Bluebasser86

Depends on your definition of "stained" Most every lake I fish is stained in my book and I do really well with GP. I usually save watermelon colors for clear water. In stained to dirty water I like bright colors, white, chartruese, orange, or dark colors, GP, black, purple, blue. I keep my color selection pretty simple, especially with plastics and jigs.

Wake King shad, H2O 4" swimbait-good bait and very cheap so it's easier to talk yourself into fishing and buying it. Spro BBZ-1 has caught me some nice fish and isn't too expensive. 6" Hudds, Decoy Hydratail-another inexpensive bait that isn't too big so it isn't intimidating to fish when you're new to it. Optima makes some smaller baits that I really like also along with Castaic.

Nice work! That is a heck of a day for those conditions! I think most guys would have probably just stayed home instead.

The big one my friend caught was 3lbs 3ozs but we've caught them up to 5lbs. There's another lake about 40 minutes away that stocks monsters. The state record was broken twice there last year, first with an 11+lb fish then one over 12lbs. The edge of the water over my friends left shoulder is where they stock them. It seems early on a lot of them stay close but after a couple weeks they get spread out over the lake pretty well. It's a deep 400 acre lake so it takes awhile for them to get everywhere in the lake.

Trout season just opened up around here and the warm weather has also got the catfish starting to move around. One of the local lakes stocks tons of rainbows that are a blast to catch since they're usually the most aggressive thing out there in the cold water. Sunday I took my wife out so she could enjoy catching them. She caught several like this one on my secret trout bait I've been tying some trout jigs to take on a trip to the White River in Arkansas next week and thought this would be a perfect chance to test them out, I was right. The next day I took my friend and my dad out to the same lake, same spot. We caught trout about as fast as we could fight the last one in and get it unhooked. My friend caught a heck of a nice stocker trout, a big male on my secret trout lure Finally kanasbassfisher08 and I went to try the Kansas River to see if we could get a catfish to bite. We had lots of little bites but Chris caught the only fish. It turned out to be a really healthy channel cat in the 10-12 pound range.

Very cool looking fish. Bet that thing was a heck of fight!

What are you hoping/planning on catching fish on down there? I will be down there the 3rd week of May myself and it's one of my favorite times of year to be down there. Topwater like spooks and sammys can be really good early. Spinnerbaits can be really good. Pretty much any finesse tactic can catch fish, I prefer dropshotting and shakeyheads. Splitshotting is pretty popular too it seems. The A-rig has caught some amazing bags of fish recently. I really like a jig that time of year also. For the most part you'll want to stick to natural colors in your baits.

I'm thinking it's either a sauger or saugeye because of the dark blotches on it's side. They're a popular with fishermen because they're good to eat and the state uses them a lot to try to control shad and crappie populations. I went back out yesterday and caught 7 more of them, including one that would have been a keeper, probably 15-16 inches long and very fat. I may have stumbled onto something out there.

I'd go with a spinning reel, probably a 2500 or 3000 size reel on a 6' 6" or 7' medium/fast action rod. You could fish for most freshwater fish with that setup.

The guy is a machine, there is no doubt about that! I'm sure he's forgotten more about fishing than I'll ever know.

Push the point of the hook out of the other side of the worm just until the barb is almost out of the worm. I'm using a 6' 8" M/F with 8lb fluoro, and homemade ballheads with the corkscrew keeper and don't miss many fish with them. I set the hook as soon as I feel a fish. If you wait to long the worm will ball up in the fishes mouth and you'll set the hook back into the worm a lot of the time. Most shakeyhead worms are only 4-7 inches long, so it doesn't take a fish long at all to get the worm in it's mouth far enough to get the hook. Make sure you reel fast and keep tension on the fish after the hookset in case the hook isn't buried in to the barb. It shouldn't be your rod or line that is making you lose fish, it has to be happening because of something else.

We've had great weather for the last couple weeks, then it snowed yesterday and is in the low 40's today with high winds. Supposed to be 70 by Monday, have to love the weather in the Midwest!

That's awesome! You can't be mad at the little guy because it sounds like he will share your interest in fishing when he gets older. You can both laugh at it when he gets older too.

finesse jigs and suspending jerkbaits are my best baits right now. If I'm fishing deeper water a shakyhead with a finesse worm has been good too. It depends a lot on the the body of water you're fishing thought.

I have some 17" "bullwhip" worms. It's a giant handpoured C tail worm that I fish on an 11/0 owner hook. I've fished mine mainly at night in lakes in NE Kansas. I've had lots of fish bite at the tail but only ever hooked one fish. It was probably 6-7 pounds but came off at the boat. If you're just fishing for big fish they're a good option, otherwise a 12" worm is probably a better option.

A couple of my recent fishing trips! 3lb 14oz bass from the pond behind my work on a PINK! X-rap. Had to fish one just to see if I could get a fish to eat it. kanasbassfisher08 (Chris) and I were on the Kansas River trying for some catfish yesterday. Lots of bites but Chris was the only one to hookup. Turned out to be a really nice channel cat. A couple days ago a group of guys were on the river that had about a 3lb walleye they had caught. I'd never seen one from the river before but yesterday I caught one in my thrownet too. Got me thinking I should be tossing some artificials down there too!

Exactly! The rod is for moving the fish, the reel is just for collecting that line so you can move the fish again! 7.1 for all my jig fishing.

Yeah, need a little more info. I don't like the same rod and reel for traps that I use for cranks.

Lots of places online to get the stuff if you don't have a tackle store close by that carries the supplies. I buy some of my stuff from BPS and some from online stores. The melting pot and molds is the most expensive part. Once you get that stuff it isn't too expensive, especially if you get lead for free like I do

I catch more crappie every year fishing for bass with jerkbaits than I do on crappie baits. It's hard to get it to the bass if the conditions are right it seems like!

My dad is constantly checking the drag on his spinning reels. So every half hour or so I'll hear a spinning reel give drag in the back of the boat and turn around to see if he needs help with the fish I think he's just hooked just to find out he's checking his drag again, drives me crazy.

6' 8" would get my vote too. A couple extra inches to pick up more line on the hookset and a little more reach to help steer fish away from cover.

I like Yums pretty well, they just don't come in very many different colors if you're looking for a specific one.

I love the way they try to break my wrist when I'm fishing a jerkbait. I really enjoy finesse fishing too though and the tap-tap when one picks up a shakeyhead really gets me going too!

I've noticed that also on their newer baits that I've bought. I was changing out all the split rings but haven't had to recently.