Bluebasser86

Is there current where you're fishing? I like to use a slip sinker rig with fresh cut bait. You can catch any of the big 3 catfish on that setup with cut shad, carp, or herring are usually good choices. I prefer spinning rods with baitfeeder reels for fishing for channels and I'm guessing some current. Longer rods help you reach current seams and keep line off the water to reduce drag and keep from having to use extremely heavy weights to keep your bait on the bottom. You're dealing with fairly large channels, and if you throw in some current, you'll want a fairly stout rod to handle them. The rod I use often for that situation is an 8' saltwater whuppin stick from Cabela's, a surf casting model, with a 65 size Okuma Epixor baitfeeder, loaded with 50lb braid. Lead and hooks are kind of personal preference and something you have to adjust to the situation. The slip float rig you mentioned is a good way to cover water in slow moving rivers. I don't use it often because of the amount of snags in our rivers, it usually ends up floating into a mess and losing the whole rig. If you have smooth bottom areas, it's extremely effective at times.

All I need most seasons for stockers is a 1/8oz Little Cleo. Colors vary year to year, but silver, gold, and copper are usually pretty solid choices. Just reel them slowly and steadily. I don't eat them, so I never use natural or prepared baits for them as they always seem to swallow the hook.

Yep, done it twice this year so far. Fish get crazy congregated in the power plant lakes in the winter. Fish on every cast for a few hours on end happens to me a few times every winter. There's some "practice lakes" as I call them around here that I go to whenever I'm trying to learn or perfect a technique or test a new bait. They're stunted and jump on about anything. If you don't catch 100 fish, it's kind of embarrassing, but none of them might touch 2 pounds. The guys I had in the boat Thursday quit counting at 50 between them, that was just after 9AM, and wasn't counting all the fish I was boating. I had one cast that a giant wiper was slamming my glide bait but not hooking up, just to have a big smallmouth steal it at the boat, and then come off, it was wild to watch. What KS lacks in size potential, it somewhat makes up in numbers.

I'll take that spotted bass spot for a minute until one of the Alabama guys or someone that's fished Bullard's Bar chimes in. A super fat 16.5" 2.90lb spot I got on a jerkbait at Table Rock a week ago in a tournament.

Mine is 10lb 2oz from Lake Commendero, MX. I was quickly reeling in an 8" Zoom lizard when she chased it to the boat. Free spooled my reel and my bait only sank about a foot before she ate it. Set the hook, fish jumped, guide caught her in the net. Entire fight lasted maybe 3 seconds. She was extremely skinny, our guide said she would have been 13-14 pounds if she was filled out, but it was still a DD and that's what I was hoping for.

I've seen fish with their entire gills ripped out and hanging along the side living and feeding just fine. Maybe it died, maybe it didn't. If you don't want to waste it, take it home (provided it's a keeper, a bleeding fish doesn't negate wildlife laws). Otherwise, nature will take it's course and nothing will be wasted still. Here's a muskie my BIL caught on a buzzbait several years ago that someone had ripped out it's gills, but he was still going good enough to destroy a buzzbait, quite literally.

I already had a boat, but if I was shore bound and had the option to get a yak, I'd be jumping at the chance. Mine lets me fish a lot of water I can't in my bass boat, and the simplicity allows for quick trips I probably wouldn't bother with making because I didn't want to have to hook up the boat, load and unload, along with setting up my graphs and everything else that goes along with boat use. Just being able to dump the yak off the top of the car and toss a couple rods and the paddle in it and go is really nice sometimes.

Both my boys (3 and 3 months), my wife, and I are all sick and have been for a few weeks now. The stuff nobody wants to do when they're sick (house keeping, laundry, dishes, grocery shopping), can't be put off any longer on top of still having to take care of 2 sick and fussy young boys. The stress of dealing with it and just wanting everyone to get better is getting to my wife and I big time. Nothing much worse than your kids being sick.

My buddy saw a black bear this past weekend while we were fishing Table Rock. Not a rare sighting some places, but pretty uncommon to see one in SW Missouri.

Everyone in my house is sick, grilled cheese and soup for dinner. No sense in making a nice dinner when nobody can taste it or even has much of an appetite to begin with.

Looks a lot like what mine looks like, only mine is spread out over a larger area. I know where everything is though, sort of.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

There's a video in this thread.

I am going to fish it on mono or braid tied direct to the line tie.

Looks good. The only problem I have had with 2 split rings is they occasionally bind and don't want to let the bait work correctly, but it's a minor issue. I use the flat eyes so I only need 1 split ring.

We fished it 4 days this past Thursday-Sunday and won the little tournament we had going with 28.5lbs in 2 days. All 10 of our keepers were on a French Pearl STX jerkbait or 3.8 Keitech on a 3/8oz fish head spin. Flat gravel or sand areas near channel swings or drop offs were by far our best areas. The small pockets with water running in gave up some big fish in practice on the fish head spins but only 2 during the tournament. The small swim bait and grub bite was great and so was the Ned bite, but they weren't the fish we needed. Didn't catch a wart fish in 4 days thanks to all the slime. We fished Aunt's Creek and Kimberling City. KC had more quality bites but Aunt's was way better numbers. It was a blast though, catching 30-50 fish a day for 4 days in a row at Table Rock is something I've never experienced.

For an all around use reel, I still haven't found one I like better than a greenie.

Got a good test run today. Reel cast a mile, just like the Assassin. No problem with drag on hooksets and no problems winching fish in. Rained on us all day so I didn't get video like I wanted but probably boated a couple dozen nice largemouth and smallmouth on it.

It's fast, really fast, a little too fast for the 1 fish I had try to eat my frog at the pond today. Hopefully get to fish it for real tomorrow.