bluebasser86

We had a lot of fun. Mostly smaller bass that we caught on a Ned rig but also caught them on a Keitech and Deps 175 Slide Swimmer, grub, drop shot, tube, and a spook. My buddy in another boat caught a keeper walleye in the first 10 minutes on a spook! My first 3 fish I caught in the first hour were all stripers and proved to be the only 3 of the trip. All on a Keitech in PC. It was a great trip on a beautiful lake, man the fish are so well colored and clean out of that lake!

If you see an orange/silver/black Stratos 189VLO with 2 guys and a golden retriever that all look lost, stop by and say hi! Hoping to catch some bass and maybe stumble into some stripers.

The curse of the Ned rig. It's so effective at catching fish that sometimes it's hard to put down to look for a better quality bite, especially since it will catch quality fish along with the numbers

I fish a Ned rig ALOT, I can't honestly remember hooking a fish in the throat or gills with it. I fish mine on 10lb braid with an 8lb leader so I usually feel the bites quickly and set the hook immediately as there's obviously no reason to give them any time to take the bait or anything. Personally, I feel a split shot rig or Carolina rig are much, much worse for deep hooking fish and usually a much larger hook that's going to do more damage. Get a pair of forceps and if you don't know how to remove a deep hooked fish by going through the gills, do a little searching and learn how to do that and there should be no reason to be killing any more than the unavoidable fish that are just going to happen when you're fishing.

The bottom picture I'm seeing is a monster white bass?

Love bowfishing, hate to see them dumped like that. I never have a problem either finding a catfisherman who's more than willing to use them for cutbait, or someone that's open to eating them. At least if you are going to dump them, do it away from the crowd, not at a ramp or by someone's dock. They won't go to waste completely, raccoon and vultures have to eat too, but it does look awful when they're dumped. Shows a lack of respect for the fish and for people who have to deal with the aftermath.

I hate putting on sunblock and I wear contacts, 2 of my main reasons for wearing a buff. When it gets hot and I start sweating, last thing I want to do is get sunblock infused sweat getting into my eyes and messing up my vision for the rest of the day. Plus it's about impossible to get every nook and cranny of your face blocked, unless you just cover it. Being able to dip it in the lake to help cool off when it's hot is great too. I buzz my hair really short too and if you've never had a bad sunburn on top of your head then you just haven't lived! I promise there's nobody out there complaining when I cover my ugly mug up anyways! Ned is probably one of the most humble people I've ever had the pleasure of talking to, I'm positive he doesn't give a rip what Jay has to say about him. He'll just go back to knocking the fish around with his little rig while everyone else struggles

I walk the banks a lot and always keep my eyes on the trees along the shoreline. I found almost 2 3700 boxes full of cranks last season doing that. I had one day at Table Rock last year that I found a 110 Magnum, a 100DD pointer, 100 pointer, a wart, a War Eagle, and a Strike King KVD Burner.

What do you guys think on this one? I caught it on Table Rock a couple years ago around Aunt's Creek. The mouth seemed much smaller than an average largemouth, the coloration was a little different, and it had the bars on the cheeks. I didn't really think anything of it at the time but when I looked at the picture later it kind of made me wonder if it was possibly a hybrid.

Correct, Wolf Creek in Kansas. Just have to shop around. I have 3 175's now, Ayu, Clear Smelt, and Flash Carp. Most I paid was $55, cheapest was $37. I know guys that have spent more than that on 1 ww or 110. Also not a fan of straight braid. Backlash once with a heavy, sinking swimbait and it'll make sense why. I understand the concern about not wanting to lose and expensive bait, but if you check your line/knot often and don't do anything foolish it's really hard to lose a bait with 20 or 25lb copoly.

When you say swimbaits, I'm assuming you mean Keitech type baits?

I've seen pretty similar stuff with smallies and largemouth with swimbaits (not many spots around here). The largemouth go for the kill and try to inhale the bait while the smallies come screaming in, full speed ahead, but don't bother opening their mouths, just ram the bait. I think that's part of the reason I get smallmouths hooked all kinds of crazy ways on swimbaits too. You get largemouth that come up and T-bone the bait and get both hooks, then you get smallies that attack the tail trying to cripple to bait or just run into it and get stuck.

