled up a little bit with a 14.75" fish on the Ned, making it the smallest fish in my limit. I really wanted to get rid of it and have all fish over 15" though. With time winding down, I was heading straight into the wind, chucking the 110+1 at the cable bank when another solid fish hooked up. Fighting the fish and trying to stay off the bank was a challenge to say the least, but I got her in the net and got spotlocked just off the rocks. This one went 16.50" with just over 30 minutes left at 2:25PM. I caught a couple more fish, but nothing big enough to cull either 15.50" fish, so I ended with 83.75". Amazingly, 1st and 2nd was a tie again, just like the Konza Yak tournament the previous week. Just like the week before, I again had the big fish tiebreaker too. Jay talked to me afterwards and said he'd actually would have won, but he caught the same 16.25" fish twice in an hour off the same point on the same tube. If it had been a different fish, he would have beat me, tough break. The plaques this year are made from an old chalk board, really cool.

3/8oz bladed jig 1/2oz flipping jig 7" Mag finesse worm Ned rig Super Spook Jr Senko Trick worm 3.8" Fat Impact 1/2oz white/gold blades War Eagle spinnerbait 1/4oz PB&J finesse jig

Deep cranks, flukes, lizards, toads, cranks for about 9 months out of the season.

RES 2tap is my all around favorite. Also a big fan of the 6th Sense Quake and Thud. Another vote for the suspending IMA trap also. I don't use it often, but when the conditions are right, it's deadly.

I've had a lot of great days of bass fishing, but the best one was less than a month ago.

Setting your reel a little tighter than normal can help. That way the overruns don't get too crazy when they happen. We had 30mph winds here Saturday and I was firing a jerkbait into the wind on casting gear a lot. It sucks but it can be done. Sidearm cast fired low, into the wind, kept my overruns to a minimum.

Absolutely he can, it’s not a difficult pattern to make.

It has been for me. I’ve caught a lot of my biggest jig fish on that color.

Black and blue, peanut butter and jelly, and a color I tie that I call grasshopper.