Skell9653

I've been fishing strip pits one evening the past month or so. Mainly small bass up to a couple pounds. I can't wait until fall fishing! What's fishing been like for everyone else? What's lures have you been having success on?

There are some monster largemouth in there. They're just difficult to catch!

There are a couple cabins you can rent right next to the trout pit. They look pretty nice but I've never stayed there myself.

There are some but it seems to be more far and few between. I usually go to Stockton to intentionally "walleye fish". But you can catch some.

@Flysmallie if you haven't fished the trout pit make it a weekend trip to the Mined Land Wildlife Area and fish for crappie as well. It's well worth a small trip and fishing the trout pit can be a good time with a different kind of fishing.

I have been but it's been a little slow so far. I've tried vertical jigging nice and slow. Get yourself some Strike King crappie thunders and fish in 10-20 feet of water. Once you find them, your on them. In about a month I like to switch over to just a standard jig head and flip tail grub. I couldn't explain why but crappie thunders seem to work when the waters colder. I like electric chicken, blue/white, and black/chartruse.

Who else is ready for the trout pit to be stocked again? If you hit it at the right time it makes for a good fun day. I'm getting my Bass Hound boat rigged up with a bigger trolling motor and plan on doing a lot of fishing on the public pits this year.

This is a video I compiled of my wife and I slaying some crappie one evening back in mid-February. I'm new to the go-pro so don't judge. She caught one sneaking up on 2.5 lbs. It's the biggest one of the year and I have to admit... she caught the biggest one last year as well! Also, I normally fish a lot of strip pits but this is actually just a farm pond that's 9-10 years old smack dab in the middle of all the strip pit country that I fish in SEK. We've been very intentional on managing this pond for outstanding crappie fishing. If there's any excellent fly fisherman out there that would want to take an amateur around and give some tips and advice I'd be willing to hook you up with some good bass and crappie fishing on private property.

Good to hear you enjoyed it! I honestly have not fished Shawnee Trails much. I've driven through there several times and thrown some casts but north of Shawnee Trails about 5 miles I have access to a lot of private strip pits. I've stopped by there a couple times I need to make it out there again. I live in Seneca so usually go over by Hallowell if I'm fishing any public pits. My new venture this next year is going to be duck hunting some of the larger strip pits over by Hallowell. I also know there's some wetland in Shawnee Trails... anyone ever duck hunt that?

Well it was a successful Friday and Saturday for my buddy and I. He caught a 23 inch 6lb rainbow on a fly rod out of the trout pit on Friday night as well and filling his limit. For those of you that are regulars you've probably seen my buddy Ryan out at the trout pit as he makes it on there on a weekly basis. Last year he caught a Rainbow that was basically a twin of this fish on a fly rod except he was in a kayak! On Saturday we ended up going crappie fishing at some private pits northeast of Pittsburg and kept 60 crappie. 15 of them were between 1lb 5 oz and 1 lb 10oz. That's a good stringer! The eggs felt really mushy which my grandpa says means and early spawn. I can't wait to go out again this Friday and Saturday!How's everyone else's fishing going?

I'd purchase it online. However, you could stop in Riverton and pick one up. Not sure if there's any place in Columbus or not. Pittsburg Walmart, John's Sportscenter, or Bo's One Stop carries them as well.

I have been a few times since November. Based on what I've read online they've stocked less this year than last year. Not sure if those numbers and dates are always accurate. However, it's been hit and miss. Still haven't done nearly as well this year as last year. From what I've heard there hasn't been much action by the feeder. Majority just catching them at the ramp/dock. Hoping to get out there again soon.

Thanks for speaking on the issue. That's very frustrating. Wish that I (and others) was able to enjoy it a little more. With it being so close to me (and to a lot of fisherman in Joplin) it would be real nice to have a place we could run to and fish for an hour or two without having to drive at least 45 minutes to an hour to the next closest thing.

