KCFinesse

I was out there Monday- just about every smallie we got into looked very beat up. We found a few better largemouth in in deeper water towards the dam while chasing smallmouth. I would've thought we would have run into more around the emergent weeds, but the smallmouth, white bass, catfish, drum, etc seemed a lot more consistent. -Jared

The bigger fish are far between, but they are in that lake. I fished that lake quite a bit before moving from Blue Springs to OP, and I think it's one of the better winter lakes in the metro. There is a wide variety of structure (but a bunch of dinks to wade through). -Jared

Is Blue getting renovated again as a result of the 2012 floods? I haven't fished Blue in 15 years or so, but it used to be a pretty fun lake... There just doesn't seem to be much information on that lakes current status other than the reno-project reports. -Jared

I could only help with Southwest or immediately around Ames- I fished Anita this weekend and caught a bunch of males without finding anything super solid. If you're in that end of the state, I hear Green Valley is fishing well, and 12 Mile has previously been a good lake for me around this time of year. Good luck! -Jared

I caught a four out of there about a year ago. As far as consistently big fish there may be better options. I don't fish in Omaha as much as I used to, but I always seemed to catch a couple very solid fish out of prarie view every year. -Jared

Awesome lakes up there. It always seems to me like the two best strategies in those lakes are to brave the wind and keep an open mind and be willing to hit the hot bite regardless of species. Nice fish! -Jared

I fish mostly Texas or split shot rig senkos, but I am a really big fan of working them as tight to or within laydowns/water willows/reeds etc. In my opinion, the ability to snake through cover with the subtilty of the senkos action on the fall makes this bait extremely productive. The split shot rig adds a nice lateral action to the bait on the fall where it glides to the side similar to a tube, but has the 'senko wiggle'. It's a rigging nuance to the bait that I lean on more often than not. I like the wacky rig when I want the bait high in the water column or when I'm fishing clean rocks. The bait has more inherent movement on a wacky rig at the expense of some of the concepts mentioned above. It 'target' fishes very well wacky rigged, but if I'm fishing through cover there are better rigging options. I do not fish weighted wacky rigs very often. I'm usually fishing a ned or a shakeyhead in the conditions that would call for a weighted wacky rig. -Jared

Fished Mound City between Easter lunch and bring caught slightly off guard by the storm that pushed through late afternoon. I caught my first few s-waiver fish ever on some of the weed flats, and I also got my biggest bass of the year at 21" that came off 15fow on a brush pile. The deeper brush pile fish were picky at best and getting fish to react took rotating between a carolina rig, power shot, and a ned. Water temp was 64. -Jared

Fished Pleasanton East Sunday afternoon- caught mostly dinks with the best fish being 18". The better fish came off weightless flukes on reed's adjacent to emerging lily pad sections. All fish were immediately off of shoreline structure. Despite the wind and the cloud cover, fish were mostly on plastics with a couple chatterbait fish mixed in. I'm guessing I was catching bed fish and buck-bass staging- if there were better females in adjacent deeper water, they were hard to come by. Water temps were between 58-61F, and weed growth was pretty limited still. -Jared

Take a look at the flowage on the north end of Spirit lake. This is walk-in accessible from Mini-Wakan state park. There's a fair amount of current that moves from a slough into the main lake. At the very least, it's a productive spot for wading/shore fishing for walleye and white bass. -Jared

I've had success with Midwest prop before as well.

