Bluebasser86

I just hit 1,000 today, one day after my goal day to hit that mark.

Don't get a Bass Pro scale, I've had two that worked a total of three times combined. Rapala and Berkley scales both seem pretty good though.

We had been at the lake a whopping 20 minutes when my wife hooked up with her new PB smallmouth. It was fun watching her fight it and to see her catch a very respectable fish, the biggest one of the trip in fact at 2lbs 12ozs and 17" long. Equipment:6' 6" M/L St.Croix Avid Pearl/Quantum Energy PT10 6lb fluoroclear 3" Berkley power minnow on a 1/8oz jighead.

Wife and I just got back from a weekend at Melvern. Weather kind of sucked and we had a couple mishaps but still got plenty of fishing in. Nicole wasted no time and caught her new personal best smallmouth and the biggest smallie of the trip less than 20 minutes after getting there. 2lbs 12ozs and 17". I didn't catch anything worth taking a picture of the first day. It poured last night and stormed way harder than I wish it would have since we were tent camping. I went out by myself in the morning since it was still raining and started slow but the quality went up for me. I spent a lot of time trying to fish slow and was getting frustrated with the lake of activity. I picked up a spinnerbait and it was quickly obvious I was on to something, they were smashing the spinnerbait. After tearing them up on spinnerbaits for a little bit the rain stopped, the wind died down, and the sun even came out for a little bit so I picked Nicole up and we went back out for a couple hours. I caught several more on spinnerbaits and shakeyheads and she caught a couple smallmouth and a nice crappie on a little H2O crank. Unfortunately on the way home my truck started to shake really badly so we pulled over. When I got by the front passenger tire I could feel the heat coming off of it and the roater was superheated. Had to have the truck towed to the shop and my parents came and picked us up and pulled the boat home, not how I wanted to end my birthday weekend

Cedar Lake is very shallow and dirty. Fishing is tough but the ones you get will be nice ones, mostly 16"+ up to 7lbs. I mostly catch them on squarebills and beaverbaits in dark colors fished very slowly. Don't go more than about halfway down the lake from the ramp, you will get stuck in the mud even in the middle of the lake.

I have a Rage rod with the same ratings as the one you bought. I use mine for wacky rigs, grubs, light cranks and jerks, floating worms, and a ned rig. Just caught a good one on it today on the ned rig with half a zinker on a 1/16oz jighead, fun fight for sure.

That's funny! All I ever do with a grub is cast it out, maybe let it sink a little maybe not, and reel it in however fast I think I need to. It's boring at times but man it's effective on suspended fish eating shad.

They don't hook themselves for you do they? Sure the fish aren't as pressured and much dumber than they are in public waters but they're still fun to catch.

Went to a neighborhood pond for about an hour today to see if I could catch the last 11 fish I need to break 800 fish on the year before the end of April. I ended up at 806, all fish on a Ned Rig with a watermelon red Zinker. This fish was number 795, scale's broke after trying to weigh a flathead Monday but I'm guessing around 6.

Another vote for the Pluegar Supreme XT. Very nice reel and super light. I have the 35 size for the larger spool to help with longer casts and it feels lighter than my 2500 Symetre it replaced. You can't go wrong with Shimano or Pfluegar in that price range in my opinion.

Get some Gama EWG superline hooks, bet you don't bend any more hooks on the hookset.

Never had any luck using floating worms on shakeyheads. I use a lot of Zoom trick worms and magnum finesse worms and Netbait finesse worms along with 4" stickbaits.

Livers and stinky stuff works for eater channels and smaller blues but you won't catch many flatheads like that one on them. They're predators that eat live bait almost exclusively. Fresh cutbait can be good for them too. I like livebait because it attracts the larger fish of all 3 catfish species we have. They'll eat lures too, especially cranks and bottom contact baits. I had a nice flathead on a jig yesterday.

I've been using VMC short shank #6's with good success. Haven't had any more problems with the split rings and I've heard the hooks are better but I change my hooks out on almost all my new baits anyways so I can't say that's true or not.

