bluebasser86

I like to go down there and try to catch the fish that eat those little snot rockets.

I've only fished the lake a couple times but caught almost all of our stripers on an A-rig. No monsters, but up to 20 pounds. It's nice because it catches many different species. We caught stripers, wipers, whites, all 3 bass species up to 6 1/4 pounds, walleye, and I think we even had a big crappie on it too.

The scale locks the weight in, having your hand on it for the picture does nothing to influence the weight of the fish. I hold it like that to make sure the fish is facing the camera so the entire fish can be seen. Nothing you can do about the weight thing. Obviously if someone is shoving 1lb bank sinkers down a a fish's throat, it's going to distort the weight significantly, which is where the fish on a ruler shot could come into play since we all have a general idea what a fish should weigh according to it's length. Like your previous post though, you mix in competition and egos, there's always a chance that people will cheat. I also run a Garmin Virb to get video during tournaments to help if there's any disputes on the validity of my catches and their weights. We did this in our club previously and it wasn't popular. Who hasn't caught a fish that was paper thin and 17 or 18 long and another that was 15 or 16 and super fat that weighed considerably more than the longer fish? It happened often enough for us that went to weighing them. Plus it leaves to interpretation exactly what mark and part of the fish's tail to go off of, it was kind of a mess.

The scales we use lock the weight in so having your hand on the fish or grippers in the picture has zero effect on the weight and you must submit the locked in weight, not the heaviest weight it bounced to anything like that. I always hold the grippers to make sure the fish is turned to the side facing the camera so the entire fish is best seen, leaving less question to if it weighed what the scale says or not. If you don't and the fish rotates, you end up with pictures like this that make the actual weight of the fish much more questionable.

Depends on the lake. We do a rotation of lakes instead of fishing just one lake. Some of the lakes, it can be a real struggle to get your 5 "keepers" (fish over 1 pound). Some of the other lakes, it's not unusual to cull through a couple dozen fish in an evening looking for a few bigger fish. The lakes we fish are very poor in comparison to the Ozark lakes, rarely producing fish over 4 pounds, a 10lb limit is almost a guaranteed win on most of the lakes, and it often doesn't take that much, so we have to protect what few fish we have. The largest bags weighed this year were 15.69 and 15.72, both the same night in 2.5 hours of fishing which included the biggest fish of the year that weighed 5.80 pounds. That is another nice thing, everyone gets to see your fish in the picture so there's several sets of seasoned eyeballs examining the pictures for anything fishy. If something is up, it's going to get spotted and brought to attention. We had one instance where 2 teams showed up late and at weigh in it was discovered they hadn't used the required scales, so their weights weren't allowed, simple as that. They weren't attempting to cheat at all, just failed to follow all the rules and equipment requirements.

Our little club in NE KS has been doing MLF (except only tracking the biggest 5), style tournaments for 3 years now. Reduces stress on the fish, especially during the hotter months, eliminates the worry of caring for fish in the livewell all day, "weigh in" times are dramatically reduced, fish that would not normally be keepers can count towards a total (most local lakes are 18" lakes), boats with small or no livewells are able to participate in tournaments, and the list goes on. Obviously it opens the door for potential cheaters since we don't have marshals like MLF, but cheaters will cheat no matter what format you put them under. Requiring pictures of the fish on the scale and on a ruler helps to prevent it. You could go as far as requiring the weighing of fish to be videoed for verification. We haven't had any instances where anyone was suspected of cheating, and we don't kill anymore bass than we all would as regular recreational fishermen. I'm not sure how it would work on a larger scale, but for small clubs I don't think it's really that difficult to do. We just had our end of the year fish off, this is how we did pictures after the fish were weighed and before they were released so we had a time stamped picture of each fish. Everyone has the same scales (which are cheap but crazy accurate and consistent). It's not a perfect system, but when we sat down and talked about it, we're fishing for 100, maybe 200 bucks on a good night, nothing worth killing fish over and not enough (we hope), for someone to risk being caught cheating. I field a lot of request to join the group, so it's a popular idea for local guys anyways.

Grass carp are weird fish. Supposedly eat nothing but plants, but seemingly one will get a wild hair every once in a while and eat something it's not supposed to. I was fishing a S-Waver in a pond several years ago when I watched this monster rocket off the bottom and T-bone it. It was a heck of a fight even on heavy swimbait gear.

We have it around here too. It makes me mad because if I did hit someone and kill them, even if I didn't somehow get the blame, I still have to live with the guilt no matter how much it was their fault it happened.