Fished WC yesterday getting in the water about 10. The smallies were a slow for us but we found some shallow (<1.5') largemouth on spinnerbaits and swim jigs in the backs of dirty water coves. It was a very 'different' wolf day for me. The largemouth were mostly between 17"-19". Put well over 50lbs of drum in the boat... And the fish of the day was probably a 15" crappie. -Jared

Fished Douglas with the girlfriend and the dog today and things were a bit slow for that lake. We ended up with 3 dozen, mostly ned and senko fish adjacent to rocks with a few channel swing and jerkbait fish mixed in. Moving baits were a tough sell today. Largest was about 17". WT 51-53. -Jared

Jeff, Welcome to the forum. A substantial portion of the KC area thread is about the Kansas side of of the metro and picking through it can give you a pretty good idea of the opportunities in the area. I'm a fan of fishing Gardner City, Miola, and a few other of the metro lakes. There are also quite a few small community fishery ponds that fish well from shore and all fish very similar (shallow, weedy, silted). KC is a pretty good starting out point to to travel an hour or a few to either the Ozark lakes in Missouri and Arkansas or the smallmouth lakes in Kansas. -Jared

Unit 1 has been off for a while- I think Unit 2 hasn't had much load for the past few weeks.

Hit Melvern Sunday and got straight up blanked... Threw lots of jerkbaits, underspins, neds, bladebaits, dropshot, etc... I marked lots of fish suspended in the 30-40 fow range without getting any response from them. There were a handful of boats out there, maybe someone figured them out. Still a little cold- water temps 39-46. -Jared

I've had success with jerkbaits and flukes around log jams- casting upstream of the log jam and letting the bait drift as tight as possible to the side of the obstruction. The flukes are great at getting right and out of the nasty stuff, and can make a world of difference getting neutral or inactive fish to react to a very natural looking bait in tight areas. -Jared

This is my first batch with a weed guard, I liked the look of the Ehrler jig heads. A brush version was worth a test run. The standard shaker heads worked well this fall. -Jared

This has been my most effective tired chatterbait this year when the fish seem to prefer something more natural... I haven't tried out the phenix blades, but I like the finish and want to see how the action looks on a feather jig....

I was out Sunday as well and had a heck of a time getting anything consistent going. I threw a bunch of jerkbaits and did some exploring in the cove north of the ramp but never ventured south of the plant. I did run into fish on a ned but the hits were extremely soft. Dead sticking made a lot of difference. Given the weather this week, I might have to head south next weekend to put some productive fishing together... I'm thinking the jerkbait bite at Table Rock might be worth looking into... -Jared

I really like that lake, it seems to fish bigger than its size and can have a pretty good spinnerbait bite.

Fished Wolf Creek yesterday morning and it was borderline holy crap cold in that north wind. I found smallies adjacent to bait- the shad were very very tight to the bottom in about 20fow. Jerkbait fish were down wind of them and ned/shakey heads fish directly adjacent. I tooled around for some largemouth and found fish around green weeds on a swim jig. The largemouth were not hitting like it was a cold front. Biggest of the day was at 19". WT- 53-55 -Jared

When I went to school in central Iowa and fished smallies in the Skunk River- I stocked up on that exact color. That guy, the small pointers, white ice flukes and chrome torpedoes probably have accounted for 90% of the conventional gear river smallies I've ever caught. Great little baits! -Jared

The things catch fish- I was fishing as a non boater in a tournament a few years back where I was turned on to a mid-summer standing timber bite on bluegill forage base lakes. Bass were suspended in trees- GP or watermelon chompers falling through the branches or being dragged through horizontal limbs are terrific for this in addition to the more 'traditional' football jig bite. -Jared

Had a few buddies come down from Nebraska this weekend to fish Wolf Creek and Melvern. Given the weather I was really hoping I'd have a good shot to get some friends who don't fish all that much into some serious numbers of smallies. All things considered, we did ok at WC with catching about 3 dozen in a half day Saturday and 4 dozen in a half day Sunday mostly between 12" and 15" with a couple around 18" and a bigger one lost boatside (plus catfish and drum) with very few dinks. Fish were mostly on Neds and shakey heads with a few on chatterbaits adjacent to weed lines. Color really didn't seem to matter and the bites were very light. The security gate said that catch rates were pretty low both days so it sounds like we did ok. We fished Melvern a half day on Saturday. The nice weather and dirty water did us no favors. We ended up with a dozen or so dinks in the three hours we spent out there. Not the crazy bite I was hoping for but still a good time. WT ~63 at WC, ~65 at Melvern. -Jared