retro basser

Headed out to fish DGCO yesterday, boy the cold front shut em down. Only fish i caught before noon was 25ft straight down on a hula grub. Picked up a little bit in the afternoon but they wanted finesse stuff. Seems like that's the only time it's felt 'cold' all spring. Wonder how long it will take them to recover.

Yeah i'll try Nebo again someday, it's worth it just to have a shot at a 5 pounder much less a 7-8. I'm not that good with a jig yet but i did have a 3/4 oz one black blue one with a rattle and a havoc pit boss goin quite a bit. I also tried a junebug 7' ribbontail worm in places. I just couldnt convince any it was a good thing to eat. Now KDWP and both guys I talked to out there were using spinnerbaits and I totally agree more that moving baits are not for that lake. Maybe Nebo bass never had to work that hard for a meal in their lives. Went to Lonestar Monday morning just to see how it's doing this season. It was a wierd day: I caught crappie on bass lures and a bass on a crappie jig. I caught alot fewer bass than i normally do because i was using much larger lures to try to see if anything of decent size was out there. Crappie must be gettin pretty active out there because I caught one just 10'' long on a big ol' 1/2 oz terminator spinnerbait. Water was 68, they were up in the docks and the grass already, nothing on the main lake. Baits with chartreuse in them seemed to work well. This was the biggest bass of the day, over 16'' actually but didn't even weigh 2 pounds

Fished Nebo State Friday and Saturday morning and it was brutal. I thought that overcast foggy morning would really have them flying around but It was so calm i'm choosing to blame the bluebird effect. I threw all sorts of stuff at them, spinners and traps weren't working, I got a nice new crank caught on the second cast so i gave up on that. Went slow with dark colored rattling jigs and Carolina plastics. Even tried a downsized dropshot 4' worm...nothing all day Friday. The bites that i would get were more like swipes, nothing would commit. One older guy out there was picking a couple off sporadically, he was a pretty good fisherman, and you gotta give a guy credit who isnt afraid to use a rocky bank as a dock for a $30K Ranger boat so he can go fishing without a buddy to help park the truck. Anyway he was running a texas rigged smoke tube with a weight and bead so I rigged up one of those and that gave me some success Saturday morning. Still, I often had to wait through some nibbles for them to fully commit to the bait before setting the hook to catch a fish... So i'm writing all this because one kid the next day thought it must be so slow because they were spawning, he fishes there often. A fair guess since the water was 67 degrees. But i swear the were still mostly staged around the two main lower points on radar. What do you guys think? I spent a lot of frustrated hours on that water trying to figure something out...

d**n, sounds like the coldfront got em. I'm hoping tomorrow is good, sounds like a bluebird day... Drew: I would agree with the grub but would suggest adding a small colorado spinner to keep it from snagging. Nothing wrong with a worm and a bobber if she doesn't want to cast all the time. Could be just my experience with women, but they tend to prefer things that require little to no effort.

Well that's a relief cause we just got done eating them lol... Knew you'd know. Thanks! By the way, I gutted and scaled them and roasted them whole. Heads on and all. They were just as tender as fried and way more flavor cause we packed them in a bunch of herbs and stuff before we cooked em. Well sounds like they were eating everything down at Melvern, day must have flown by... Did that week of rain fill it up any?

Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you guys. A couple of the striped bass were kinda blueish colored on the lower fins, is that a disease or something? Safe to eat?

I took my first trip over to the rock creek side of Perry yesterday and paid my dues. Water was above 60 in the water above the bridge, guys were all over the bank catching crappie but not in great numbers yet, mos people said they had about 5 or so... I fished all morning all over that arm without a bite to show for it until about 1 'oclock I ran a trap across the end of that skinny rock point which was facing the wind. It was a bonanza. Almost every cast i was catching a good sized striped or largemouth bass. The smaller whites were 1.5 lbs so i finally broke down and threw some in the livewell. Figured I might as well do it up like Chris and take home some free dinner if i'm going to be out there fightin wind anyway...Score! Finally bought a scale, this guy was just shy of 3lbs

Wow! what a momma bass... I need to know what it's like to fight one of those into the boat! If i'm lucky enough to land her I promise to put her back...hell, I could buy an awful lot of lures for the couple hundred bucks it costs to get a fish like that stuffed... This is gonna be a good week...

