bluebasser86

Shimano CI4 on my shakyhead rod, Pfluegar Supreme MGX on my dropshot rod that's soon to be upgraded to either a Shimano Stradic or Pfluegar Patriarch, Pfluegar Supreme MGX on my skipping/senko rod, Shimano Sahara on my wacky rig rod, Shimano Symetre on my grub rod.

My parents started taking me fishing before I was a year old and in fact have a picture of me sitting on a gravel bank in my diaper holding a fishing pole. We were pretty poor so it was mostly fishing for whatever we could catch to eat. Once we moved to KC I started bass fishing more and taught myself most everything I know now. Joined a bass club when I was 16 and won 2 tournaments, rookie of the year, and back seater of the year that year. I've always had a passion for the sport and it has become my passion to try introduce and teach others about this great sport.

T macs or finesse worms on a shakyhead, paca craws for jig trailers, C macs for the big worms, B-bugs for flipping bushes.

I pour my own. Great for almost any plastic and I've also started tying a bladed jig version with them with crazy action and can be made completely weedless by just adding a plastic trailer and rigging it texposed. I caught several fish on them Thursday, including the 4th fish from the top on the kind of sexy shad colored bait. That was Coffey County/Wolf Creek lake and it is a power plant lake. Water temps ranged from 60-51 depending on how close to the plant we were. Fishing was actually much better in the colder water. Always nice to be able to catch fish in the winter, especially when you're almost the only boat on the lake. I tied some of those pink baits for my wife to fish and got caught on a trip without any others but the pink one and the fish slammed the thing. I get some looks and comments when I'm tying it on but those quickly fade when the fish start coming to the boat. Yep, no more reservations to fish thankfully. You do have to wear a lifejacket the whole time you're on the lake and now they have 2 way marine radios that they'll call you off the lake with if it gets too windy. It's a fun lake but I wouldn't drive much further than what I do to fish it. Cassidee would never forgive me if I went fishing and didn't take her. She's been my fishing buddy since she was just a couple months old. Now she's a seasoned vet in the boat.

Yep, weather was so nice I was shocked there wasn't more boats out there. They normally shut it down by now it seems so maybe everyone thinks the plant is shut down already. The number of solid largemouths we caught was just amazing.

They were in about 4' of water right on the edge of a little drop. I was just using a straight retrieve and they were really slamming it when one hit it. Those were just a couple of over 100 fish we caught Thursday but most of them we were getting were around standing timber and I just didn't have it in me to throw it in that stuff. I was fishing the Ghost M color on 6lb Mustad Ultra line on a 6' 8" ML Shimano Crucial with a 1000 Symetre.

Well the thing catches fish. I didn't fish it a lot because we were on them really good with a home made bladed jig of mine but I still managed to catch a couple largemouth and smallmouth.

Ned has been doing it for a minute or two as well. Still uses the old Mitchell egg beater reels without the bail that he used way back when he started. He may very well not have came up with the idea, but he certainly has polished it and publicized it so others can enjoy it's effectiveness. I don't believe he named it after himself either, he just loves teaching others how to use it and it got named after him by others.

That Backslide actually works pretty well with a light enough hook, but it sinks painfully slow then. When I worked at Cabela's in KC a fellow employee I worked with in the fishing department swore by that stupid Helicopter lure. He had lots of pictures of him with nice fish he'd caught on them. Not sure if he actually caught them on it or if he put it in their mouths after he caught them on something else though.

I fished the McRip quit a bit last year and really liked it. Gets down easily and isn't a lot of work to fish. Had some smallies about steal my rod from me, seems like they hit it going the opposite direction as fast as they can go for some reason.

Yep, he did have every color but was sold out of several of them Friday. I'm hoping to try Coffey but with the 15-20mph winds from the west that they're forecasting I may be stuck with La Cygne. Regardless, I'll be going (as long as I can get my boat out of the driveway), and hopefully will have something worth posting.

One of our local shops has them in every color, very good looking little baits. I bought one that I'm hoping to give a test run this Thursday if the weather cooperates.

The burnt pumpkin (second one up from the bottom) is one of my favorite jig colors on Table Rock and the lakes close to home. It looks a lot like the craws I see that have alternating light and dark coloration, and the bass seem to like it too so that helps

The first one is Coffey County a couple weeks ago, middle two are Melvern, last one is Olathe Lake.

