Bluebasser86

No pleasure boating/skiing/swimming allowed, so it doesn't lend itself well to a typically family oriented holiday weekend. Works perfectly for those of us trying to avoid all those shenanigans though.

The local schools around here depend on volunteers to donate their boats and time to the high schools. They take their boat and are the boat captain. Allowed to drive the boat and trolling motor, but that's about it.

I've got braid from 20lb to 65lb on my baitcasters (up to 130lb on other gear), it all works fine. Lower pound test braid digging into itself hasn't ever been an issue I've encountered. 20lb braid with topwater poppers and walkers works excellent. For what you're looking for, I'd stick to the more standard 50lb braid though.

Same could be said for all the people who hate on them who have never even seen one in person, let alone fished with them. At least you gave them a try. Might not be for you but no reel is ever going to work for everyone.

A faster reel is great in the fall for cranks when squarebills and traps are king.

I knew it was, but there's no way to get into a discussion about that guy and keep it PG.

Good for you. Nobody is making you fish live bait if you don't want to. The OP wants to fish live bait. I fish live bait a few times a year as well, no shame in it here. On a normal day, I can catch more fish with artificials than I can with live bait, but there's occasions that call for it so I use it.

One of my favorite jig trailers out there. I go through bags and bags of them a year. Black and blue and green pumpkin/purple are my staples, which reminds me I'm almost out of black and blue. They're a solid bait for flipping weeds too. They have a beefy enough body to hold a flipping hook, but they're compact enough to get through the weeds easily. I went throught ALOT of black and blue on my jigs in these 2 days.

It was a pretty decent smallmouth for around here. Didn't weigh it but probably in the 4lb range. Biggest one I've caught in years.

I see so many complaints/problems mentioned with the 90, never had any other than the obvious weeds wrapping up in it but that's not a design problem. I have a bunch of 90's, they all work perfectly. My dad caught all our plopper fish Friday on a 90, fishing behind me throwing a 75 size. The 90 may be longer, but it still fishes way smaller than the 75, which is what the 75 was meant to do I believe.

Yep, I haven't heard the story on how it happened, but I'm sure it's a good one.

Mother Nature is cruel and heartless to the small and weak. Too many people live sheltered lives that don't understand that. It's not always a comfortable thing to see or realize, but it's life for all creatures in this world except us for the most part.

An actual mop jig is a little different than what it sounds like what you're talking about. They're more for fishing slowly to allow the big skirt to flare out and attract the fish's attention. A regular skirted jig will work just fine in weeds though. Best of both worlds is a punch rig or slither rig though.

I poked a bunch of holes in a big Gatorade bottle to hold my live bait when I'm kayaking, it works well and pouring the water into my hand works pretty well as a bait dispenser.

Save yourself some money and get a River2Sea Bubble Walker 80 instead of the Megabass Popmax. I have both and can't tell the difference except I'm not nearly as worried about losing the Bubble Walker.

So you had a bad day at work? Guy from the last department I worked at had a worse one. She wants a couple cows. I told her I'm fine with that as long as we can eat them and she claims she would be able to eat them. I must look really dumb for her to think I wouldn't know better than to realize I'd just end up with a couple 800lb dogs out of the deal. Not a chance she'd be able to eat her babies.

Top fish looks like a white perch? Thought I caught a rock, would have rather it been a rock.

They're a proven bait, one of my favorites.

I've only bent one handle and that was after I stepped on it when I lost my balance on the front deck.

I've been fishing it regularly for half my life, it still beats me sometimes. I think once you accept that you're fishing for a few big bites instead of lots of fish, it makes it much easier to catch the bigger fish on that lake. I've had amazing numbers days there, but they're few and far between. I'm still looking for one of the true giants out there though. I've caught quite a few over 7, up to 7.76, but I've never cracked 8. A friend of mine caught a 9 1/4 a few years ago on a technique I'd just shown him how to do the day before ?

Welcome!

Depending on the amount of current and snags you're fishing, it very well might. A Ned rig can be magic for smallies at times, but it's not going to outproduce live bait when they're tight lipped. They sure didn't want one for me last Friday, but a jerkbait and swimbait did the trick.

Shawnee has produced at least 2 smallies over 6 in the last few years, one just a few ounces off the state record. I had one nearly 5 out there a couple years ago. They're pretty established I'd say and with the zebra mussels in there it could really be a consistently good place to catch big smallmouth in the future. Melvern is one of my favorites but it was awful for a couple years, taking 2 or 3 fish to win tournaments with 20-30 boats and big fish of the day being less than 3 pounds pretty often. It's weird how those zebra mussels died off and the fish just seemed to disappear. They're still there unless there was some big die off that nobody knows about. The last few trips out there I've been seeing way more fish again with lots of those little finger sized smallies that love to follow baits. Seeing some of those over 18 inchers again is really reassuring that the fish are still in there. I've been seeing some mussels coming back on the rocks too. Never thought I'd be excited to see those things but that lake sure exploded when they showed up. It may never be like it was in 2014-2015 again, but I'm just fine with it being like it has been the last few weeks. If it stays like it is where a good fisherman can still go catch 20-30 smallmouth a day but a weekend warrior is going to struggle a lot harder it helps keeps some of the pressure off. When it wasn't even hard to go catch 50-100 fish a trip, that lake was getting pounded so hard that I think it really took it's toll. I'm a weekday guy too with my work schedule. I usually fish by myself (not counting my dog), but I don't mind someone jumping in with me, just don't expect any magical results. The big fish on La Cygne are the results of a lot of hours on the water not catching fish to catch those big ones.

Bone colored 75 plopper is what fooled this one. It was pretty windy that day but the bait is fat so it rides over waves really nice.