I have 2 of the group 31 Duracell AGMs in my boat for my trolling motor and really like them. I can fight the wind all day and not notice any loss of power. Only thing I can't speak on is longevity. I've had them about a year now though and they've been perfect.

I caught one on a jerkbait in a tournament on the rock last April that I thought was going to be a giant largemouth. Back of a small pocket, line just lazy started to tighten on the pause, sweep into a lot of weight and something moving slow, had a big slider snagged. At least it wasn't a snapper. I got this snapper on a wacky rig during one or our little Thursday night jackpot tournaments.

All it's ever done for me is allow me to lose baits to snags twice as fast!

Thought for sure it was going to be on a Ned. They'll eat a Ned about as good as a bass some days.

Bass boats are a problem, but wake boats and cigar boats are A-okay! Someone needs to teach him a bit about physics. A bass boat on plane makes such a small wake that it may not even make it to the docks when it can potentially capsize small craft, flood Tokyo, whatever he felt like making up. A big cabin cruiser makes a wake that goes on for miles and is extremely dangerous to boaters and swimmers alike.

This is what we have done for our Thursday night tournaments. Similar to Major League Fishing, everyone has to have their own scales and they're all the same and checked for accuracy and consistency, you can only weigh fish bigger than a pound, keep track of your biggest 5, and they're released on the spot. Granted, it takes a lot of trust, but it's mostly all the same guys that fish together all the time anyways, and if you get some good ones you have to take pictures for proof. It isn't fool proof, but we're fishing for $150 maybe, it isn't worth killing off our lakes for. Our big end of the year fish off we take pictures on the scales with a verification code since there is a little more money involved, but fish are still released immediately.

I think you looked at the wrong baits. The Suicide Duck that looks like a double plopper is 4.25" 1oz for the small one and 6" 2 3/4oz for the big one. They sent me some of both sizes and I've caught bass with both of them. They wouldn't be something I would have considered for Table Rock, but they work well on the shallow, stained lakes I frequent in KS.

Several of them out there, Savage Gear is the proud makers of a couple of them. This is basically a double legged plopper. Then you got the "Fruck", which is a frog/duck combination. A couple different companies make a walk the dog (or duck in this case), type bait, Or if you're a crankbait guy, you can get them on Danny the Duck from Westin. Not a bass obviously, but an awesome strike on the Suicide Duck.

I was down Friday-Saturday due to poor planning on my part and not thinking to check tournament schedules. Had a very solid pattern catching fish off sand and gravel banks around Aunt's Creek on small swimbaits and jerkbaits. There were small shad dying everywhere and the fish were gorging on them, ignoring all my larger offerings in favor of the little stuff. No big fish but lots of keepers in the 2.5-3.5 pound range, mostly the super fat spotted bass. Had a few dock corners that kept reloading with schools of spots that would fight over a jerkbait. Saw very few boats that looked like tournament boats in the area I was at so I'm sure that helped that they were maybe not getting pounded quite as bad. Sometimes you just get lucky and figure them out too. Never had a bite on a bottom bait or a crankbait. Had 3 keepers in the rain by 10:30 when I had to pack it in on Sunday. Overall a very good trip that I feel even better about after hearing how much of a grind it was for a lot of really good fishermen.

I was a few hours north of you but our weekly small tournament was tough last night too. We won it and got big bass with 4 fish that went a whopping 8.55 pounds and big bass of 3.16. Fish were short striking and not cooperative at all.

Agree with sending them back. St. Croix has excellent customer service. I've had 1 break and a reel seat come loose on one. I used their shipping program to send them back for $15 and got them both replaced for the price of return shipping, no questions asked. Both times I had a new rod back in my hands in less than 2 weeks.

Second fish has a better chance of weighing 40 than the one from Facebook.

I've caught a lot of fish, and some big ones, in the cove that Big Cedar is in, especially around that time of year. Cleavenger is close by and good too.

My Stratos 189 VLO wouldn't get on plane very quickly until I got the motor height set right and the correct prop for it. Mine has a manual jack plate but it was pretty easy to adjust by myself and they're not terribly expensive. I also went from a Laser II to a Tempest Plus, which helped with hole shot and top end speed.

That's a big drum. I'm cursed with the ability to catch them anywhere and on anything. I joke with my friends that if I could just catch one on topwater my fishing resume would be complete. Catch a lot of them on Redeye Shads, bladed jigs, spinnerbaits, jigs, any kind of plastic bait, jerkbaits, and they just can't say no to a Ned. They get big and pull hard, but are always disappointing when I realize what I've got.

I lost all my fishing gear on one occasion, and a boat on another. Never got any of it back. It's a terrible feeling to lose you stuff like that.