Bluebasser86

Fish shallow and fish the rocks. I like the marina by the dam and the marina and rocks along the road in the arm on the northwest (rock creek marina I believe). The rocks along the road in slough Creek and Rock Creek there is a rock bank with a good channel swing with some stumps and logs close to the bank that holds nice fish. The cove that Slough Creek ramp is in has a point to the southeast of the ramp that has several brushpiles that are submerged. If you can find them they usually have fish in them. I like dark colored plastics, flipping tubes, baby and full sized brush hogs are some of my favorites. Spinnerbaits, squarebills, and traps can also be good. Cranks are fun because you can get into the white bass and saugeyes at times also. If all else fails the crappie should be biting well out there also.

Miami usually isn't that clear anyways, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Plus it hasn't been a cold rain so it shouldn't have lowered the water temps much if at all. They love a jig, trap, and squarebill down there, all good dirty water baits.

There's also the Havoc Grass Pigs by Berkley. I'm quickly becoming a believer in these baits. Put them on a swimbait jighead or keel weighted hook, cast them out and reel slowly or fish them like a swim jig and hold on! My friend did really good with one on the back of a spinnerbait the other day too. Haven't tried one on an A-rig but I'm sure they'd be great.

Man, during the spawn down there too, that really sucks! Maybe take up lure making and build yourself some jigs for when the water comes back down?

We must have just stumbled onto the fish when we were out there. We fished Bull one day last week and wore them out. A-rig and shakeyheads was killing them. We weren't catching monsters but solid 2-4 pound keepers all day. Seemed like the gravel and small rock points had the most quality fish on them and they were eating the rig. Chunk rock 45 degree banks had lots of keepers on them with the shakeyheads. Our biggest fish came from the back of small pockets on the A-rigs.

Not sure why they'd be casting much different. It's possible he may not have his reel set properly. A properly set reel will far outperform a reel that isn't set properly.

Trion is a great reel for the money. I also have a 1000 Symetre, I wouldn't consider it ultralight but it is a great little reel. I have a couple of the Shimano Sedona 750's and they are great little reels for the money.

You almost had to change the settings on the reel or you had really heavy mono on that was coming off like a slinky or something. I'd rather use the spinning reel for lighter stuff and the casting rod for heavier baits.

Mono, copoly, or flouro. Mono for most topwaters, some jerks and cranks. copoly for the same things at times. Flouro for deep running cranks or jerks.

Yeah I busted a hub on the trailer last week on the way home from Clinton, MO. I picked up the new hub today so I just have to get it put together and get it on the trailer. Might be able to just float it off the trailer in the driveway if it keeps raining like it has been.

Sounds like Miami State Lake has been hot lately. La Cygne is really hit or miss. You get it on a good day you can light them up, pick the wrong day and you might not get a bite. Most of the smaller state and city lakes are good right now with the warming water temps.

Retro, have you ever fished Spring Creek Lake? It's a tiny little lake just southeast of Baldwin City but there is some really nice fish in it. It isn't a numbers lake but the quality is there. We fished in the rain from 7am-5pm Monday and caught some really nice fish pond hopping.

Beat me to it, I was going to say an arrow. Corn and worms are both good carp bait that are easy to get. Corn is probably best. Toss a couple handfuls where you're going to fish if chumming is legal and put a couple kernals on a small hook. Cast it out on a carolina rig, slip sinker set up and wait. Later in the summer if you can find any kind of fruit trees that are dropping fruit into the lake that's a sure bet to get some carp to bite. Mulberry trees get loaded with fruit and swarmed by carp when they start dropping around here.

We caught several on topwater here in N.E. Kansas today, buzzbaits and poppers. 55 seems to be the magic temp around here but it doesn't get good until it gets to 60.

Rained on us all day yesterday, so much so I had to switch rain gear halfway through because my first pair was getting saturated and I couldn't keep the bottoms up high enough, felt like I was sagging my pants I still managed a couple good fish despite the rain mixed with occasional lightening and heavy winds. First one was from a walk in fishing area pond on a spinnerbait. Didn't weigh her but at 17.5" and really fat I'm sure she was around 3 1/4 to 3 1/2. Biggest one of the day was on the same spinnerbait about 5 minutes before we had to call it a day. Saw her swirl in the middle of the pond and she was all over my spinnerbait as soon as it hit the water. This one I didn't get a length but she went 5lbs 3ozs on the scales. Would have been nice without the rain but we whacked the fish all day so I can't really complain. 2012 bass count-351

Man, the fish are biting good at Miami and here I am with a broken down boat trailer At least you guys are getting them. That 6.5 is the biggest fish I've heard of anyone catching out of there actually, very healthy looking fish!

I'd get a Shimano in a 500 or 750 size. If it were me I'd go with a Sedona 750. I've got a couple of them and they are great little reels and don't break the bank.

