Bluebasser86

I've had great experiences with KK customer service when I've contacted them, once because a reel needed to be replaced and once because a rod broke during shipping. Both time I was taken care of quickly and professionally. I'd be willing to bet that very few people who talk badly about them have ever seen one in person, let alone had any real on the water experience with them. I own quite a few KK reels and rods and really enjoy fishing with them. I didn't buy them because some Youtuber pushed them. I bought them because I tried a couple for an extended period of time, tried to tear them apart and couldn't do it, and realized I liked their gear. I don't know if I'd switch over to all KK gear, but I've always enjoyed fishing different stuff so that's not really a reflection on them so much as it is on me liking lots of different kinds of toys. I've had lower end Daiwa and Shimano reels and was really unimpressed and would have a very difficult time convincing myself to try another one at this point. I don't get anything from them, no discounts or sponsorship, but I'll keep fishing their stuff, including an Assassin that is over 2 years old now and accounted for my current biggest bass of year so far and shows no signs of being ready to be "thrown away".

I was all but done with fluoro until I tried Tatsu, the stuff is everything fluoro is supposed to be without the mystery break offs and knot tying headaches. I've drug several fish out of places I never should have been able to with 15lb Tatsu. I cut down the cost by filling my spools with mono backing so I only need about 50 yards of fluoro to fill them the rest of the way. That way 1 spool fills 4 reels, or 1 reel 4 times, and breaks down to closer to $15 per fill up.

I've got a mold that takes the same hooks which is intended for belly weighted swimbaits. It's a great way to fish a regular soft plastic for a different fall though.

I'd rather have the weedless over the jighook version, especially in the 6" bait.

I bought a bunch I found on sale for $1 a bag. They're even less durable than a regular senko if you can believe that. I've caught a ton of fish on them with a wacky rig though.

I use 1/16oz a lot, just use a heavier (denser) worm. I haven't used a shakyhead heavier than 1/8oz in years, but I'll also fish a 1/16oz Ned rig in 20+ feet of water so maybe I'm just not quite right in the head. Fishing a shakyhead on casting gear is like eating cereal with water, you can do it, but it doesn't make any sense when you have something else that works better.

Nice! I just got a replacement 100 Bone Shad in the mail a couple days ago. It was killing them one day last year when my buddy went back to cast and caught my line with his bait and broke my line, sending my Flit flying somewhere that we never did find.

I've got the Savage Gear Fruck and Suicide Duck, and I've caught fish on both of them. Caught quite a few on the Fruck last year.

High, dirty water means I get do my favorite kind of fishing. Picked up my 7' 6" Okuma Helios rod/Helios SX combo, spooled with 20lb Seaguar flipping fluoro and went to work. It isn't a numbers game usually, but couldn't complain about the quality this week.

Welcome and thank you for your service!

Welcome!

Everything is flooded here too. Some lakes as much as over 30' high and more rain on the way. Thankfully there's lots of small lakes with overflow dams that dump water quickly, so I just have to deal with muddy water but I'm still catching fish.

Too many people want to be Youtube famous and don't care about the fish.

Bladed jigs along shoreline grass edges, flipping water willows, wacky rigs around piers and grass, Ned rigs on rocks, dragging jigs.

Bass and chubs can't hybridize. Hybrids in nature are rare and require very similar species for it to even be possible. Creek chubs can easily attain that size, and the males turn a rosy color and sprout "horns" during the spawning season.

Welcome back!

No reason to get away from the Pad Crasher. I personally prefer the popping Pad Crasher. If you want to try something a little different then you could pick up a Toadrunner and give one of those a shot if you have enough open water where you're fishing. I've fished a lot of different kinds of frogs, but the 2 you listed are the best 2 I've fished, I just don't think there's enough benefits to the Spro to justify spending the extra money unless they have a color that just kills it for you.

Sometimes we think we don't need to take a nap, and then fall asleep while we're trying to eat our dinner...

All dressed up for the dance. Colored up male black crappie from clear water really are a pretty fish.

This is always my argument when people automatically dismiss them as trash fish. I'll never eat them, but I don't crappie or walleye either because I don't like the taste of them so I wouldn't be a good judge. Lots of people love to eat channel catfish, which eat all sorts of junk, while larger drum feed almost exclusively on fish, craws, snails, and mollusks.

The YUM Mightee worm and Strike King Bull Worm are both good ones. Zoom Ol' Monster and Netbait C-Mac are my go to baits if I want a swimming tail. I like to fish the straight tail worms on a swinging football head I pour just for them with a 7/0 monster worm hook but only 1/8oz head. It really lets them glide over rocks without snagging and they're plenty heavy to cast on their own so they don't need a bunch of extra weight.

I call it "The Dead Ned". When it's pretty calm, I'll drop my Ned rig to the bottom and crank it up a crank and let it sit there while I'm fishing something else. I've caught a ton of fish doing that and almost lost my rod more than once.

They're still going to be around shallow cover. Some are going to push up even shallower into the newly flooded stuff, some are going to sit on the old shoreline. Our lakes are flooded and still rising right now in KS. I caught 15-20 after work this morning on the old shoreline mostly with a jerkbait fished very quickly and a few on a buzzbait in the flooded stuff.

A lot of my big bass are caught shallow. They can't dive much but they do swim very fast, a lot of the time straight towards the boat and try to dive under the boat. They try for any obstacles and seem to know where everything they can hide in is at. The big fish I've caught deep seem to like to stay deep and can be long, drawn out fights. The shallow water fish are shorter but much more intense fights.

I didn't fish this one but I fished one last spring. My buddy weighed in a spot that went 3.01 pounds ? That .01 cost him $500 that could have really made the weekend. I was the dink master, not sure I ever caught one over 15". He was the heartbreak kid. On top of that spot, he hooked a fish in 30' of water on a 1oz jig off a dock cable that was heavy and coming up slow, we were sure he had the fish he needed. Turned out to be a 5lb channel cat that was tangled in about 50' of light line that included a few crappie jigs, 2 bobbers, and it also had a rogue stuck in the side of his face. I've never seen a fish in such a mess.