Bluebasser86

Duo makes a tiny popper I like to fish just for panfish, it's a lot of fun even though the hookup ratio is pretty bad.

Fished a kayak tournament this past weekend on a lake I'd never been to, only ever seen it once this year driving by for work. All I'd heard was it was terrible and we should go to a 3 fish limit for this tournament because we'd be lucky to have any limits caught. We've had tons of rain so the water was up a couple feet and even dirtier than it normally is. It was supposed to be very windy during the tournament so I prefished areas I thought I'd be able to fish during the tournament. One was a creek that produced a few small fish but I lost one big one and had another good blow up on a buzzbait. Second was the marina, which I didn't want to fish because I thought it would be packed with people, but it was an option. I caught several fish there, including one I think was the first meanmouth I've ever seen in Kansas. Tournament morning, I was very torn on where to fish. I made up my mind to go to the marina because I was sure I could get 5 there and not sure about the creek. Then as I was about to leave the campgrounds, I decided I wanted to fish for the win, not just 5 fish, and went to the creek. There was 2 of the other 24 anglers that decided to launch from the same spot, which was a little disappointing since I didn't think there were many fish to go around in that creek, but I wanted to give it a shot. First cast was 5:30, too dark to even see in a laydown loaded creek, so I dropped my anchor right by the launch and waiting a little bit, just running a buzzbait through the one tree I could see over and over again. After about 10 minutes I could finally make out a tree laying in a few inches of water on the bank, so I flipped a Bang StickZ into it, and when I lifted it my rod got pulled straight back down. Couldn't even see it, so I just boat flipped the fish and was real surprised by the size. Spawned out, but way bigger than any I'd caught in practice. That felt great to get in the boat right away, thought maybe I'd even win big bass. It was 5:46 when I submitted it, and it was already not the biggest fish submitted. Took awhile to get another bite, felt solid on the hookset next to a tree, but I never got it moving and it broke me off. Probably 45 minutes later, I got bit again by a small fish, set the hook and it flew over my kayak and came off. A few minutes later, I missed another bite that just thumped my bait and ran off, my big fish high was long gone. Finally caught another little 14" fish, not much but something. I fished until I got to the end of where I felt the productive water was in the creek and turned around. On the way back out, I cast my buzzbait over where the good fish had missed it the day before, and it got sucked under. Adding a 17" fish to my score helped take away the pain of the missed fish a little. I had a couple more missed bites on the Bang StickZ, and then I think I might have figured out what was causing it. Pretty disappointing when I thought I had my 4th keeper bass. No more bites the rest of the way out of the creek, and 2 more kayaks had shown up, I decided to go to the marina to try and find my last 2 keepers. It was about 10:30 when I got to the marina, lines out was 1:30PM, so I had some time to work with still, but it was pretty busy and not a big area. I peddled straight back to my most productive area the day before, and got no bites on the jig that had been getting bit steadily in practice. I floated up next to a service dock and made a long cast under the walkway with a tube, and missed a fish. Skipped my bladed jig under, and missed it again. I'm guessing fry guarding and just pushing the bait. By the other service dock, I had a better bite on the tube and again missed. I hadn't even brought my Ned rod out with me because it had been useless in practice, but I'd seen lots of small minnows jumping along the shoreline, so I'd rigged a white lightning TRD on a homemade 1/8oz weedless Ned head on a 7' 2" M/F Okuma Psycho Stick paired with a Okuma 2500 ITX and 14lb SPRO finesse braid. Cast back to where I missed the bite and hooked up with a smallmouth that jumped, then jumped again right as I tried to net it and came off. Getting 5 was looking less and less likely. I picked the tube up again and tried a couple cast into the pocked between the docks and felt like a fish was just following it along and pecking at it. Finally it gave a good thump and I stuck a 14.75" largemouth, but all I could think was how that should have been number 5. Since I'd hooked a smallmouth on the Ned, I went to my productive spot from the day before where I'd been getting smallmouth bites and tossed it. I got a quick bite but I was shocked when the fish jumped. I was just hoping for a little smallmouth. This fish was a smallmouth, but it wasn't little. A tense battle ensued before she was finally in the net. Another spawned out female, but a huge bump to my total and my 5th fish. I was so happy to get 5, I was still floating when a few minutes later I got another "tap, tap". This fish was immediately airborne and went into a crazy zig-zag fight right under the front of my kayak, knocked my paddle off the side of my yak, and the hooked popped out right as the net slide under her. Unfortunately, I was so excited about the last fish, I forgot to start my camera again and missed even getting the fish on camera at all ?‍♂️ Still, a 16.75" smallmouth culled out my 14" largemouth from the morning. I caught a little largemouth, and a green sunfish, before I peddled around all the marina docks to fish a 20 yard piece of gravel bank where I'd missed 1 bite the day before that I thought was probably a smallmouth bite. I caught 2 more smallmouth and missed 2 more on the Ned, one was a 15.25" fish that culled my 14.75" largemouth I'd caught 30 minutes before. I had about 30 minutes left in the day and was in the mid 80 inch range at that point. I kicked back over to where I'd caught my first 2 smallmouth and switched to a Coppertreuse TRD. I think it was maybe 3 cast before I stuck another good fish right next to a dock cable. It rubbed on my 8lb leader for a second, a dangerous thing anyways but coupled with zebra mussels and it's a recipe for disaster. Thankfully, she came up and I had the net ready. With 15 minutes left, a 17" fish culled the 15.25" smallmouth I'd just caught to give me an even 88" on the day. I felt pretty good at the awards ceremony. A tough lake that everyone was saying we'd be lucky to have a limit on and I got 88"? So I was pretty surprised to find out I got 3rd place. Apparently, the lake is better than people like to lead on. Still very happy with my ability to overcome the lost fish and tough conditions on a new lake and put together a strong finish. As you can see, it was a fast drop after the top 4.

