Bluebasser86

It's a brand of plastic hellgramites. In really cold water everything moves slowly. Usually lots of soaking and dragging and very few small hops will get most of your bites in the winter. You may try something like a float-n-fly also. Suspend the jig just off the bottom and let the current carry it around rocks and log jams. Don't move it or make it do anything except maybe a couple very small twitches when it comes through high percentage areas. Don't expect the bobber to shoot under, it will just dip slightly or stop drifting with the current.

I read everyone's responses on here and each one I'm thinking "Yep, that's why I go out too." Lots of good answers and reasons to be out there. I'm with Papajoe and Fishes in trees the most. I love figuring out the fish from day to day. Those days when my original plans work feels great because I was able to reach back in my mental files and figure the puzzle out just by using what I've learned through the years. It's also great to figure it out on the water after the original plan fails and salvage the day. Those are the days I feel I learn the most. Like Fishes said, my job deals a lot with people, usually not the kind of people most would like to have to deal with. That gets pretty stressful throughout the week so it's great for me to get away and clear my head. Fishing is one of the few things I feel I'm truly gifted at and it feels good to do something you're good at. Usually is something else I probably should be doing, but I like to save the housework for the bad weather days

Fished Wyandotte County Lake before it closes with sizzlefry Wednesday. Tried for some wipers because Sean and Chris S caught some really nice ones last week. I got my hook straightened on my jigging spoon 3 times and had another one pull off when I changed the hooks out. I did catch 3 very healthy, fat smallmouth in the 16 to 17 inch range. When we gave up on the wipers and started fishing for bass they were pretty willing to play. I had 31, all but those 3 smallies on shakyheads or a luck e strike rc stick Jr jerkbait. Right towards the end of the day I had by far my biggest largemouth I've caught out there this year eat my jerkbait right next to the boat and cruise by the boat like a mini sub. Had a long careful fight before Sean got the net under her. 20" and 4.14 pounds, she had great color and was one of the healthiest looking fish I've seen from out there. This lake doesn't produce many 15" keepers so a fish like this is a giant out there. I got back out there again Thursday with my friend Van. Way slower than Wednesday, I was afraid we may not catch a thing for a while. Finally got a few bass and whites and one small wiper on jigging spoons. Switched to jerkbaits and it was way slower than yesterday until we got to one bank. It was lights out for about 15 minutes. We fished from 9-3 and probably caught 75% of our bass in that 15 minutes. Right before we left I caught what would be my last keeper bass of the year from Wyandotte, a really healthy 17" fish on a shakyhead. I managed to put a total of 62 bass in the boat over those 2 days, not bad for the last week of November in Kansas Only 3 more months until it opens back up

I have Shimanos, Lews, Abu, Bass Pro, and Pfluegar. All of my reels are the mid-range, workhorse reels (Curado, speed spool, Revo S, Pro Qualifier, and Supreme). In my experience if you buy a quality reel and you take good care of it and get it serviced regularly they all work fine.

Suspending jerkbaits along that drop will work. I fish some strip pits with steep drops along the shoreline and it works in those. They sit right on that lip because they can move up and down in the water very quickly, the more aggressive fish will be right along the edge and those are the fish that are easiest to catch during the winter. Try casting up onto the lip and pulling it out to deep water, parallel to the drop, and if you can get onto it cast out to deeper water and pull the bait back into the shallower water.

Well if they're still on sale after Christmas I'd go with a BPS Extreme. Get the 5' 6" L/F if you're fishing a stream with lots of shoreline trees because it's easier to use in tight quarters. If there aren't a lot of trees I'd go with the 6' 8" ML/F. Normally $100 but they're on sale right now for $70 and they're really nice rods for that price. Would make a good crappie rod too.

Exactly, if this little bump in the road caused this much drama imagine what would have happened when a real issue came around. Sorry it didn't work out for you man. I can really feel your pain. I dated my last girlfriend before my wife and I met for 4.5 years and her family had a ton of influence on her, to the point that her mom actually talked her into breaking up with me because she didn't think I treated her good enough. At the moment I was devastated, now that I'm out of the situation and had time to step back and take it all in I'm very thankful I got out while I could.

X2. I love Christmas and all the good things that come with it like being with family. I hate the fact that anymore it's all about buying stuff.

