Bluebasser86

Things are happening! Jerkbait and spinnerbait, WT 48-52. These were not coldwater bites or fights, they were hammering it and pulling like crazy.

Pretty sure I saw Cody Myers fishing it on his spinning reel on MLF today. Probably helping a lot seeing those sight fishing bites. Going to spool my 20lb up on my Ned rig rod now that I'm hoping we're past the icy mornings here.

We have free ramps here and we have pay ramps. If you're parking in a pay ramp lot, you have to pay regardless. It's more of a park fee than anything. You can get a year sticker for all the state parks for $15 when you renew your license plate tags though.

Drinking and kayaking seems like a solid way to end up on the 9PM news in one way or another.

A lot of baits are doing flashy inserts too, which I think are more natural looking and last way longer. There's still a ton of chrome baits out there though. Some of my most productive jerkbaits this winter have had a chrome finish and are still readily available.

I have at least one at home in the package still and a couple in my boat. I want to say baby carp, but that's probably because Strike King has a similar color with the same name.

Power plant fish LOVE nasty weather typically. I'd be fishing moving baits and covering water. Squarebills, traps, jerkbaits, spinnerbaits, don't fish slow moving baits until they tell you that you have to.

I can catch fish with both, but I hate fishing a fluke or a C-rig. I'd about rather just go home than fish either of them.

They're a great bait. I like the smaller size on a jighead and the bigger size as a trailer.

About the same deal as last week. Buddy and I drove down to a little lake that's usually good early in the year, just to find out they'd apparently gotten way more rain than we had and the lake was way up and muddy. Tried for an hour but 5 dinks in the slightly clearer water we found and nothing in the muddy water (what a majority of the rest of the lake looked like), left us feeling pretty bleak about the day. Pulled the plug on that idea and hauled to a different little lake we'd talked about going to instead in the first place but decided on the other one. Should have gone there first. The water was up a little and fairly stained there too, but not as bad as the other one. A Booyah Covert and 6th Sense Provoke in Violet Panda did most of the damage.

First one of the year always feels good ?

Kansas has a Master Angler program. I've never submitted a fish through it.

Welcome!

4 or 5 inch. I like the 7" on a swinging football head.

Pitboss, Devil's Spear, or Rage Menace rigged vertically are my favorites. I use a paddletail sometimes also.

@JediAmoeba I have my original one in the Cosmic Shad color. It's pretty scratched up and would need new hooks because the ones on it are bent from battling wipers, but they like #6 ST36 Owners. I no longer need it if you're wanting to try one.

They found another. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2020/03/11/search-teams-recover-body-second-missing-boater-near-shiloh/5022168002/?csp=chromepush

Tubes get most of their action from spiraling towards the bottom, or being popped off the bottom, neither of which a swinghead does really well. I drag them, I have never had any luck cranking them like they were designed for, so the 1/4oz is what I use 90% of the time.

Anything other than a tube really, but I fish beavers, brush hogs, ribbon tail worms, straight tail worms, lizards, most anything on them. I mostly pour them with a 4/0 hook but do some 2/0-5/0 for different baits. Mainly fish them on a 7' 3" MH/F but most any jig or plastics rod will work.

More of a straight retrieve, like a crankbait. They do make a suspsending model, they just don't fish great as a jerkbait IMO.

We did a club with low entry fees and catch, weigh, immediate release (similar to MLF but with a 5 fish limit), to reduce fish mortality and open the tournaments up to smaller lakes, lakes with restrictive limits, and people without means of keeping a 5 fish limit alive.

You can use exactly the same rod for both. In fact, my Ned rig rod is a technique specific drop shot rod, a 6' 10" ML/XF.

I was about 12 or 13 I bought a used and abused 2 man for $50 that I used and abused a bunch more before it was stolen a couple years later. Bought a Pond Prowler from BPS that got me through a few more years before I bought a '92 Ranger 451V with a 150hp Merc when I was 16 for 4k. It never ran well, sold it when I was 17 for the same price and bought a 15' Ragin Cajun with a 50hp Merc that was a great little boat for a minute until I found out the lower until was leaking and the crankshaft was pitted and needed replaced. I almost bought a new 60hp motor for it but ended up buying a brand new 16' Lowe Roughneck with a 60hp 4 stroke Merc for a few thousand more. Sold the Cajun and bought a 14' Lowe johnboat with a 15hp Johnson tiller motor, really wish I'd never let go of that boat. Kept the Roughneck until 2012 when my wife found out she was pregnant and told me I needed to buy a bigger boat. Sold my Roughneck to my good fishing buddy and putted around for a couple years in my BIL's 15' johnboat with my 15hp Johnson tiller on it until I found my 2012 189 VLO Stratos in '15. Bought a Ocean Kayak Big Game Prowler II in 2016, and a 16' Monarch johnboat in 2018 that is now my beater/river boat that has the same 15hp Johnson tiller on the back of it.

They work, but they're not worth normal asking price. I'd buy them for what you paid no doubt. They're a good bait but more of a minnowbait than a jerkbait.

Channels are always active, getting to be a pretty popular ice fishing species in certain areas. Hard to get the bigger ones through the ice with those big heads and hard fins sticking straight out though. We used hatchets to chop bigger holes the couple times I've done it.