Seth

Sounds similar to a spot we stumbled upon. I saw it on my side imaging while moving to another spot around the secondary point and decided to mark it and come to fish it. After dragging a 10" worm and a shakey head through it, I decided to slow roll a 3/4oz spinnerbait through it and hooked up as soon as I started bumping in to the cover. That spot only seemed good for one fish per stop though and I could only get them to bite on that spinnerbait. My only thought was that maybe they weren't buried in the cover and were instead suspending over it and I was bringing that spinnerbait right through them. My partner tried the 5XD over the top of the brush, but I'm not sure he was getting down far enough to reach it. I think it was in 16-18' of water if I remember correctly.

My partner threw an 5XD for a while on Sunday and I think caught one little bass about 12". I don't have any big squarebills either. All of my stuff is 1.5 and a couple 2.5's for river fishing.

I covered MILES of water Sunday with a buzzbait on wind blown rock banks, secondary and main lake points without much to show for it. Found one little stretch of rock bank about half way back in a cove that produced three bites in a bow. One was a good one and of course he didn't get hooked up. Fished several others stretches that seemed to fit that same pattern and never caught squat. Must have just been right place, right time. Even went back and fished that same bank a few hours later and not even a sniff. I'm gonna have to spend some time marking some off shore structure for in the future. The best areas we found the past two years was off shore cover that we stumbled across while fishing. If I had enough of it marked, I would have just ran that all day as nobody else seemed to be fishing it and we could pull up and catch a fish or two nearly every time.

If the three guys I knew and talked to that got money fish, two said fishing was tough and they just got lucky. One guy caught three fish Saturday and one was a check fish on a buzzbait weighed in at Ivy Bend. Another caught a check fish early on a big swimbait and weighed in at PB2, but said fishing was slow. The guy that got third caught his on a bluff end up the Glaize on a brush hog. Not sure how fishing was overall for him. I caught fish on a little bit of everything, but nothing stood out. Had one little flurry in the rain Sunday along a 50 yard stretch of bank on a buzzbait and that was about it. Otherwise it was just a fish here and there.

That bobber stop idea is smart! I can't believe that never dawned on me since I have always had issues with the split shot slipping on the light line. I use them all the time for pegging my bullet weights when flipping and pitching for bass. Instead of messing with a swivel, just slide a small egg sinker in place, a couple bobber stops and tie on the hook and fish.

Anybody do any good? I fished the 1-4mm and never figured anything out. Caught fish from 1’ to 20’ (actually a lot deeper if you count the bluff and wave break fish) on a little bit of everything but nothing over 2.5#. I had a good one blow up on a buzzbait today during the rain, but didn’t get hooked up. Seems like the rest of the lake showed out a lot better this year versus last year.

Do most guys bring a boat or just buddy up with somebody who has a boat? @JestersHK??

I'm not aware of any other tournaments besides the UMBC Invitational where fish are transported from way down river and dumped up river. There are Wednesday evening tournaments starting at Onondaga and running on down to Sand Ford throughout the summer, but those fish are dumped back in at the access and likely caught within 5 miles up or down from the ramp anyways.

A 4.00 might be worth a good chunk of change. The guy who runs the bass club I fish caught one a few years ago in a fall bash and got $500 for even weight plus a couple hundred for hourly placement.

Are there any horsepower restrictions where you guys hold Jigfest on the White River? I've never been there and am totally clueless on that body of water.

I don't have anything going on for either of those dates. Hopefully I'll get to make my first Jigfest this year!

I was up there Sunday graphing around for the Bash between the 2-4mm. I've never really fished that area so needed to get familiar with it since we are staying with a buddy this weekend. We threw spinnerbaits around some wave breaks and some main lake dock ends and caught several 15-17" largemouth along with a few solid kentuckies. Seemed like the docks that were getting blasted the hardest were the ones that held fish. I got the tar beat out of me in my aluminum boat lol. I'd sure like to find one like your biggest one this weekend. This will be the 4th bash I've fished and I'm still looking for my first check fish.

It happens a lot during the Meramec Invitational. Several of us that fish it have asked why they don't just keep the spots separate and let people who want to eat them have at them. Somebody always keeps the dead ones so they don't go to waste so I don't see fresh fish going to waste.

Same here. I was having my best season so far too.

It could be a blade configuration thing too. The War Eagles I have use larger willow blades than the Booyahs and most other brands of spinnerbaits. E-factor is a brand I haven't tried yet, but they also run over sized willow blades. I want to give those E-factors a try sometime and see how the compare. One thing I will say about the War Eagles is that they are not very hardy. If you're in a tournament, you better have several because the wire starts getting loose in the head and they are prone to breaking after that if you get a nice fish on. Smallies really play hard on them. I was up on LoZ tossing a 1/2oz War Eagle around dock ends and wave breaks yesterday and had a 2 pound largemouth break my spinnerbait in half when he jumped. It was already worn out though before I started fishing. I'll save the worn ones for when I'm just out fun fishing since it doesn't matter if it breaks then.

Missouri Disabled Sportsmen I've had the pleasure of helping out with a deer hunt the past few years with this crew and they are top notch!

Iv'e tried the Booyahs and they have never held a candle to the War Eagles when it comes to putting fish in the boat for me and I throw a spinnerbait A LOT. 3/8-1/2oz white/chartreuse double willow with a small white swimbait puts more river bass in my boat for me than any other lure year after year. I've never caught a smallmouth over 16" on it though either. It's put more big largemouth in the boat for me than anything else though.

We have a really weedy lake near where I live and I ended up buying some 1oz tungsten to punch through it. Wonder if that would work on Taney?

That sucker sure would have been some good eatin!

I buy my reels either lightly used for half price or use my Cabelas/Bass Pro points and gift cards. There ain't no way I'm paying that out of pocket! I'm cheap! Besides, bass guys are notorious for blowing a bunch of money on something and then selling it without hardly using it.

I do it once a year for the fall bash which I've fished three times so I'd sure hope you could out skip me after 30 years! 😆 My roll skipping ain't terrible, but my back hand skip is a mess. What length rod do you use when skipping? I've been trying it with a 7'1, but ordered a 6'6" to try. I was messing around trying to skip a 5/16oz finesse jig on my jerkbait/topwater rod which is a 6'9" m/f and seemed to fair a lot better. I'm 6' tall so not super short or anything, but I do fish out of a jet boat which sits lower to the water so hoping maybe that shorter rod will help me out.

$200 is about the limit for me on reels. I've picked up some barely used Tourney Pros a few years ago and they have been great reels. The only issue I have experienced is the one I run my spinnerbaits on has sticky thumb button. It doesn't totally disengage when I make a cast. That reel has been used and abused though for several years. With that said, I just bought my first Daiwa reel, a Tatula SV TWS, and I think my Lew's days might be numbered. Maybe it's just becuase it a brand new reel and my Lews have been used hard for several years, but the Daiwa just feels a lot more solid in my hand. That SV deal is pretty slick too. I was practicing my jig skipping and never got a backlash and I can definitely not pull that off with my Tourney Pros.

Under a float and near the bottom, just like the pink power worm.

The scent would surely help, but they feed a lot by sight as well. Otherwise why would we ever catch trout on flies or jigs as they are unscented? Mega worms are unscented and they crush trout. Big ones too!

I've fished white mega worms in the same manner below Fall Creek and had pretty good luck. I don't know why you couldn't tie tie some pink ones up or even use some pink chenille. My intention was to imitate guts more so than the power worm. Works decent in the trout parks too.