If you decide to try a more expensive bait, I'd highly suggest checking out the Bull Shads. I haven't had a chance to fish them on Table Rock yet but even in our subpar lakes around the KC area they catch fish very well.

I know it takes time to get confidence in them but I wouldn't be at all scared of fishing a 6" or 8" bait on Table Rock. None of the lakes I fish in NE Kansas have near the numbers or size of fish as Table Rock and I routinely catch fish on 6-8 inch baits. After you fish them for awhile they don't even seem big anymore. 6" Bull Shad 8" Huddleston And my favorite, the 7" Slammer

I toss my spinnerbaits on a 6' 6" MH/F St Croix LTB. Love how well I can feel the blades spinning with that rod, makes feeling those lift bites, when they hit from behind and the bait just gets a little easier to retrieve, a whole lot easier. I'm mostly fishing baits 1/4-1/2 ounce on it though. On the rare occasion I fish a blade over 1/2oz I fish it on a 7' 1" MH/XF St Croix LTB.

Has anyone tried the Luck E Strike G5 (formally the Warthog) on Table Rock? I know the originals had problems with taking on water but this past year I gave them another try and was very impressed. Myself and several of my friends caught a bunch of fish on them in lakes in NE Kansas. Has the closest wiggle to my old warts that I've seen with good color schemes and for $3 apiece I'm not afraid to fish them. Hopefully I'll be down the first week of April so I can give them a try down there.

I don't get to fish Table Rock nearly as often as I'd like but the 7 and 9 inch MS Slammers will catch fish for sure. Not surprised the S waver is catching you fish, they have great action that really draws fish. I wish I would have had some of my Bull Shads last time I was there to toss them around a little bit. Never have got brave enough to toss any 8" Hudds down there but I'm sure they'd get bit eventually.

Don't have a picture of my biggest spot but it was 3 1/2, caught it in the first tournament I fished on the Rock on a 4" cut tail worm on a pro slider head. Biggest smallmouth was a few years ago around the dam fishing with my brother in law. It was brutally tough that weekend but we found one bluff bank that was producing a fish or two every time we made a pass, dragging jigs painfully slow. By far the most aggressive bite I had, pitched next to a standing tree at the end of the bluff and about lost my rod when I turned to say something to him. It was only 3lbs 9ozs but as much trouble as I have finding brown fish at Table Rock I was pretty happy with it. Biggest largemouth was 4lbs 15ozs on a Wiggle Wart while my wife and I were on our first trip to Big Cedar. Classic wart bite, just felt like it quit wiggling all the sudden. Second biggest was a 4lb 4oz largemouth, caught the next day off the same bank as my PB smallie, also on a jig.

No problem, I'm sure it won't be the last stupid thing I do trying to catch a bass. I used to have a picture of the silly thing because I was prefishing for a club tourny and brought it in that afternoon to show off the "6 or 7" that I caught. It probably was 6 or 7 inches long though.

I was young, dumb and brand new to spoon fishing and had heard about guys catching them in 80-100 feet of water, had no idea they meant suspended over that deep of water Everything I'd ever done was bottom oriented so I assumed spoon fishing worked the same way. I did drag a goggle eye up from the depths but no bass.

I hooked and brought up a very large crawfish on a jigging spoon in 82' of water several years ago. I had him snagged right in the crease behind his pincer. I had no idea they lived that deep.

I find the same thing to be true with the "stand up" style shakyheads. Maybe if they hit perfectly flat on a mud bottom they might stand up, otherwise, they fall over on their side a majority of the time, in my experience. I pour my own round heads with a screw lock that stand up for me way better than any "stand up" shakyhead. Nice thing with pouring my own is I can choose my hook brand and size for certain baits or situations.

Bill, If you've never seen the spoons they carry at Academy you may want to check them out. They're the best size/shape comparison to a small threadfin shad I've ever seen. They aren't quite as realistic colored as the Cabela's but pretty dang good. Just another option for you to consider. I've had good success with them down there in my limited time down there lately. http://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/wahoo-jig-n-shad-1-oz-jigging-spoon/pid-505144?color=Silver+Shad&N=4294963665+97009187