Get a headlamp for tying knots, unhook fish, ect. Other than that try to use the moonlight,streetlight as much as possible. Your eyes will adjust to the dark if you don't use lights too much. The blacklights are alright but I'm fishing baits I can feel at night anyways so I don't really need to see much. As long as I can see the shoreline and know the lake pretty well. It's amazing how turned around you can get on a lake you think you know when it gets dark out.

I need a swimbait reel and was thinking about giving one a try. I don't toss any monster baits, a 6" Hudd or BBZ is the biggest thing I'd be throwing and our bass don't get huge here. Looks like it has pretty good reviews on BPS website but never can tell if anyone commenting on there knows much about what they're talking about I'd like a 300 Curado but I just don't know if I can swing anything that expensive for awhile and my 400 Calcutta is a beast to fish with all day.

Don't know how I forgot about them, I just put over 30 fish in the boat with one 3 days ago . Very good baits and they casts way better than the old rogues. I replace the hooks on mine but they got the split rings taken care of them now so the hooks are the only tweaking you have to do.

I've got one really old rogue that was a Kevin Van Dam signature series when he first started fishing professionally and he was sponsered by Smithwick instead of Strike King. That's the only way I can tell it's vintage though.

What he said. This only applies to larger fish though, small bluegills will all have the washed out look but that fish is big enough it would have changed to the brighter colors if it was a male.

They will usually spawn in protected areas near the shoreline. How deep they spawn will depend on water clarity, might be a foot, might be 20 feet. I like soft plastics fished around cover for spawning fish but a spinnerbait or swimbait cast into likely spawning areas will find a few fish too. Docks are one of my favorite areas to fish for spawners because it seems like one of their favorite places to spawn. Fish on beds aren't always easy to catch. Don't get discouraged but pay very close attention to how fish react to certain baits and presentations. Sometimes if you find something that works on one fish it will work on most of them, sometimes you have to do something different for each fish. Pay close attention to each fish if you can see one on the bed. They'll each have their own "personality" sometimes and you'll have to do something different and push the right buttons to get a bite. Bed fishing takes a lot of practice to get good at.

After months of planning and a couple more months of waiting my friend Jon, his son Chris, and I finally got a chance to hit the White River in an attempt to catch a brown trout. I've had more luck catching muskie than I have brown trout up to this point. We were supposed to meet a guide but we had a couple hours to kill beforehand so we put the boat in the water at Whitehole and started messing around. The water wasn't hardly moving so I was tossing a small 65 pointer when less than 30 minutes into the trip I got what I'd been looking for, my first brown trout! It's not a giant in size but it was a huge feeling of accomplisment for me! A few casts later I got another one on the same bait. By the time our guide got there it had been raining pretty steady for about an hour, it didn't stop until almost 6pm and it rained really hard most of the day. The fishing was tough and I caught the only brown trout while we were fishing with the guide, it was also the only brown we caught that didn't hit a jerkbait. Now for the crazy part. We are a couple miles downstream from the boat ramp when our guide tells us that we are going to motor back up by the ramp and try a deeper hole. As we motor though a fairly deep hole (for the white river anyways, maybe 5 feet) the motor hits a rock, jumps off the back of the boat and sinks! I managed to grab the fuel line and by some miracle it stayed connected and I was able to haul the motor off the bottom of the river and help the guide lift it back into the boat. Our guide was an older gentleman, probably around 70 and he was really concerned at how we were going to get back at this point, since the motor was obviously not an option anymore. Thankfully Jon and I had our waders on so we waited to drift to a shallower spot and hopped in and started walking and dragging. What felt like 10 miles was probably only 2 miles before we reached water deep enough that I could get my boat to the guides boat and haul him the rest of the way in. After that little adventure we decided to head to the cabin and put dry clothes on before hitting the river again. Chris opted to stay because he was tired of being wet, can't say I blamed him. So Jon and I headed back out. It wasn't long after we got back on the water before Jon finally connected with his first ever brown trout. The picture is a little blurry and yes we are as tired as we look, we'd both been up for almost 2 days at this point in the trip. As it was getting dark I had a flurry of browns on a 97 slender pointer. . The next day was much nicer weather and I got to work quickly, catching a small brown on the slender pointer. Chris caught the biggest rainbow of the trip on a 78 pointer, he never did get a brown though. Then I caught what I thought was another rainbow until I looked closer. Then I saw that I had just caught my first ever cutthroat trout. They were generating a lot more this day so we went upriver a bit to where we could see some laydowns to toss our baits at them. One of the first logjams, my Erratic shad got slammed and I catch the biggest brown of the trip, a beautiful 18.5" fish. It made me regret leaving the bait in for the picture, right after it was taken it flopped and jammed a hook into the side of my ring finger. Thankfully it was shallow and when it flopped again it ripped right back out. I'm getting a replica of this one made as it was one of the prettiest freshwater fish I've ever seen. This trip was a wonderful time and some of the best scenery I've ever seen. If you've never been I'd highly suggest going sometime!

I really like the Erratic shads, X-raps are alright, not my favorite but they will catch fish. The old rogues are probably the best bait to cost ratio you can get for jerkbaits.