The bass virus hit Lonestar I think but not Perry. The schools of fish out there are just amazing. I regularly saw schools of shad as big as my boat out there last summer, and I know people catch 6+ pounders regularly out of Perry. It is big water though so if you dont really get serious about targeting structure it's easy to be out of the strikezone. Blue's spots are real good, proven spots. Hell I didnt even know about the one by the slough ramp and i've probably cruised right over it a dozen times. Funny how hard it is to fish right by the ramp when all you want to do is get out there. This time of year i'd be hard pressed not to try those two main lake points that are narrow necked pennsulas on the map. The main channel swings right by them and they are likely to be massive early season bass magnets. Of course the wind will probably make you earn it out there... Blue: I have never heard of spring creek but will certainly look it up. I love the out of the way places like that... Going to head up to Nebo St next weekend to see about 8lb bass, hopefully with nowhere to hide in that little lake. hehe

Monday the 19th was a good morning to be out until the rain hit. I was really hoping it would hold off till afternoon but it came through here about 10 something at DGCO. Due to a newly discovered chair post hole in the floor of my boat that one of the previous owners was kind enough just to hide instead of actually epoxy over... I'm not fishing in the rain for awhile Anyway, I caught this 14'' right away on a craw wigglewart, one of the bigger ones i've caught out there... I'm ready to hunt some bigger prey, but sure am glad this lake is so close to my house, they are so easy to catch out there. Definitley a good lake to take a youngster learning the bass bite... oh, mid lake water was 62 deg lol.

I'm definitley making the trip to Miami Co this season. Sounds like a goodn' Got the boat out for the winter yesterday and drug it down to DGCO lake to see how things are coming along. Water surface temp was 56 there in the morning and 64 in spots in the afternoon. Couldnt believe it actually. Sonar was showing alot of fish on the bottom and some suspending around 15' with the vast majority clinging to primary points still, so I have a feeling the water below about 8 feet is still pretty cold. Caught about a dozen dinks on a little bit of everthing, craw colored crankbait and carolina rigged plastics worked best. I amused myself for a bit trying to find a plastic in my box they wouldnt bite at. That game ended with a lot of chewed up plastic and tiny bass to show for it lol. I couldnt care, the first day in the sun after winter felt great.

Good thing about a day trip is it would be easy, especially close to KC. Somewhere farther like Melvern I always want to get 2 days in cause the rig is such a gas guzzler. Heck I say we do both cause there's a better chance one or the other will work for peoples schedules. Last weekend of April is good for me, looks like that Sat is the 28th. That's gonna be Prime Bassin Time too. I'd say welcome to the forum, but let's face it welcome to The Thread When the site isn't forcing you to get a new profile or selling your email to spammers, there's a pretty good group of guys keeping tabs on the local waters. I'm not the most experienced angler around here but it sounds like your strategy was real good and it sounds like you found em bunched up over a heck of a piece of underwater structure. It is early March still. Then again, if this week's weather doesnt make them move i'm going to give up fishing. Do you remember the water temps?

Heck yeah... I got an excuse Is that last picture a saguer Blue? They look like gar to me. What's the big deal about those anyway? That Perry district biologist was pretty excited that they were making a comeback in the resevoir. Drove up to Leavenworth today to see it drained and try my luck fishing from shore. No bites but it is pretty neat how much of the lake bottom you can see. Got a few more real projects to take care of around the house before I break the boat out for the season. Let's be honest, aint nothing getting done but lakin' after then.

Wow. That picture is ridiculous! It probably works great but that dont mean i'm gonna throw it. Guess i'm old fashioned

Wow! Either of those could make a season much less a trip. Holy cow. Good news on the shock-boats. I thought i read somewhere that they were trying to transition to the no-kill ones, but heck if they've always been that way all the better... I would imagine few things spook a bass population like electro-terror from above. Twice in one day, that's some luck right there... lol

The KS biologists go out and 'sample' these lakes by running a shock boat around and collecting what floats to the top... the biggest fish is the biggest bass (in lbs) that happened to get caught in the current during last years testing. (The 2012 fish forcast is based on testing done througout 2011) I think they mentioned somewhere about switching over to electro boats that will just stun the fish long enough to count them. I know that testing is important in managing the fisheries, but it's always a bummer to see trophy fish go out like that.