I have to admit that I am a very novice fly fisherman. I do plenty of bass and crappie fishing in the strip pits along with a lot of deer hunting. By the time I try to balance my free days to do all those I only get to go fly fishing maybe 10 times a year or so.... with that being said I have only fished Hickory twice but it's only about 25 minutes from my house. I've talked to some locals from there and they've said how after they're stocked everyone just flocks down there and keeps anything they catch. One guy even confessed to me that he would bring a large net and catch some. Hickory is a nice little creek and could really be developed into some fun fishing if there were some more regulations in my opinion. Why not make it catch and release only or something along the lines of that?? Can anyone else offer any input on this? Why don't they put more regs on it? Is there a process if we got a petition going that we could make something happen? Just seems like a shame to me to have a nice little creek that not very many people travel to fish because you're most likely not catching anything unless you get lucky and show up within a few days of a stocking... which seems to happen next to never.

That's good to hear. Most of the crappie I've got have been female out from the bank but I've also done more fishing midday rather than evening or early morning. I didn't get to fish this past week once (I normally average 3 days a week). I don't know what this rain has done to em but the temps. are gonna be rising and I would bet they will be spawning by Sunday.

I had no idea. I'll be interested to do some research and make some phone calls. Lol. In my opinion, in terms of eating, nothing beats walleye. And to tell ya the truth I haven't had much luck walleye fishing over at Stockton the last few years.

I haven't fished the public pits for a good while but I've been killing the bass and crappie in private pits recently. One day it's a huge stringer of crappie and the next day bass. It's been a blast so far this year.

That's interesting. I've never heard of it. That sure would be a lot of fun!

There's plenty of strip pits that turn and all face different directions with various steepness. You can always find a good one to fish no matter where the wind is coming from. That's been my experience. It may not look like it's out of the wind but so many of them will make a turn or open up that you'll be able to find a spot out of the wind. On a windy day there's nothing better to fish than strip pits.

I haven't tried it but I'm sure it would do great. There's a place in that pit where it's pretty deep and comes up to a flat. If you drop a crank bait down there you will have the opportunity to catch some hogs. A buddy of mine has caught a 10+ lb each of the last two summers using that very technique and released them both. I haven't had much luck catching a lot of good size bass (3-6 lbs) like I have had in some private pits but if you want to catch a mountable bass I would imagine there's a handful swimming around in the trout pit.

The trout pit has great access from the banks. However, Justin is right. If you're really wanting to get the best out of the pits a canoe or kayak would be ideal for getting around. Some pits you just cannot fish from the bank. In fact, a lot of them are that way. There's some great fish in those pits just give it some time and you'll figure out which pits you have the most success in and what patterns are working.

I fished Capps a week ago today. I haven't fished it a whole lot but fished from the mill all the way down stream quite a ways. I saw a good amount of rainbows but couldn't land any. I'm relatively new to fly fishing (since this past summer) and could use any pointers. I imagine it will just be experience and learning the stream. It was still a great trip even though it was freezing cold because it's so beautiful there.

I'm not sure. This particular strip pit is a half-mile long and isn't even the best strip pit on this plot of land. There's seven pits total and there's two more that have better fish in them than this. Trust me I know how to manage these fishing waters. They've been known as honey-hole fishing since the 80s. The majority of my fishing on these particular pits is catch and release and I have access to some others where I keep fish regularly to eat. Keeping that amount of bass out of a half-mile long pit is not an issue. I've had way larger stringers than that with a mix of bass and crappie and it hasn't impacted the fishing one bit.

In Kansas possession limit only applies to Public Pits. If it's my private pit I can keep what I want. In Kansas if you're fishing private ponds or pits you don't even have to have a fishing license or your boat registered.

Drys have worked well. My buddy fishes dries more than I do. I use a white crappie jig under an indicator more than anything. I tear the tail off of it. I've also done good with a white mega worm and a white thread jig. Me and two buddies were there one time killing it and some guys from OK in a bass boat asked if we were using PowerBait. Heck no we weren't. I took that question as a complement as they couldn't figure out what we were doing. Little did they know it was just a white jig with the tail torn off and an indicator about 36 in. up.