Belive it or not, today beat out yesterday. Still throwing the weightless t-rigged creature bait. Think I found a honey hole.

 

Pulled up to the ramp this morning and it was PACKED. Kayak tournament going on. Holy cow some of these guys are serious. Kinda cool to see, but also a bit annoying. Anyway I got out. Some jerk tried telling me I couldn't fish till 6AM (he thought I was in the tournament) then after explaining I wasn't he continued to tell me "don't beat up the area, we're fishing for money". I think it was meant as a joke, but it didn't sound like one the way it came out. Rubbed me the wrong way if in being honest. So I followed by catching 3 decent bass in about 10 minutes. 4 or 5 within the hour. It was cool to because there were 2 guys in that cove with me. Both in the tournament (one being the suspected jerk, the other being quite nice). Neither were having the same success. Which only solidifies that I definitely figured somthing out this past week. Continued fishing for 3 hours total, got 7 when all was said and done. Most fish I ever caught in one day by a long shot. 

 

11 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

Welcome to Katie's World! Congrats on all your bass! 

Thanks! But if I were in Katie's world, I'd be pulling in 40+ bass a trip. Lol

 

@JayMac89, I'm super stoked to hear about your success! It adds a little extra garnish that you were fishing better than the tournament anglers too. Lol. Thanks for sharing. 

I want to congratulate you too, @JayMac89. It's cool that you're catching more and cool too that you're posting in this thread.

 

@IcatchDinks: I actually caught 52 this morning, but I always lose a lot. Always.

34 minutes ago, JayMac89 said:

 "don't beat up the area, we're fishing for money". I think it was meant as a joke, but it didn't sound like one the way it came out. Rubbed me the wrong way if in being honest.

 

If he mentioned money, he meant it seriously. There is a subset of tournament anglers who believe because there is money on the line, they deserve special privileges, and that every other angler on the water must defer to them.  It's a bad look on his part.

 

If it's public water, you're not violating a regulation, and he's not offering to share his purse, he shouldn't be telling you what to do or how to fish.  I hope he enjoyed seeing you catch those fish. He deserved that.

Most tournament people are nice but there's an occasional jerk.  When they mention that "they're fishing for money" I tell them that I have a job, what I make, and that I can afford to fish for fun.  

 

I caught 10 today.  That seems like a good day to me.  I can't imagine catching Bass like Katie does.  So far this year (January through May) I've caught at least one 5 pound Bass each month.  I didn't catch a 5 pounder today, but I caught a 4.54 pound Spot.   Most including the biggest one came on a spinner bait with a couple on a shaky head.   Water temperature was 80 degrees.  2 degrees warmer than yesterday, 1 degree cooler than last week.  Pictured are the first I caught, along with the biggest one.  

 

2 hours ago, Woody B said:

but there's an occasional jerk. 

I had a pair of them run by me yesterday, WOT within 20', racing to their first spot, while I was fishing with my wife. Fortunately for that first guy, he buzzed the post Jesus Tim. The pre Jesus Tim would have launched that Medussa with it's pair of 7/0 trebles at his head. I hate fishing weekends.

Went for a float on the river today. I’ve waded this spot before and never gotten on any good fish. With the paddle board I was able to cover a lot more ground and I found that the first mile or so by the ramp was just dead water. Once I cleared the first set of riffles I started seeing life - suckers and big schools of 6-8” channel cats. The fish were mostly set up in deeper areas with moderate current and large boulders.
 

This was sort of an impromptu trip so I did not have much of a selection of lures - just what I had tied on last at the lake, a gantarel jr. Luckily the fish were all over it once I got into the correct areas. They ranged from 8-19”. The big one took me for a ride, one of the best fights I’ve had this year. Also had the biggest walleye I’d ever seen take a swipe at it. I’ve caught many in the 24” range and this one I would estimate was over 30”.

 

 

43 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

Fortunately for that first guy, he buzzed the post Jesus Tim.

 

Yep.  Every day I pay for patience.   Patience doesn't usually require bail money.  

I hear that. I'm a typical New Yorker quick to fly off the handle. Got in a good amount of trouble as a kid, really worked on calming down as an adult....discovered sarcasm helps. After catching the 4 th fish part of me really wanted to pedal by and say "how many fish do you need to catch to win this thing? I got 4 so far. Is that good? How many have you caught?". You know, just to push buttons. But I held back and figured it was better to just enjoy my morning. 