Good to know about Mozingo. It's a little far but maybe i'll get around to it. Fishing an Ozark-like lake with a ton of tributaries would be fun. 1000 acres too. You dont get that size water over on this side of the border very often it seems... Well even though I learned last season that the KDWP ratings can be *ahem* misleading at best, I still have their rankings from last year saved so i decided to compare them and see which lakes were the 'biggest winners' for black bass going into this season. So, for what it's worth, here's all the lakes who's ratings increased over 5 pts. If nothing else it weeds out some dead water... 2012 KWDP LM Bass Highest Density Change.pdf

Nice fish, they sure are porkers down there eh? Heck, catching 16 is fun I don't care where you go, especially in January. My ol lady's dad has been farming his whole life and he thinks it will likely be a cold spring too. I'm guessing that means they'll be really hard to pattern but hopefully the silver lining is that if you figure it out it could be a bonanza, even on the busier lakes. I've been eyeballing Mozingo lake in NW MO on this new software I have. It looks pretty impressive actually. Anyone hear anything about it?

81 Bass already by Jan 17th? Now that is gettin' after it! So the million dollar question for me is: How is this warm winter going to affect how fast they get moving again in springtime? Gotta think it would help them grow more than normal too with all these warm winter afternoons to feed...

A Kayak in 40 deg water? That takes guts! Nice. I dont know if you guys have seen this website yet but let me tell you it is BAD ***. Just close out the pop-up box and you can play with the map for free. Any body of water with a red square around it has a good contour map that you get with the membership. Even on the freebie version i got it to overlay a topo map over Perry, which is very cool, but the pay version is just awesome. http://mapper.angling-technologies.com/map/

Saw this ad and thought it might be a helluva deal for the right basser: http://lawrence.craigslist.org/boa/2785282525.html Good luck on the weekend sportin...

Badass! Looks like hangin out in the rain all day was well worth it. It was probably 50 out there though and I see alot more 20's & 30's in the forecast. I think you timed it just right before it gets stupid cold. That post will hold me over for another month at least. Thanks.

Melvern sounds like a good call for destination bassin' Also it might be real easy just to plan a 'everyone call in sick to work' day and attack one of these local lakes. I can either bring a boat or some beer, whichever is in greater demand that day

Wednesday was my last trip of the year, went to DG CO because I knew i'd have a good chance to catch something. I did too, picked em off all day even fishing the middle hours, 12-4 I think. Ended up with 8. Because it's starting over out there it's funny how you only land 2 sizes of fish, most are exactly at 10'' and the next spawn are little, probably 7''. This trip I was suprised to catch one that didnt fit the mold: This 'hog' actually got up to 12''. Made me wonder how the heck he found his way in there or if it was one of the older fish in the lake. It was a nice enough day to end on, got up to almost 60 and the sun found it's way out most of the afternoon. I'll take it. Chris: I've been out places a couple times with a weather pattern like we had Thursday and had really tough days as well. You know, warmest day of the week, winds strong from the SW. I'm going to try to avoid em in the future if I can. I'm thinking I like the middle days of a stable pattern late in the year. Just a hunch. Well the boat is hibernatin' Any of you guys venture out into the cold make sure to let us know...

I actually went out there again last week, tuesday maybe, bad fishing day, ended up being colder and windier than the weather guy thought so I left fast. All I could catch out there were wiper, but at least they were biting. I did notice this time they have the two holes on the tounge which is what KDWP says is a wiper/striper trait. I am definitley going to spend a little time chasin em next season. They sound fun especially when the real bass arent biting. Not to mention, like you said Chris, when you're takin a 6 yr old or a 30 yr old novice fisherman, you better be catching somethin Takin the boat out for the last run of the season tomorrow...hope the cold front didnt shut em down. I'm goint to try to fish low-n-slow, main points, very back of creeks. spinners, cranks, traps, jerkbaits, and a white jig if I can find it. Going out on a good day sure will make winterizing the boat easier