Price range? I use a 6' 8" ML Crucial dropshot rod with a 1000 symetre for most of my trout fishing but I also use a 6' UL Avid with a 750 symetre and a 6' 10" ML LTB with a 25 size Pfluegar Supreme. You really don't need anything too expensive for regular stocker trout though.

Picture isn't working on my computer but congrats anyways

St. Croix Avid 6' 2" M/XF. I can really make my bait do whatever I need it to do with the extra fast tip.

Luhr Jenson Hot Lips and Luck E Strike The Freak are both super deep runners. The SK 10XD isn't in stores yet but it's supposed to hit 25+ with ease.

Not even almost, I'll stick to the soft water at the power plants. The fish fight harder in the warm water than they do under the ice anyways. I'm sure a big pike still fights good but since all we have is panfish, walleye, and white bass to fish for you're not going to get much of a fight.

I set mine pretty tight on all my reels, basically so it will just slip right before the breaking point in an emergency. If I hook a big fish and know I'm going to have to give it line I'd much rather release the thumb bar with my baitcasters or backreel with my spinning reels. I feel like I have much better control over the fish than I do by just setting my drag because I can apply or relieve pressure on the line as needed. This works fine for bass and most freshwater fish but don't try it for saltwater, you'll burn the end of your thumb off with a baitcaster or get you're knuckles broke by the spinning handle on a spinning reel

Or maybe the guy making the calender died and they figured he made it far enough so nobody else needed to pick up where he left off for awhile.

That sounds like more fun than what I'll be doing. I'll be at work when the end of the world happens, again . I believe it will happen this time though. I was doing some research online about all the solid facts on why the world will end the 21st. Here are all the reasons I found: ......

Pretty little fish. We have some small streams around here that nobody fishes. No trout in them but lots of sunfish, channel cats, carp, with the occasional bass, crappie, or white bass. It's really fun during the summer to get away from the crowds with an ultralight and just see what you can catch.

traps, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, crankbaits, heavy jigs, c-rigs.

At least she's trying! My wife goes with me pretty often and I know she tries and pays attention because every once in awhile she says something that really surprises me. The other day I was on the computer going through pictures of my fish from this year and came across my biggest of the year that I caught on a homemade chatterbait and was telling her about it. When I said something about the chatterbait she says that's the one that looks like a jig but it has the silver thingy on the front that makes it shake when you reel right? It means a lot to know that she does listen to me once in awhile

I'd second the spinnerbait but I actually like a really light one, like a 1/4oz, with a single colorado blade. Fish it in the same winter areas with the slowest retrieve you can keep the blade working. Depending on the depth you can start the retrieve immediately or wait until it hits bottom and start reeling slowly. I use my normal spinnerbait setup. Make sure to really focus on the vibration and set the hook if anything feels different. This isn't a numbers technique but I catch some of my biggest fish of the year doing this and lots of time you just feel a little less resistance or you can't feel the vibration anymore when a fish hits it. This is only of the only times I'll use a trailer hook on my spinnerbait.

Yeah several companies make bluegill colors. I still have best luck with golden shiner, bass, and shad colors. I really had a lot of success with the Excalibur Erratic shads. They sit very still in the water and have a subtle, deadstick action, and they're a good sized baits that catch all sizes of fish.

1/2oz rattlebait, #2 white mepps, super spook Jr if they're breaking surface, 1/2oz jigging spoon if they're schooling deep. A 3" clear hologram grub on a 1/8oz jighead is great too.

Great story. I'd love to catch one of those monsters. We get a few sturgeon in the rivers here but they're just little shovelnose that only get a few pounds and don't fight very much.

We fish ponds all winter long if they don't freeze up. Last year we fished jerkbaits all winter long, even when there was ice on parts of the ponds, and we caught fish all winter long fishing from the bank. The key is long pauses, over 30 seconds a few days when the water temps were in the mid 30's. The water temps you have should be great for jerkbaiting if the water is fairly clear. Try some smaller baits like a 65 or 78 pointer in natural colors.

When you hook yourself and instead of going to the ER like a normal person you wrap duct tape around it and finish out the fishing day. When you start to have withdraw symptoms when you haven't been on the water in more than a week.