Bluebasser86

I got a grill, and we got my dad a grill.

1/8oz little cleo, micro jig under a bobber, 1/16oz chatterbait, Ned rig.

I'll take 100 degrees over freezing temps and snow any day of the week!

Welcome from another lifelong Kansan! When you get time, jump over to the Central forum and check out some of the Kansas reports. There's a few pretty recent ones from Coffey and a couple from Melvern.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Not the exact bait but the YUM Hawgtail is pretty close. Did good with the black and blue one today.

It was good yesterday morning too, including 2 very solid keepers.

If it came with a chatterbait, it's made by Zman.

I have a few of the Mettles, the plain silver ones that I'm assuming are the exact same minus the paint jobs. That camo one was on sale for $40 in the store closest to me yesterday. The silver ones are great, especially since $40 is the most I paid for any of them. I even used one flipping the grass in Holiday Park in Florida while we were down there and it handled the 50lb braid and grass just fine. They cast a mile and are very smooth little reels for the money. My oldest one is 3 years old now and has a ton of miles on it. I keep waiting for it to quit but it just keeps on trucking.

I gave a President a try a couple years ago. I have 4 or 5 of them now. Most bulletproof bang for your buck spinning reel out there IMO.

I fish mine with a slow, steady retrieve most of the time but have had very good success letting them settle to the bottom and pumping them back to the boat. I make one on a swinging football head that I put a screwlock swimbait hook on to help prevent snags when I'm pumping them along the bottom.

Walk the dog, poppers a distant second.

For me, the hookset sounds like your potential issue. On a long cast, even if you think your line is tight you're going to have some degree of bow in the line, be it from current, wind, line sinking, whatever. A standard swing for the fences jig hookset might not remove enough of that bow to bury that big hook. My football jig hookset is more like a C rig set. Get a bite, crank like crazy until the rod is pointed almost straight at the fish and then sweep set into them and keep cranking like crazy to help get the hook dug in.

Normally shallow and any time of day.

I'll echo what has been said, your rod is very underpowered. I wouldn't go lighter than a 7' MH/F for frogging. I prefer 50lb braid, but you can get away with lighter if you really want to.

Absolutely. Bass around here really seem to focus on craws at night, so fishing the Ned slowly along the bottom at night can be a killer. Not just for bass either. In 1 hour after dark last year we had; flathead catfish, channel catfish, white bass, crappie, walleye, drum, sunfish, smallmouth bass, and spotted bass.

That's a sweet looking gar! I've seen albino longnose before, but never solid black.

Not sure I'll be able to do either of those two, but I will be at the Bassmaster's Classic in March at Grand. Maybe try to put something together for guys going to that?