14 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

What's worked best for you? Do you attribute your improvement more to a lure or technique?

I think the outboard for his boat was down for a significant portion of last season so he couldn’t fish.

@gim - you are correct, last year, due to motor issues, I was not able to get on the water until August 10th - but the first year was a full summer and only 34 fish 

Thank you for the questions @Swamp Girl - here goes:

--#1 thing that has helped me the most --- reading/watching/learning from Bass Resource and YouTube (Tactical Bassin' guys are good teachers, among others) --- success leaves clues and there are people like you/A-Jay/others who are successful at this bass catching quest and have made your wisdom/knowledge accessible --- thank you for that !!

--#2 has been (and will continue to be) learning to identify where the fish might be lurking -- in year one I just wandered around and around and around -- narrowing the scope and being in higher probability areas has helped significantly

--#3 I would say lures/gear - in year one I had yard sale rods/reels - thru research and asking many questions I have acquired some moderate level gear (a fair amount of it used but in very good condition) and found lures that seem more appealing to the fish (ie, looking at the perch patterns @A-Jay uses)

In my first year I was clueless - just happy to be on the water and wandering around - year two was shorter but I made positive strides - this year things are starting to move in a positive direction - I love being on the water, the challenge of finding/catching fish makes it even more fun !

2 minutes ago, WaskaCrank12 said:

the challenge of finding/catching fish makes it even more fun

 

I enjoy this challenge too. The sneaky suckers are always moving. It's like an Easter Egg Hunt, but one that takes place in beautiful locations with loons singing and swallows swooping. It's like hunting for Faberge eggs at Versailles while Whitney Houston sings! 

 

Anyway, I'm so glad you've learned so much and are catching more and more. I've learned a lot too at Bass Resource. The guys here are oh-so-helpful.

Been several weeks since I've been able to take my boat out. Truck went down as I was starting a new career so it took a little time to get that sorted. But I am back on the water.

 

It was dead calm, warm, and only small fish were biting. All the milfoil is gone for the year, only the pondweed is left. The water was warmer than I expected and the lake didn't seem very active. The small fish that were caught were all on top, nothing below the surface.  Weedless frogs and skitterwalk took fish under 2 pounds all the way down to a few ounces. At least some of them were nicely colored.

Fishing was no good but it felt great just to be back at it. Looking forward to when the lake gets into its fall rhythm so I can get into mine. Should be any time now.

@Jar11591, nice fish! What’s the new career ? 

I launched for the second time today. I fished my pond this morning (14 bass) and my pal's pond this evening. I worked all the big fish spots at my pal's pond, but couldn't catch a big one, breaking my short streak of at least one 19-incher there. I did catch 16 bass, most of them on a walking bait twitched over a rocky flat. I caught another bass on a frog too. I'm at 1,152 bass on the year. Some of my fish:

 

 

@TnRiver46 it’s working for a semiconductor manufacturer fixing all their machines and equipment. Was the job I was really hoping for for the past year. 

1 minute ago, Jar11591 said:

@TnRiver46 it’s working for a semiconductor manufacturer fixing all their machines and equipment. Was the job I was really hoping for for the past year. 

 

Impressive.

8 minutes ago, Jar11591 said:

@TnRiver46 it’s working for a semiconductor manufacturer fixing all their machines and equipment. Was the job I was really hoping for for the past year. 

Nice! I’m in facility maintenance now also . Had to retire from the varmint business 😂 

17 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

Impressive.

Thank you!

 

10 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Nice! I’m in facility maintenance now also . Had to retire from the varmint business 😂 

Good for you. You’ve probably had enough varmints for a lifetime lol 

4 hours ago, Jar11591 said:

@TnRiver46 it’s working for a semiconductor manufacturer fixing all their machines and equipment. Was the job I was really hoping for for the past year. 

Congrats on landing the job. Goal set and met. 👍

6 hours ago, T-Billy said:

Congrats on landing the job. Goal set and met. 👍

Thank you!

On 9/5/2025 at 8:47 AM, IcatchDinks said:

Funny thing is, we both play but the prospect has never come up. We're too busy fishing. 😄

I know you guys play. Me Too! Pat turned me on to Tony Rice, and between him and Shawn Lane, I just through all my guitars in the burn pile!

46 minutes ago, Blue Raider Bob said:

Pat turned me on to Tony Rice,

Absolutely incredible picker. 

 

17 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Had to retire from the varmint business

No more racoon meatloaf?

54 minutes ago, PhishLI said:

No more racoon meatloaf?

He's just retired from the business side, not the culinary side!

Saturday was the final Kansas Kayak Anglers regular season tournament of the 2025 season to be held on Perry Lake about a hour from my house. I haven't spent any time there the last couple years, because it hasn't been very nice to me the previous couple trips there. So I've spent the last few weekends trying to get a pulse on what was going on there. My buddy Deric and I went there 3 weeks in a row. I felt like I had a pretty good feel for it again, he won a weeknight jackpot by quite a bit, felt like it was on. 

 

Friday before the tournament, I decided to prefish an area of the lake I hadn't fished in a few years that I use to fish a lot. It's a marina that use to have lots of nice largemouth, then the surrounding area was great for smallies. The marina was largely a bust, producing just a couple 15" largemouth, but one was on a glide on a marina dock and I missed another on the same bait that was noticeably larger. I thought maybe a way to pick up a kicker if I was nearby and needed it. 

The smallmouth were much more cooperative. While I didn't catch any of the monsters this lake holds, they're notoriously fickle here, so I felt pretty good about my day.

This poor guy was going through it, or it was going through him, however you want to slice it. Hook was removed pretty easily after the picture.