Great looking fish! Sounds like you had a similar experience with fish actually preferring the big bait to standard offerings that I had a couple times this winter. My last really good day they wouldn't hardly touch the normal baits, but they were smashing a 175 Slide Swimmer. It was a weird bite also, kind of like a jerkbait bite with a lot of them, although I had some try to take the rod from me too.

Casey Ashley has the local knowledge, he's good with a jig and jerkbait, he's a very methodical fisherman so the cold shouldn't bother his fishing style. I think he's going to be really tough to beat.

Great post! I can't wait to share some on the water memories with my little guy!

Cool! My little girl loves going out in the boat with me, not super excited about the fish though.

I've only had the chance to fish the lake once and fell in love with it. F&F I doubt you remember but I messaged you a month or so before our trip and you were kind enough to point us in the right direction and it paid off big time. 2 guys that had never fished the lake, fishing out of a 16' aluminum bass boat with a 60hp motor and mediocre electronics, the odds were stacked against us. My buddy caught 3 PB's, first one was caught in the first half hour of launching the boat, 14.5 pounds on an A-rig. The next day he caught his PB wiper of 6 3/4 pounds on a jerkbait. The final day I caught my PB striper of 20 pounds on an A-rig. Then right before we had to leave, he caught his PB smallmouth of 4.5 pounds on a jerkbait. Many other big fish were caught that trip, including a pair of largemouth that were 5 and 6.25 pounds, another smallmouth approaching 4, some of the biggest white bass I've ever seen, and some very healthy spotted bass.

Thanks guys, I think those cabins on the White look like a great option. I'm not against trying to catch a couple trout while I'm down there anyways

A small group of us from the KC area are looking at coming down to Beaver the first weekend of May. Going to have 5-10 trucks/boats so somewhere with room to park without unhooking and power to run to chargers would be a huge plus. Not looking for anything fancy, just a place to shower, sleep, and charge the batteries. :have-a-nice-day:I searched and found lots of places, but I'm sure there's lots of unlisted ones also that might be a better option. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

That's tough to read about. My little boy just turned 1 last month, can't even begin to imagine the struggles you're all going through.

Dep's 175 Slide Swimmer http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Deps_Slide_Swimmer_175/descpage-DSS175.html Dep's Bullshooter Jr http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/371241344352?lpid=82&chn=ps Roman Made Negotiator http://www.ebay.com/itm/Roman-Made-Negotiator-Oikawamesu-/331469185203?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d2d1a60b3 Roman Made Mother (the bait they're chopping up in the pictures.) http://dyavm.ftvcs.servertrust.com/Roman_Made_Mother_p/mother.htm You're welcome

That about gave me an anxiety attack just reading that I've got a few Deps Slide Swimmer 175s and a Bull shooter Jr, I haven't completely convinced myself I don't need a Negotiator yet, but can't imagine ever being able to justify a Mother.

There's several lakes that I fish in Kansas that have had zebras in them for several years now. Any of those lakes that have populations of smallmouth, the numbers and quality of fish has exploded. One lake in particular, where it used to be a rare day to see a smallmouth over the 18" limit, now it's not uncommon to see a few and they're so fat that a fish in the 18.5" range is often pushing 4 pounds. I'm not saying I don't want to stop the spread of them, just saying that there may be some bright sides to it. I even had a smallmouth that was in my livewell during a tournament puke up zebra mussel shells. Not sure if it actually ate them or sucked them up while trying to eat something else though. I believe that drum eat a lot of them, and the blue cat populations have also taken off in lakes that now have zebra mussels.

Ned seems to always do well as soon as the ice leaves Lone Star with the rig. First chance I get I'll be headed that way when the ice leaves. Gardner Lake is 5 minutes from my house and right across the street from my work, quite a bit of open water yesterday but the ramp is still solid. Going to be trying the bass fishing for trout a little more this year. I caught a few nice trout doing it last year but reverted back to the more typical techniques a little faster than I should have.