BassPastor

FREE REGISTRATION UP FOR GRABS I've had family event come up that will no longer allow me to attend this event. I believe I can transfer my registration to someone else. It is a two day registration, Friday/Saturday. I'd be willing to transfer my registration to someone else for free, if you'll agree to send me the entry prize package. Registration was $175. https://yetiopen.com/

FREE REGISTRATION UP FOR GRABS I've had family event come up that will no longer allow me to attend this event. I believe I can transfer my registration to someone else. It is a two day registration, Friday/Saturday. I'd be willing to transfer my registration to someone else for if you'll agree to send me the entry prize package.

We'll be fishing the BBT this weekend. It should be a party on the lake with lots of permitted derbies taking place. Hopefully everyone will enter the weekend with a bit of extra patience, and the perspective that at the end of the day... it's just a fish. See ya'll out there!

Nice largemouth!

@top_dollar ha! I’m right with you a lot of days.

Shallow fishing was fun while it lasted. The only redeeming aspect of Dropshot season is that it’s an easy way to get Jr. on some fish.

@Big Bass Tour thanks for putting on the event - myself + 2 in the boat had a great time. We really enjoy the format. I didn’t catch any money bass but one of my partners did 4.57#, so count that as a win. We caught lots and lots of fish, many in the the 2.5-3# range. Part of our issue may have been that we couldn’t pull ourselves away from the biting pre-spawn smallmouth in the lower lake. Almost all of our fish came off of a wacky rigged senko. Mixed depth but about 10’ all the way up to the bank. When the wind picked up (and did it ever) we caught a few keepers on a spinner as well. With the wind we didn’t want to get too far from the weigh in at Long Creek so fished anywhere between the back of Long Creek to Cow Creek area.

Nice job! The next 6 weeks are my favorite to fish out of the whole year.

Playing around with a new Livescope and found that I couldn’t leave biting fish. All the spots we caught were 30-35’ on long gravel main lake points. Bait didn’t matter so much, Dropshot, Keitech, Ned. I think every one of them was 14.99” and full of shad. I’m ready to beat the bank again but the deep bite is great for my 4 yr old fishing buddy. (Pictured with his grandpa here)

Great job! A true 6# is far rarer than the internet would ever have you believe.

Know of anybody who could do a Garmin unit (x2) and Livescope install at our storage unit just south of State Park Marina? The boat is in storage but I'm up in Kansas City. Thanks!

I've thought about this as well. Other than TR, the lake I fish most often is Smithville. You'd be laughed at fishing in more than 20 ft for bass in Smithville. It just doesn't happen. That being said, it's a fundamentally different lake than a deep/clear Ozark reservoir. At the end of the day it's really all about the baitfish and I don't think they venture deep in those shallow/muddy lakes.

@Fishrman @willyfish @Sprint21fter Had my 3 year old with me today so only fished for a couple hours but managed one nice keeper small jaw. Thanks for the tips and happy new year!

Any hints on where to find the shallower crank bait bite? I’m a winter fishing novice and don’t have FF sonar so may try to grind out the shallow fish instead of looking for the deep bite.

Was down for our annual week long summer stay at the family condo near state park marina. Wife/kids/family have other agendas than fishing so was only able to fish from first light to about 10a each day. Snuck in one evening outing as well which ended up being the best fishing of the week for us. The offshore deep water stuff still kicks my butt so I was glad we were still able to find fish shallow. The most consistent bite for me ended up being secondary points where I could find some hard wood cover in about 15-20 FOW. I would use a PBJ Ned rig to find the fish, then spot lock and pick apart the cover with a football jig to find a few keepers. Fished this deal on main lake points as well with some success especially in the evening trip which was post storm cell so had the lake to myself. Spent Friday evening fishing the “Dark Side” on Taneycomo with Duane Doty from Liley’s Landing. We fished from 7:30p-11:30p. If you haven’t done that trip I highly recommend it as it was an absolute blast. Overall a fun week on the water and actually did better than we normally do for this time of year. Next year hope to figure out the deep stuff a bit more. We’ll be ready to beat the banks come fall!

Fished in the Cow Creek area from about 6:30-11:00 this morning. Started out on the main lake and couldn’t get much going. Ran about half way back the bigger creeks and started throwing Ned rigs and football jigs at cedars in 15-20 FOW. Caught 3 short smallies on the Ned and one 18” Largemouth on the football jig. At 9a the sonar turned bright red so I started dropping a spoon into the whites. Caught 4 fish in 4 casts before they moved on. Two of them were good size with the bigger one being just under 3#. Pretty fun! For the life of me I can’t find this swimbait bite that others are talking about. Not sure what I’m doing wrong there. I might fish up Long Creek in the AM so if you see a black/white Skeeter, say hello!

Headed down from Kansas City to fish all week but my first order of business is to spend a few hours replacing the steering cables in my Ultrex (boat stays in storage in Hollister for the summer). Last trip down one of the steering cables broke leaving the foot pedal useless. The nice thing about the Ultrex is there is some backup redundancy. Foot pedal was down but could still fish with the remote. If that broke, I could theoretically still fish by using Bluetooth functionality to steer by my phone. It wouldn’t be fun… but I could (and would) do it.

At the family condo and one of my Ultrex steering cables broke leaving the pedal unusable unless I want to go NASCAR and only go left. Watched a few YouTube videos and not sure I’m up for it. Does anybody work on these things locally? I’m second owner (came with boat) so don’t think there is a warranty on play. P.S. used the hand remote today and tore em up on a Ned up Long Creek.

Great story, thanks for sharing. From a distance... it seems like professional fishing has been able to maintain a fair amount of genuinely good guys. Alton Jones and Jr. sure seems like one of them, I'd love to meet them someday.

Drove down from Kansas City with @MO Huzgr and some family from Nebraska (including my 88 yr old grandfather!) to fish this weekend. Came prepared to run the bluff end deal after reading several reports of finding post spawn fish there. Found a few fish but bass were all short and just one "line-burner" walleye. Saturday morning was a struggle while the front moved in. We continued to run mostly main type of stuff, mostly points and adjacent bluff ends. Had a few bites but they seemed to be short striking. I believe that @MO Huzgr had some more success that morning. Regrouped for lunch and dodged a rain shower. Decided to begin the afternoon by starting at the back of creek arms near spawning cover. Caught a few keeper bass right away and the fishing only got better as we moved into the middle of the creek arm by 45 degree rock banks. Anecdotally it seemed like the most bites were produced in areas with sparse buck brush, as opposed to 100% brush shorelines. Kept the boat in 18ish FOW and was able to get bit casting at a 45 degree angle in front of the boat toward the shore. Quickly found that our better fish were coming from casting into 15ish FOW straight in front of the boat. Ended up catching some decent fish with good numbers (for us) Saturday afternoon. All fish came from a PB&J Ned other than a couple Whopper Plopper fish at dusk on Friday evening. Didn't catch anything really big but caught a few that were right around 3#. I had to leave Saturday evening around 6p but I know that @MO Huzgr had continued success Saturday evening and Sunday morning. If we're lucky he'll update with any additional insights.

Good report. Don't see much from the Long Creek arm but that's where we fish most often just due to proximity. The lake fishes kind of small in that area due to the river getting narrow. Kind of takes the guess work out of fishing down there sometimes. Actually stopped in to Cricket Creek for the first time a few weeks ago and was really impressed with their bait/tackle selection.

Well that rules me out. 😂

Only 1 thing required to have the appearance of a pro angler... money. At least until weigh-in that is.

Got sucked into some old posts on Sonar and got a kick out of this one from 9 years ago. Things change fast!

Golf will be waiting for them on the other side!