Bluebasser86

I use mono for a lot of applications, topwater isn't one of them but a lot of others like cranks, moving single hooked baits, as well as some jigs and T-rigs. It has my interest and I'll probably be trying some.

I missed one this spring that I thought I had knocked out of the park by .04 ounces. Twice I lost that fish that would have won it for me but didn't think much of it because it usually only takes about half the weight I had to win, I've seen 1 fish win on that lake plenty of times and I had 5 and culled a few times. Did get big bass though, so I got some money out of the deal. Sometimes those near misses hurt worse than when you miss completely.

I've been pretty lucky, haven't had anything to terrible happen yet. I get really annoyed by the guys that launch a cast as far as they can up into inches of water with a bait that has no chance of returning without snagging, or casting way behind the boat and getting snagged. About the worse I can think of was a couple guys I was guiding for flatheads that complained all night about the lack of bites (if you know anything about flathead fishing you know that it's pretty standard to get 1 or 2 bites a night on a good night). Then we caught 1 fish, a 47 pounder, and they were just beside themselves by morning that we'd "only caught 1 fish". Nevermind it was the fish of a lifetime for most folks and exactly the fish they'd paid me to help them catch. I stopped guiding for flatheads shortly after that.

This one with a magnum trick worm/finesse worm or rodent

Colorado blades can work in any water color and not just at slow speeds. I learned how to fish a spinnerbait bulging a single Colorado bladed spinnerbait just below the surface and caught a lot of fish doing it. When they're keying on bluegills I seem to do better with Colorado blades also. They really do outshine the others in muddy water though. If it's really muddy, double Colorado blades with the front being bright orange and back being copper or silver is one of my favorite combinations.

Flipping a weightless stick worm into holes in the grass is a great way to get them to bite when they're suspended just below the grass and ignoring heavier weighted baits crashing down past them. That's how I got this one a few weeks ago on a weightless black Ocho.

My main accessory right now looks to be mayflies? Not much left of them but they leave a bright yellow splat on the window and grill.

Shawnee State Lake is shallow and dirty, has a good population of larger largemouth bass but very few smallmouth, dirt roads getting to it also, north of Silver Lake a few miles. Lake Shawnee in Topeka is typically clear, rocky with weeds and some laydowns. It's a mix of largemouth and smallmouth with large versions of both. It also has an insane number of drum in it and during the heat of the summer it's often difficult to catch much else. I prefer Lake Shawnee but I try to stick more to winter, spring, and fall out there, the bite is awfully tough during the summer.

In the rods I've owned it is. A MH spinning rod is only good for a select few techniques while a M can do the finesse stuff and the heavier stuff and be ideal for a majority of your typical spinning gear techniques.

For spinning I'd prefer M, casting MH for all around rods.

Welcome!

Pretty cool find on the river Friday. Buddy that knows a lot about old western history thinks a Bison Antiquus that went extinct about 4,000 years ago! I can tell you for sure, it was real heavy, my kayak was dragging on some of the sandbars on the way back to the ramp that I floated over on the way up. Nearly 3' wide too and as you can see in the second picture, the cap is bigger around than a 5 gallon bucket.

Did a little kayak catfishing on the river Friday. I found there comes a point in kayak catfishing when you hook a fish and for a moment aren't really sure who has caught who.

Well, my knockout punch was supposed to be a big longnose gar, but this might have to work. Cut the tail off a bit in the this picture but my picture I submitted it was all there, all 39 inches of her. I was beached doing pictures and measurements, figured I'd set my bait back in the current seam this one bit it, rod hadn't been out 2 minutes when line was peeling out again! The "small" one was 8 pounds. I was also hoping to find a wiper in the fast water. I didn't find any where I'd hoped and was disappointed because I know from a friend that they live there. On the way back, there's a water treatment plant that has some water running into the river. I had 10 minutes and a grub tied on so why not? First cast white bass, second cast, maybe the smallest river wiper I've ever caught, but he's 10 3/4 more inches and another species on my list.

Melvern fished pretty good again Thursday. Good mix of smallmouth, largemouth, spots, and a few whites. First time in a long time that I've had the multiple fish following in a hooked fish again, some of them were quite a bit larger than the 15-16 inch fish I was catching. It's not 2015 Melvern, but I still had over 30 in the boat with some nice quality fish and never felt like I was really working for them. All of them were fat, healthy, and mean too. Did some river fishing Friday out of the kayak, good times.

This is one of the best all around spinning rods I've ever used. I've upgraded all my Mojo rods except for this one because I liked it so much.

Why bother with a leader at all? Unless you're needing the abrasion resistance, dump the extra knot and extra line, I did and it's worked out just fine.

Man I hate it when I'm catching so many fish on my frog that it falls apart ?

I have a black digital camo sun shirt. I don't really notice it being any hotter or cooler than any other color.

Yes

Their squarebills are great, I like their prop baits, traps are decent, popper and pistol minnow work well, the only ones I haven't really liked are the bigger 100 pointer type jerkbaits (both shallow and deeper running versions), and the swimbaits. The swimbaits work okay and I caught fish on them, but nothing special. I really like the jerk shad but neither of the stores by me carry them?? They probably got tired of stocking them from me buying them out all the time ?

Booyah Popping Pad Crasher is my go to. Not overly expensive and you can buy them anywhere. For the toads, really liking the new YUM Tip Toad, much better priced than others with great action with good durability.

@smalljaw67 is probably going to be your guy on how to do anything like a puffball jig.

I've seen people get fired for doing dumber stuff but if you can get away with it, I know I'd be doing the same.