Have not tried it out yet. I'm about to start sending my E7's to get supertuned one at a time and it will be standing in for them while they're getting worked on since I don't have a rod for it just yet. Think it's going to be my frogging reel. Took about 10 minutes to get ahold of her and she was turned back loose right after the pictures. We were wondering why we weren't getting any bass in that normally productive spot, I'm guessing that she had something to do with that

I'm guessing it just hit her on the nose and all she had to do was suck it in. I've caught a couple of flatheads on jigs before but this one was twice as big as any other I've caught on bass tackle.

Yeah, right about 2 hours. It's not a hard drive or anything, there just isn't a real straight shot to the lake so it takes a little longer.

Took a friend out to Wabunsee who had never been there before to try for some of the big fish that we caught last week. Did catch as many solid fish as last week but did get 4 that were keeper sized with this one being the biggest. Didn't get a weight on her but probably in the 4.5lb range. I couldn't weigh her because I broke my scale trying to weigh this guy. Using a 7' 1" Rage M/H with a 200E7 and 14lb Vicious Elite fluoro and one my homemade jigs in a 3/8oz size in Big "O" craw color. Didn't get her off the bottome of the boat before the scale chain broke but I've caught enough of them to feel comfortable calling her 40lbs. She wrecked my jig! It looks tiny in that huge mouth! Caught a pretty decent smallie on one of my jigs in watermelon color. It was a pretty steady day with the fish catching but just lots of small ones. I ended up with 45 bass and several other bonus fish. 2012 bass count=788

Took a friend out to Wabunsee who had never been there before to try for some of the big fish that we caught last week. Did catch as many solid fish as last week but did get 4 that were keeper sized with this one being the biggest. Didn't get a weight on her but probably in the 4.5lb range. I couldn't weigh her because I broke my scale trying to weigh this guy. Using a 7' 1" Rage M/H with a 200E7 and 14lb Vicious Elite fluoro and one my homemade jigs in a 3/8oz size in Big "O" craw color. Didn't get her off the bottome of the boat before the scale chain broke but I've caught enough of them to feel comfortable calling her 40lbs. She wrecked my jig! It looks tiny in that huge mouth! Caught a pretty decent smallie on one of my jigs in watermelon color. It was a pretty steady day with the fish catching but just lots of small ones. I ended up with 45 bass and several other bonus fish. 2012 bass count=788

Last time we stayed at Big Cedar it was very close to this time of year. I did really well on the bank just right across from their big dock on shakeyheads, actually caught a limit in the 14-15 pound range right there with a 5lb kicker on a wiggle wart. The cove that it's in has good fishing and so does the bluff bank on either side of the mouth of the cove. Shakeyheads, football jigs, swimming grubs, and wiggle warts should all be good.

Like Catt said, step up to at least 65lb braid, it just fishes better on casting equipment also IMO. I may have misunderstood your post but are you asking what to do once they bury in the grass, or what to do before they get in the grass? If they're not in the grass it's all out warfare. Dig your heels in and lean on that sucker because if you don't get it out of the grass you probably never will. However if they do get you there and bury up and stop fighting if you can get to them it's often better to just keep pressure on them and go dig them out of the grass. If they're through the grass and still pulling keep pulling back and hope that your line saws the grass before the grass saws your line.

It is a bass forum but many of us enjoy catching those "other fish" as much if not more than bass in some cases. That's why there's an "Other Fish" forum, just for such an occasion . Looks like you guys had a good time.

I had that 90 degree mold and didn't like it at all, wrong hooks like you said. I sold it and got the 60 degree mold and like it alot better. Plus I use the same head to make chatterbaits so it does double duty.

Split ring pliers, they're made specifically for what you are doing. I have a pair of Rapala longnose pliers that also have a tip for opening split rings that stay in the boat with me and I have a pair of Rapala split ring pliers with my fishing tackle in the garage.

I fish poppers very slowly in most of the clear water lakes that I fish. They will analyze the bait for a long time sometimes when they eat it. I like to use smaller poppers in natural colors and even clear at times. Sometimes in clear water a faster retrieve will work better but in those situations I usually switch to a walking bait. It's possible they just don't want to break the surface. You might try a floating worm or wacky rigged senko for those fish.