I use 20lb braid on a couple baitcasters. Those rigs are for fishing treble hooked topwaters where I'm not doing big hooksets and the drag is set fairly loose. I've never had an issue with dig in on them.

If there are smallmouth, there's other fish (a food source), nearby. Just because you don't see them, doesn't mean they aren't there. Perch are extremely prolific spawners, smallmouth aren't eating all of them. That's as lame of an excuse as the crappie guys here saying smallmouth are eating all their crappie.

The through the gill method is quick and easy with just a little practice and the right tools. Learn to do it and don't leave hooks in fish. I've caught too many paper thin fish with hooks in their throats to believe that leaving the hook in is the best option.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

In the 2oz range, it's a 1oz head with a 6oz fat impact body

Why stop at the trailer? Make the bait huge too! Shown next to a standard 3/8oz bait for scale.

I can't catch fish on a popmax to save my life ? The R2S Bubble Walker kills them, but the Popmax does nothing for some reason.

Kind of need parameters on what a "small" popper is. Most of them listed are not what I'd consider small, just standard sized poppers. The smallest sized Booyah Boss Pop is 1/4oz, so it cast on casting gear no problem, walks and spits very nicely, and gets bit really well.

3/8oz 95% of the time.

Already has for me. Trips are much closer to the house to the lakes that aren't nearly as good and trips are much less frequent. Not sure how much longer I can keep the Stratos at this rate either. It's killing us as a single income family.

I wouldn't buy one for an UL. Nothing against Ugly Sticks, but I'd want something more sensitive for an UL rod.

We have lots of species of snakes here in NE Kansas. The copperhead is the only fairly common venomous snake followed by the Timber Rattlesnake. Contrary to what lots of people will tell you, there are no cottonmouths within an hour or so of here. I've seen them in the Ozark streams and a couple times on Table Rock, but never this far north into Kansas.

I'm been gut punched by a few on the river when they come shooting out of the water. They leave almost a perfect imprint where they hit your clothing due to the amount of slime that covers their body. Their extremely short digestive track is always packed full of bright green slime from them filtering the water. The low set eye and severe underbite looks like they have some sort of birth defect. Nothing about them looks like something that should be eaten. Maybe they're delicious and I think they would be an excellent option to help provide a protein source for homeless shelters if they're edible, but I have no interest in ever trying them myself.

Have you ever seen/held/been close to one? They're a disgusting fish. They're slimy, smell bad, and start mysteriously bleeding the instant they're removed from the water. I'm not a fish eater personally but no way I'd eat one. They make excellent cut bait for catfish though.

10lb mono or copoly

I have a few of the Savage Gear weedless gills and really like them. As long as they're rigged straight and you don't reel them too fast, they swim great and fish smash them.

Nice! I'd be looking for a different flipping hook if I broke one like that.

Exactly. Most likely someone getting jumpy from being under water and not being able to see well and thinking they saw something. No doubt they've probably bumped into some large catfish. A 60+ lb flathead would be a massive fish to ram into you if you accidentally ended up nose to nose with it in murky water. If there were 200-300 lb catfish, why aren't we finding them dead on these lakes since they blow up like balloons when they die?

Welcome!

Welcome!

Fishing kayak tournaments has been a very cerebral experience for me. So much more thought has to go into everything, from where I'm launching, to what tackle and rods I'm bringing, what direction is the wind blowing, do need to update the app on my phone, what time is lines in/out, what is my travel time to potential plan B's, do I have the right identifier, is my camera lens clean, so many things to worry about that are non-factors in boat tournaments. I think that this internal chess match I play with myself is part of what I enjoy so much about them.