All my favorite places are closed due to flooding or tornado damage. Both my favorite state parks took a hit from an EF-3 tornado last week, and Ray Roberts has been closed to all non-boaters since. This is possibly the most significant tornado in my county's history. It hit very close to home - less than five miles to my mom's place. I haven't stepped foot at the lake since the day before the tornado. From the dam I have seen halves of boats floating midlake from the marina, whole oak trees with root balls and green foliage still attached. I have considered going to the unmonitored public hunting lands, but the chances of meeting hogs is high right now with the water claiming land for its own. There was a herd of feral hogs photographed at Johnson Branch State Park within the last week after storm damage. 

 

So I have fished two places. On Memorial Day i was privileged enough to visit a private ranch where the church I run sound for had an event. I was lucky enough to catch 16 fish between 9am and 2pm. 8 on a one knocker spook, 1 on a whopper plopper, 4 on a popper, and 3 on an A-frame. I missed 9 other topwater blowups. 24 strikes will raise confidence enough to handle mother nature for a short while. I also caught two snakes and a turtle on the bone one knocker spook. Apparently this is an accomplishment or something, but for me it was more of a nuisance. No venomous snakes just shad noodles. 

 

The biggest fish was maybe 3lbs but had the jaws of a 5. Despite the high water of the ponds and abundant bluegill, I caught many fish who looked both spawned out and also hungry. I took particular pride in more than doubling the next closest fisherperson at the event, who had 7 fish on 7 strikes, primarily senkos. Their percentage is a goal of its own for a senko bite, but I chose the opposite end of the pond and styles for a few reasons. #1 inflow. #2 bugs above the surface. #3 shade lines. All the older guys wanted to know about my setup and I told them everything they wanted to know. They started this whole thing so they get to reap what I've learned. But none of them asked why I fished where and how I did, and I think that was at least as important as the lures, casting, line, whatever. I thought it was wild that catching bass 15 different ways in a year is "diverse" to the people I talked to in-depth. Lol, boaters or whatever.

 

I went out to a local public pond and casted around the next few days. A small bass wanted my choppo. 

 

RIP Dallas Stars

9 minutes ago, thediscochef said:

All my favorite places are closed due to flooding or tornado damage. Both my favorite state parks took a hit from an EF-3 tornado last week, and Ray Roberts has been closed to all non-boaters since. This is possibly the most significant tornado in my county's history. It hit very close to home - less than five miles to my mom's place. I haven't stepped foot at the lake since the day before the tornado. From the dam I have seen halves of boats floating midlake from the marina, whole oak trees with root balls and green foliage still attached. I have considered going to the unmonitored public hunting lands, but the chances of meeting hogs is high right now with the water claiming land for its own. There was a herd of feral hogs photographed at Johnson Branch State Park within the last week after storm damage. 

 

So I have fished two places. On Memorial Day i was privileged enough to visit a private ranch where the church I run sound for had an event. I was lucky enough to catch 16 fish between 9am and 2pm. 8 on a one knocker spook, 1 on a whopper plopper, 4 on a popper, and 3 on an A-frame. I missed 9 other topwater blowups. 24 strikes will raise confidence enough to handle mother nature for a short while. I also caught two snakes and a turtle on the bone one knocker spook. Apparently this is an accomplishment or something, but for me it was more of a nuisance. No venomous snakes just shad noodles. 

 

The biggest fish was maybe 3lbs but had the jaws of a 5. Despite the high water of the ponds and abundant bluegill, I caught many fish who looked both spawned out and also hungry. I took particular pride in more than doubling the next closest fisherperson at the event, who had 7 fish on 7 strikes, primarily senkos. Their percentage is a goal of its own for a senko bite, but I chose the opposite end of the pond and styles for a few reasons. #1 inflow. #2 bugs above the surface. #3 shade lines. All the older guys wanted to know about my setup and I told them everything they wanted to know. They started this whole thing so they get to reap what I've learned. But none of them asked why I fished where and how I did, and I think that was at least as important as the lures, casting, line, whatever. I thought it was wild that catching bass 15 different ways in a year is "diverse" to the people I talked to in-depth. Lol, boaters or whatever.

 

I went out to a local public pond and casted around the next few days. A small bass wanted my choppo. 

 

RIP Dallas Stars

This is a top 5 flooding event on Roberts for this time of year. We narrowly avoided the emergency spillgates in the last 48 hours or so. Water over the road to the old family homeplace. Note that the lake record was caught in 2016 on a guided trip by Dannie Golden - during a lake recession. I can tell you the general area where it was caught, but the spot is less important than its characteristics at that water level. Who'd've thunk it? Channel swings with native creekbed and timber structure. Gasp. Couldn't be transcendental in bass fishing. Not Jimmy!! Couldn't be Jimmy! 

