Bluebasser86

Welcome!

Cbass12 and I made the rounds Monday and Tuesday. Made the first trip to Wabaunsee of the year, like to have that day back. Moss was terrible on the rocks and dock post all the areas we could fish, which was less than half the lake due to the rolling white caps that had my trolling motor coming out of the water and the fact that they were working on the dam and you're not supposed to come within 100 yards of the dam On the plus side, they don't spray boats anymore it doesn't appear. Either that or they just forgot to spray mine, which I find highly unlikely that they'd miss out on a chance to bleach my new carpet Ryan caught one decent largemouth on a jig and I had one decent smallmouth on a jig and Ryan cleaned up on the 6" crappie in his hunt for enough bigger ones to make a decent dinner. Melvern Tuesday was kind of a grind but it was steady enough and the quality was good enough to make it enjoyable. I wish we wouldn't have fished the dam as long as we did, and we only fished it for about 30 minutes, and we worked hard to catch 2 whites and 2 smallies in that amount of time. Fish were really in the coves it seemed, especially the bigger ones. Ryan caught a nice one on his first cast of the morning on a jerkbait, 1 of 2 jerkbait fish we caught. Fished the Marina a bit. Found a couple of beds and I stuck a nice one off one of them. First time bed fishing for smallies, I like it! Lost a nice largemouth to a cable and had a monster spot come unglued on a spook but just plain missed it We started heading down the lake and fishing all the little pockets and doing decent, I had one destroy a River 2 Sea Rover We played with a really nice one on a bed for 30 minutes and both had a shot at her and both failed to connect well enough. I stumbled onto one of the fattest smallies I've ever caught just inside one cut, 16 1/4" and 3.5 pounds, thought it was a snag until it started moving. We went back to Eisenhower for the last 30 minutes, wish we'd have done it sooner, it was fast paced for 30 minutes. I managed to round out my bass slam for the day when a healthy 4 pound largemouth decided my Ned looked like a tasty snack. Ryan caught a nice spot right when I caught her so he got the double pic with both fish. Ned ruled the day but we caught fish on jerkbaits, tubes, and a spook as well.

I think you misunderstood, I was in the outlet below the lake, not on the lake. If they were in the lake it would probably be national news since they haven't been found in any other lakes in the country yet, just rivers and creeks. I got an email back from KDWPT, they're going to put a ANS sign up so people are aware that they may find them in there.

I'll take the blame with a smile Especially when I'm catching smallies like these on that little bait. From yesterday, one of the fattest smallies I've ever caught, 16 1/4" long and 3lbs 8ozs. It's not just smallmouth that eat it either also from yesterday.

I keep them in their original bag and store them in a separate binder from my regular plastics. Don't dip them in dye either. ZinkerZ, Palmetto BugZ, Turbo CrawZ, BatwingZ, Finesse WormZ, Finesse ShadZ, FattyZ, Hula StickZ, Diesel MinnowZ, Grass KickerZ, and the TRD all are staples of my soft plastic arsenal.

15lb Big Game for me.

Try searching Midwest Finesse Tactics, you'll find some info then. It's like a shakyhead in that they're both plastics on a leadhead, the similarities end there though.

Welcome!

Welcome!

I much prefer bladed jigs over spinnerbaits unless I'm in really clear water. Stained to dirty water and around vegetation is when bladed jigs really shine!

It's a wiper. White bass have the stripes as well but only a single line runs all the way to the tail while I few of them do with wipers. A bass could eat a small one like that but they grow very fast and can reach upwards of 20 pounds. Around here they average about 4-7 pounds and are extremely aggressive and fun fish to catch. They're stocked in ponds pretty often but I have yet to see them do very well in a pond and they're about impossible to catch back out of them once they're in there.

War Eagle is about the only spinnerbait brand I use.

Welcome!

I have a 45" on mine, anything longer just gets in the way. If I needed one longer than that I probably shouldn't be on the water then anyways.

I have a 7' 6" MH/F St. Croix LTB and a 7' 6" Pinnacle DHC5 MH/F that both work really well for all but the heaviest stuff.

Sometimes Hootie's pictures are like,

Great baits and reasonably priced with a great color selection.

I usually go with gold or painted on cloudy days, silver on sunny days, copper in dirty water.

I'm not sure that I'd say I really like it, there's issues like cost, line management, and knot issues at times, but it's a necessary evil in clear water.

Only MB I've ever fished that I didn't break My buddy left one in my boat at Table Rock and I liked the color so I gave it a try. Watched a bunch of spots and smallies rocket up out of the trees to eat that thing.

There's lots of bank fishing areas around Lee's Summit. Look into a kayak and get out on Jacomo or Prairie Lee. Only thing I miss about having a johnboat instead of my Stratos is I can't fish Jacomo in my Stratos because of the size of the motor.

RangerDanger has the RT178. Obviously a little smaller with a few less features but it's a slick boat and I looked hard at the RT188 when I was in the market this past winter. You might shoot him a PM and ask about his boat.

I blanked my first tournament too. Never even had anything I'm 100% sure was a bite. Followed that up with a 4th and 2nd place the next 2 tournaments (I was 16 fishing in an adult club). Learn what you can from the experience, even if it's to simply try something/somewhere different if you run into the same conditions down the road.

Good job staying calm with that big fish on a crankbait. I hate getting big fish on cranks but that's what I seem to catch them on a lot of the time.

I just use a limb or wrap my line around the handle of my pliers and pull. You'll get your bait back a lot of the time if you're using straight braid doing this.