Bluebasser86

After spending a week on the water with my buddy and his son, this was our haul (including the bowfishing arrow and Spyderco Knife). Some of the highlights were 4 rock crawlers (including 1 custom painted one), a custom painted Wiggle Wart and a pre Rap Wee Wart, Vixen, MB 110+1, 2 whopper ploppers and a choppo, Lucky Craft Sammy, 1.5, and CB 20.

Better corrosion resistance, a Teflon coating that allows for better/faster hook penetration, and they're the same price as their regular hook. Really have nothing to lose and everything to gain from trying them.

I'm slowly starting to work my way through this past week. I have so many stories and pictures to share. Everyone here was incredible with the support. I needed 1 big bite and I was walking the Bassmaster Classic stage, that sounds crazy to say but it's 100% true. We went straight to Grand Lake and stayed in a B&B on Monkey Island for the Classic and fished Thursday-Sunday after my tournament. so I fished every day for a week straight last week. There's a lot to get to and unfortunately work is going to get in the way of me doing that too quickly. I'd never fished or even seen Tenkiller before and it fished a lot different than I expected. Water was mid to low 50's the closer to the dam I got, upper 50's to low 60's the further up the lake I got and the water was much dirtier. I struggled a lot down the lake and did decent from midlake on up. One real key thing I noticed, every pocket that I went into had shad in the very back getting blown up on, every one. The further north I went, the more shad and the more fish there were chasing them. I fished around Chicken Creek where we were camping the first day and did pretty well on a shakyhead, tube, and micro football jig. Day 2 I went to Strayhorn by the dam and did terrible for the first half of the day. I think I'd caught maybe 3 or 4 fish and only a couple were the 12" minimum. I drove a complete lap around the lake, checking out ramps and looking at different areas. I wanted to fish the river but it was so windy that it wasn't safe in my mind. Hindsight, I wish I'd gone to the furthest north ramp and tried there, I think it was more protected and the winner was in the river. I ended up in Snake Creek the last few hours of the day. It reminded me a lot of Chicken Creek and I did well again on the shakyhead and micro jig. Day 3 I went to Barnacle Bill's and struggled a lot, but there was shad everywhere and fish chasing them a lot. The water was dirtier and I did catch a couple nice ones towards the end of my day. The rock snot made fishing a crankbait impossible, and I couldn't get bit on a jerkbait or spinnerbait. I really expected all 3 of those baits to be huge players. By the end of practice, I'd caught 2 on a jerkbait and 1 on a spinnerbait. It really felt more like I was fishing a late summer/early fall tournament than a prespawn tournament. I never found any really big ones, and certainly couldn't find the big smallmouth, but I did find lots of quality that I was pretty happy with.

I won't be doing anymore Bassmaster events this year, just my local circuit. Don't worry, I have a brand new pair of tie dye Crocs waiting to go for this season 😂

15th, moved down several spots from the sandbaggers but bringing home a little money and a good experience and a lot of video.

Top 16 at least, still waiting to find out what spot. Somewhere between 9 and 16.

I was leading for about 1.5 hours this morning. The Bassmaster camera boat came by and took a bunch of pictures, so that was pretty awesome.

Thanks guys. I should have just put it back on the trailer after 9am. I didn't catch 10 more fish all day. Thankful for the ones I stumbled on this morning. My goal was to catch 5 both days and I'm halfway there. I knew I couldn't compete with the scopers and that was painfully obvious today.

They're making them in a jighook to pour your own, but not sure if it's bass jig sized ones.

I haven't stuck any big ones yet, but I have stuck several with them. Every, single, fish, the hook has completely blown through the lip, something that is not easy to do fishing from a kayak. Yesterday, I was making long cast from shore with a ML spinning rod and a small stickworm, same results. No doubt the coating is allowing for the hook to slide through easier. Even through the bony part on the top of the nose, still made it through. The even better part is the Gamakatsu quality and it cost the same as their other hooks. It's a no brainer for sure.

Took the boys out to drown some worms and spend some time since I won't see them all week. We had a good hour at the pond and burned through a bunch of worms.

We get both extremes here in KS. Had a day last summer with heat indexes over 130, and we had wind chills down below -20 this winter. I was catching big catfish on the river the day it was super hot. I was doing everything in my power to not go outside the really cold days. Anyone that fishes where your line freezes, knows how miserable that is to try to deal with. I'll take the heat all day, any day.