A major cold front came through that night, and the forecast combined with my prefish convinced me enough to scrap my original plan and launch in this area. The winds were supposed to be very light, but blowing towards the side I would be fishing, a big plus in my mind when targeting smallmouth. I was also worried that a majority of the field would be fishing the original area I'd planned to fish, making it even more difficult if the fishing was already tough. Then there was the option to fish for largemouth or smallmouth while the other area was almost exclusively smallmouth. It just felt like the better option. Apparently, Deric and I were the only 2 that felt that way of the 21 angler field, because we had the ramp to ourselves on a very foggy, and chilly morning.

After a nearly 20 minute run, it was a short wait before lines in. It took just over a hour to scratch out a limit, but they were very small, the biggest was only a 13.75" smallmouth that ate a homemade micro jig.

About the middle of the dam is the outlet. You can get just close enough to reach the concrete structure with a long cast. I launched a homemade micro football jig at the back of it, got bit, stuck a heavy fish, and it came off! Cursing my bad luck, I fired back, popping it through some rocks, my line took off and I landed a 14.50" fish.

The rocks on the dam are terrible. I lost 5 or 6 baits and 3 leaders in about 20 minutes and was getting really frustrated. The micro jig was the only thing that would float over them without snagging so I was fishing that just to avoid snagging. Almost every cast was getting whacked by drum. Anyone who fishes around them knows the telltale single hard "Whack!" and then nothing of a drum bite. I was pretty zoned out when I got a hard whack, then another, then just heavy pressure. It was an awkward hookset, near the boat and kind of behind me, and a hard fight. I was afraid it would cut me off on a zebra mussle covered rock, but I was quick with the net on one of her jumps and didn't give her the chance. It felt good to finally put a real one on the board.

I caught a couple more dinks and started back down the dam, wondering what my next move was going to be. I tied on a Duo Rozante jerkbait and my first cast, jumped off a 16-17 inch smallmouth. I locked that in my hands thinking that was the deal after that immediate response, but only got one small cull with a 13" fish. I decided to make the run back over to the marina and try to find a smallmouth. After trying for a good while, I only got a small cull with a little 12 incher on a Ned rig. I had just over 2 hours left and not much left in my gameplan. I decided to go for broke and picked up the glide rod and headed towards the marina docks. One of my first cast, I smacked my trolling motor with my Bull Shad glide and broke the front hook off. I tied on a Clutch Eco Glide and moved to a different slip. I was sitting in about 29' of water and dropped a cast perfectly in the back corner of the slip. Almost immediately when I started the retrieve, my bait got slammed! I had to work the fish carefully out from the slip but keep her up because of the metal crossbar that are always very sharp and sometimes have zebra mussles on them also, even my 20lb flouro would have been no match if she got to it. I kept her up and moving and slid the net under an absolute Kansas giant largemouth. At 21.50" long, it's one of my top 5 biggest kayak tournament bass ever and my biggest glide bait fish ever.

After that fish, I locked the glide in my hand and just kept fishing slips. With just 45 minutes left, I caught one more small cull with a 14" largemouth on the glide.

 

I started the day with the goal to hit 80", and that fish put me at 81.75", so I was pretty happy with my day no matter how it went. Turned out, I needed that little largemouth just as bad as I needed the big momma.

Added a little more hardware and really put the screws into another AOY. I'll really have to go up in flames at the championship to not get my 3rd in a row. We'll find that out in October. First will be a muskie trip in less than 2 weeks in the yak though!

 

 

 

@Bluebasser86 Nice job!  Some more hardware to add to your collection.

Clayton sure can cowboy. Congrats, my bass brother. 

 

I launched at my pond for 1.5 hours of evening fishing. I only caught five, taking me to 1,156 for the year, but they're fine examples of northern bass feeding like lumberjacks with our nights now in the forties. See what I mean?

 

 

You see it in this lmb too:

 

 

And this one, which looks like the same bass, but it wasn't:

 

 

Look how pretty this pic of my last bass is:

 

 

Speaking of pretty:

 

 

I still marvel that I own waterfront. It was always a dream, but an impossible dream.

 

Last thing: I had a pickerel slash at my walking bait and cut the line. It's my only Duo Realis Pencil, so I wanted it back. I paddled to where the assault happened and just waited. I didn't have to wait long before the lure bobbed to the surface. Yes! 

Nice work @Bluebasser86!

15 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

Last thing: I had a pickerel slash at my walking bait and cut the line. It's my only Duo Realis Pencil, so I wanted it back. I paddled to where the assault happened and just waited. I didn't have to wait long before the lure bobbed to the surface. Yes! 

Too easy!  I had something similar happen to me many years ago.  We were on a canoe trip up the Petawawa River and I was catching nice smallmouth like crazy on a Rapala rattling Fat Rap.  I’d caught a ton and should have retied much earlier, but finally caught one that broke me off.  I was bummed because that was my hot lure and I didn’t have a spare.  But about 5 seconds later, the bass jumped and I heard my bait rattle and saw ripples on the calm water about 10ft. from where the fish jumped.  I paddled over, retrieved my lure and went back to catchin’ ‘em.😁

1 hour ago, The Baron said:

We were on a canoe trip

 

Canoe trip? That makes us cousins, related by paddlin'!

Congrats, @Bluebasser86!

Nicely Done @Bluebasser86

Those colorful crocs get more and more famous with each tournament win.

Congrats 

A-Jay

10 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

Those colorful crocs get more and more famous with each tournament win.

 

I think those are actually the replacements to the OGs.  If I remember correctly he lost the OGs at a dam or something.

 

These ones aren't as flashy.  They are more dull in color.