Bluebasser86

Welcome!

Bout that time of year. Crowds are certainly pushing me that was faster too.

Got it back, but it was a out 18* out so it too a while before I could use it again.

The Lunker City hooks are designed specifically for soft plastic jerkbaits and are very similar to the hook in the picture.

People will fish them no doubt. Lots of talk on the swimbait pages of guys getting rods built to fish them.

BBB is one of my favorite plastic companies. Haven't used their grubs and panfish baits but no doubts they're good too.

I have and it it was less than productive. Takes away a lot of the action that makes tubes productive I think.

Great reels, I think I prefer the 2500 though.

No, but it is comparable and a very good bait.

Olathe was pretty fun yesterday morning. Not great numbers, but better than average quality. Big fish was a 4.07. Plastics and a homemade finesse jig did most of the damage.

After work trip Monday morning. First time on this lake this year for me. Poor thing has been getting beat to death being in the middle of the city and everyone deciding they're a fishermen now. I didn't catch a lot of fish, but the quality was better than what it usually is. Big fish was a 4.07 on a homemade finesse jig. Not a breath of wind so when the sun came out, I was out.

I've always fished during the week because of my work schedule, but the lakes are still crowded during the week now. Looks more like a weekend most weekdays if the weather is nice, and now the pleasure boaters are out tearing things up and acting stupid, so I've got that going for me. Lots more bank anglers too. Saw a first today. I've seen a lot of the upside down spinning reel people lately, but today I saw a guy trying to use a spincasting reel upside down (reel on the bottom and reeling backwards). I guess at least guys like that are just blocking a bank fishing spot from someone who might actually catch a fish if they weren't there.

I've had good luck with the Speed Demon rods and reels, the Royal Legend Elite casting reels, the Sharky II and III spinning reels, and Assassin casting reel. I use their Super Power braid a lot as well as their sun gloves. The problem when you get into their upper end stuff, is you can can get some really nice gear from other companies too. I'm mainly running Daiwa and I couldn't suggest a Speed Demon casting reel over a Fuego that you can find for cheaper.

The fish population, especially catchable sized fish, is probably not real big with it just recently being refilled.

Menace in Moon Juice Rodent in Backwater Blue or Watermelon red/black Bull Worm 8" or 10" in Plum Apple or Red Bug

I swam for a Triple Trout once. It wasn't even mine, I'm just a really good friend and my buddy was scared to swim in the pond because it had big snapping turtles. I told him not to do something stupid like fishing a >$50 bait in a pond again.

This is when "Having room to fight them", comes into play. We all know a 2lb fish can be too much for even heavy gear if it's hooked in a bad place. Conversely, hook a big fish in open water, or near cover and have it swim into open water and it's just a matter of the angler fighting it correctly and wearing the fish down. A few light tackle catches; 21lb bluecat on a 6' 8" L rod and 4lb test, 1/32oz jig with a 2" power minnow under a bobber. 21.5lb flathead 6' 10" ML rod, 10lb braid/8lb leader with a 1/16oz Ned rig. 10lb flathead and a true UL catch. 6' Avid UL, 750 Sedona, 3.5lb DAM Techtan line with a homemade crappie jig fishing a small creek. Had to navigate current, root wads, lay downs, rocks, all kinds of obstacles to land that fish.

You might check out the FishLab Bio Gill wake bait if you like the Shellcracker. It's a sweet little bait. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Fish_Lab_Bio_Gill_Wake_Bait/descpage-FLBGWB.html

This was a Plano Edge 3700 standard box.

A few weeks ago, I made a post asking about the trailer hub system that my boat trailer has on it because I'd never heard of it. Says it never needs serviced, but I fish a lot, and I had my doubts. Well guess what? The day after we got back from a weekend of camping and fishing I noticed some bearing grease on one of my wheels. So my Stratos is at the shop waiting for the bearings to be taken care of. In comes the johnboat. It's a solid backup, better than a lot of folks have for their main boat. Like most johnboats though, it lacks storage, so my boxes just sit out while I'm fishing. Thursday was a pretty warm day, although not crazy hot like so many people whined about (Accuweather says it was 88* for a high). Got done fishing, came home and parked the boat in my fairly cool garage. Fast forward to yesterday morning, getting some stuff prepped for this weeks fishing and notice that one of my Pointers in my jerkbait box looks really odd? Pop the box open, oh the horrors. It was not the only one, not even close. At least a dozen were so badly warped or split that they're completely ruined, several more are swelled but I'm hoping are still usable. Not every bait in the box is ruined thankfully, and my other jerkbait box that I had with me was not effected. Some baits were brand new, some were over 15 years old, and from different makers. Best I can tell, it must have been sitting directly in the sunlight during the middle of the day, but it's hard to imagine that 6 hours of sitting in the sun did this much damage to them. These aren't all of them unfortunately, just some of the worst.

When I'm guiding, I like to throw a Bubble Gum or White Lightning colored TRD. They're nontraditional colors but I always get fish to eat them and some days they're more productive than the standard colors. I've seen days when the color of the flake in a worm made a difference, more often than not though, put the right profile bait in the right spot with the right presentation and the color matters very little.

It's a fun lake to fish, provided you don't go out there expecting to catch a bunch of big fish (or even decent fish). You can catch largemouth and smallmouth, along with several other species in a day of fishing though, and you do have a shot at a big fish, although it's not a great chance.

There's a few swimbaits with similar concepts. I've got a Tiny Klash that the action can be changed by swapping out, or completely removing the bill, swapping or flipping the tail one direction or the other. Pretty fun to mess with.

10lb braid with a 10lb leader is hardly ultralight fishing. That's heavier than I use on my dropshot or Ned rig rods. I landed a 23lb flathead catfish on a 5' UL with a 500 size reel, 4lb mono on a Yo-Zuri Killifish several years ago, and that was from the shore where I couldn't even follow it. Also landed a 21lb blue cat on a 6' 8" L rod with a 1000 size reel and 4lb mono on a 2" power minnow on a 1/32oz jighead under a bobber, took nearly an hour to land, I know because I called my wife right when I hooked it and talked to her the whole fight and looked at the call length time when I finally netted it. You can land any size bass provided you have enough space to wear it out and land it.

6' 2" Avid M/XF. I can make a little popper do things with that rod like no other rod I've found.