Started working at 13 for a private lake clubhouse, mowing, weedeating, painting, doing whatever basic repairs or gopher jobs needed done. Did that until I was 16 and started working at Cabela's. I worked there until I was 21. Started working construction full time at 18 (while also working at Cabela's 20+ hours a week), and did that until I was 21. When I was 21 I got hired on as a Correction's Officer at my first department. At 23, I moved to a bigger department and became a LEO and have been doing that ever since, I'll be 38 next month. Planning to go to 51 and retire with 30 years of service.

@ol'crickety it's actually the 20th and 21st, so 1 week from today.

@ol'crickety yes it is. I've paid my entry fee, signed my waivers, done my tax forms, and got most everything ready to be packed into my truck. I need to get a couple more big micro SD cards for my GoPro. 3 days of practice, 2 days of tournament, then we're going to the Bassmaster Classic after that, so I'm going to need plenty of storage space to get everything.

Had a very success day of catching on Sunday, just not really what I was after. The bass were hard to come by, but I also caught a bunch of trout, several drum, a couple walleye, a catfish, and a wiper, most of my fish fell for a Ned rig, couldn't get them to eat a moving bait hardly at all. First fish of the morning, I pitched a RI Sweet Beaver into a tree, got a tap and slight pull down into the tree, not at all what I was expecting. I actually hooked another that bit the exact same my next pitch into that tree, but it came off. It took close to a hour to get my first bass bite, but it was at least a pretty nice one. Again, not the flavor I expected but I'll never complain about a 18.5" 3.57lb smallmouth, especially for my first one of the year. It just barely breathed in a Ned rig in 6' of water. I made myself some "scoping jigheads", and found a flat loaded with fish so I tossed that rig, and caught another trout that could barely fit the plastic in it's mouth. Jumped across to a shallow bank I'd never fished before, but I spotted a nice laydown I had to pitch to, worth it. Kept picking up fish steadily, mostly trout and very small largemouth on the Ned rig, but then hooked a much heavier fish. Not a big surprise to catch one, but I've never seen a walleye that big from this lake. Not my longest kayak walleye, but she was super fat and 4.51 pounds, for sure my heaviest kayak walleye ever and probably my second heaviest I've ever caught. Released to get even bigger. I caught 1 more walleye I thought about keeping but couldn't remember if the length limit was 15" or 18" so I just tossed him back. This was the last trip before I head to Oklahoma this weekend to prefish for the Kayak Bassmaster Classic. The tournament is Wednesday and Thursday, the nerves are starting to set in 😬

@wanderful it's just kind of a weird lake. I've had success with things that didn't make any sense for them to be working at Olathe. I like fishing the lake but the waterpark has attracted so many "tourist" to the lake that it's almost unbearable in the warmer months.

I haven't fished Jacomo in a few years. You don't need a JOCO permit for Black Hoof or Olathe though. You only need a JOCO permit for SML, Lexington, Heritage (which is closed to fishing this year for renovations), and a couple JOCO ponds. No way I'd drop $127 to fish SML. I like fishing it, but I'm a resident and it only cost me $30 and even that feels like too mucj. No you're not. Those were uploaded through Photobucket which now charges you to use their services and I wasn't going to pay so all my pictures got wiped out by them from those years.

I use these, just open the bottom up a little and put the hook on then close it again. https://barlowstackle.com/Connector-Links-P835/ I use a different, highly modified mold, to pour heads down to 1/8oz and up to 1oz.

One of my best big fish producers in my homemade bladed jigs is my crappie pattern.

Not every puddle has a pond monster in it, but some do. My PB swimbait fish was out of a puddle so small that I could cast across it in any direction. I caught her deadsticking a MS Slammer. The easiest and surest way to find out if there's big fish though, bobber fish a 4" bluegill or a big golden shiner.

I've got a bunch in the boat and kayak both. I don't fish their worms though. I pair them with other small plastics usually, most often, a Croc-O-Gator Ring Craw. Something about that pairing early in the spring is magic.

I catch more trout on Ned rigs than I do when I actually try to target trout with trout lures.

They stock a few in the lakes here every year. I've caught a handful of them. Last year I caught 2 the same day, both on a Ned rig.