Also I have to consider the benefits that a lack of pressure in my favorite spots will bring to me when they are back open

What a difference a week makes.  Last weekend, they were thick on grassy flats, roaming and hunting in less than 7 FOW.  This past weekend, nearly every bite was more than 13 feet down.   I threw Crush City Mayor for the first time and came away thoroughly impressed.  Also got big bites banging spinnerbait through deep wood, and Magnum Rage Bug on swinghead on sides of rocky points.

1 hour ago, Choporoz said:

What a difference a week makes.  Last weekend, they were thick on grassy flats, roaming and hunting in less than 7 FOW.  This past weekend, nearly every bite was more than 13 feet down. 

 

I  hear ya. Maine bass are always moving too.

 

1 hour ago, Choporoz said:

 I threw Crush City Mayor for the first time and came away thoroughly impressed. 

 

I also love the Mayor. It's my new steady. G' bye, Keitech, my old love! We had some good times, but....

 

Big bass, buddy!

 

Woo-hoo, @thediscochef! Leader of the pack. Vroom,  vroom!

 

 

 

 

 

Even if the fishing aint great, sometimes you just kick back and enjoy some sunshine.

 

Went to my usual favorite lake Sunday morning.  Forecast called for no wind (maybe 2 mph) until 8 AM and then just a light breeze after 48 hours of 5-10 mph steady winds.  In his latest video Jason Christie said somethign to the effect of "you have to fish the current conditions, but you also have to think about the recent past", meaning if the wind has been blowing steady for a couple days, its probably pushed food and bait onto the banks it was blowing to even if the wind has died down now.  That bait wouldn't have gone too far just yet.  That made a lot of sense to me and since that's the conditions I was just about to hit (almost exactly) I figured to give it a try.  So instead of my usual route around the lake and fishing the best of the cover first, I did the opposite and went down the shallower side figuring it was still dark and if the bass were going to be up shallow and eating on top this would be the only time for that bank (the first 20 yards off shore are mostly plain, light weeds, couple rock piles, and down to maybe 3').  I've caught fish on that bank every trip but always later in the day on the deep edge of the weeds and on the bottom.

 

I knew it was going to be a tough day not long after I started.  On cast 3 or 4 I got one where I exepcted him to be and lost him just as I was swinging him to the boat (about a 15" fish).  Then nothing for an hour- not a blow up, not a fish, not even a bluegill grabbing the buzzbait and pulling it under.  Not even a pickerel.  I should have swapped lures after 15 minutes or so but I was trying to force feed them a buzzbait because I like it.  I finally had one eat it, maybe the same fish I caught last time, a solid 16-17" fish that just barely had the trailer hook.  Time to swap up.  I rotated through a couple things as I worked up the good bank, which wasn't treating me very 'good'. The water clarity was a solid 10' which isn't unusual but is still tough.  I could visually see some cribs on the bottom that were installed in an area I didn't know they put them in (in about 14' to the bottom).   About when I hit the end, 4 boats launched.  This lake has 1.5 miles of shoreline and off shore 'area' to fish.  (just over 100 acres).  That's a lot of boats.  I was hoping one or two might be multispecies guys fishing for something other than bass but no.  Fortunately, all three of them were fishing very slow and they ended up clustered in one section for a lot of the time.

 

I managed to work around and pick one here and one there.  Saw a 48" class musky twice (she kept going back to the same weed bed to relax).  Biggest one I've seen to date.  Two bass ate a shad colored swim jig, a couple more on a rage bug.  Looking back, every fish hit it almost as soon as it hit the water (or bottom) so I think I just happened to put it in front of them and they ate it.  A pickerel came to a frog in a big mat, but even they were limited.  I talked to one of the other boats and he had the same.  About a half dozen fish, mostly dinks.  I guess some days are just like that.  

 

 

 

 

 

Well this past weekend was tournament stop number 3 for the year on Wilson Lake, KS. It's one of the most popular lakes in the state and always one of the most looked forward to tournaments for everyone it seems like, but I'll never understand the fascination. The lake is such a strange lake with very little cover other than rocks, and there's rocks everywhere so none really stick out. What little cover there is sits yards up on the shoreline of the drying reservoir. The fish are almost always skinny, and sickly looking from lack of food and over-pressure, but yeah, it's great I guess. 

 

Prefishing went okay. I couldn't find any big largemouth, despite discovering a cove loaded with big tree stumps that I didn't know existed. I guess the largemouth in the lake don't like stumps. With the cloud cover and wind, I did get on a decent smallmouth bite with a Berkley Drift Walker and burning a Bull Shad.

 

Highlight of practice day by far came late afternoon. There's a bridge that has pilings in the water that I can sometimes catch bass off of, but more importantly, sometimes, there's stripers on it. This is the only lake in Kansas with a fishable population of stripers and I'm not going to miss my chance to try and catch one. No bass on a dropshot, didn't mark much at all, but I put a big flutter spoon on. One of my first drops, I popped it a few times, and one of the pops, it was stuck, then it started swimming. Thought I'd snagged one of the billions of carp or buffalo that live in the lake, but after several short, thumb burning runs, I saw the striped, white side. She barely fit in my kayak net, but I got her. There was an older gentleman and his granddaughter fishing on shore, so I pulled it through the water to the bank and asked him to take a couple pictures for me. Got a quick weight and watched her kick off. At 14.47lbs, it was my second biggest striper ever.

I went back to the piling and dropped again, got smacked and missed it, then got hit again and hooked up. Not quite as big as the first one, but a second striper was a big bonus on the day.

 

Tournament day set up like it should have been a great day, but it just wasn't. My bites were much smaller and fish I'd found the day before were still there, but not interested in eating. I lost a big smallmouth on the Bull Shad and had a couple good fish hit the Drift Walker and either miss it or pull off. Right at the end of the day, I found a 20ish inch fish on a bed, locked in and running gills off constantly. I set the kayak on the bank and ran a few different baits through her nest and she was very catchable, just needed the right bait. I switched to a KGB crappie and slow swam it over her head. She darted up behind it, inched closer, then flared her mouth open and grabbed the back of the bait. I swung, and smacked my trolling motor with my rod and never got a good hook into her, but it spooked her bad enough that she never bit again. I found that fish with about 10 minutes left, so time expired as I tried to get it to bite. Ended up 11th out of 43. Not a terrible finish, nor a surprising one for me at a fishery I always feel like I'm just trying to hang on at.

 

Dang that's a big striper!!!!  Nice smallies too!

6 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

Dang that's a big striper!!!!  Nice smallies too!

 

Heck, yeah, that striper would stretch a net and so many long smallies too. 

5:30AM, no wind and the water was almost glass.  Very light misting rain.  Walking a Zara Spook, looked down at my Lowrance and HEARD her suck it in and swept the rod.  Topwater is the best of bass fishing IMHO.  Stayed with the topwater for 2hrs and ended up with seven more on the Spook and a WP. Then went home and had breakfast with my perfect wife.  I consider that a great morning.  4lb-9oz, Bone colored Spook, 12lb Yo-Zuri Hybrid on an Okuma TCS all-purpose M/H.  Water temp 69 degrees and she was shallow on the rocks next to a steep drop to 8-9ft.  

14 minutes ago, BigAngus752 said:

I consider that a great morning.

 

I second that!

Well it's been a while and there's been a few trips but by golly we been having fun!  Mostly frog and weightless stick bait doing the heavy lifting right now!

 

Had a solid trip out with Jake catching a good one and me missing a giant on the frog 

 

 

Complete with a rainbow on the car ride home

 

 

Got some great night fishing in this weekend with a toad on the frog and some fat littler ones too!  Stick bait also caught one!

 

 

Been loving the scum frog trophy frog in that shad color for sure!

 

Had some fun at the pond also with some nice gills and more frog fun:

 

 

Missed another big one this morning on the frog sadly.  I think I been snatching it away a bit too fast and need to give em a second to engulf that bait (basically I'm breaking my own rules of topwater fishing - thinking if I swing fast I'll hook the ones that aren't commiting - WRONG!).

 

My success so far this season with topwater has all been contingent upon me letting them establish that they're going to take the bait down.  Paying attention and being prepared when they strike is the other half but I'm *usually* good at that part.

 

Here's hoping I find success this week!  Been a minute since I got a giant.  😎😎😎🐸🐸🐸

 

 

Out of reactions, but thanks for the update, Pat. I love to see you guys happy.

 

Two-fer for Jake!

Got out Sunday morning in a downpour. It wouldn’t quit and I nearly froze to death even though it was like 65 degrees maybe warmer, just soaked to the bone. Fish were biting tho, Got 5 LM, a SM, a bluegill, a catfish, a carp, and 3 skipjack . 
 

 

Got on the water at daylight and the fish were hitting a top water Jerkbait.

Caught a mixed bag of smallmouth, largemouth, Crappie and my very first Walleye caught on a gravel dog.

Enjoyable day.

Always an enjoyable read when @Bluebasser86 chronicles his yak tournaments.

 

@TnRiver46 frozen in the rain when it’s 65 degrees. Lol

Went bank fishing on Sunday for a couple hours and ended up catching my PB smallie, 21” and 4 1/2 lbs.