Bluebasser86

Nice shooting at that distance with open sights, I'd have a rough time even seeing a deer that far away without binoculars or a scope

Both very nice fish. I have yet to catch a big walleye, I've caught them up to 5lbs but I'd like to get one of the 8+ pound fish that get caught around here every spring.

I think it's because the water is so far down out there. It seems that lake is at it's best when the water is up in the water willows and shoreline trees. Since it's so shallow a lot of them probably pull off the bank on hidden stumps and edges. Plus less water means less places for the millions of shad to go. Last time I went you could have almost walked on the shad in the river and the 3 fish we caught were so stuffed they probably didn't really need to eat anything. We hit Pleasanton Monday and they were eating a spinnerbait like they'd never seen one. Water is way down there too and the bigger fish were no where to be found but the fish up to about 2.5lbs were slamming spinnerbaits, poppers, and Havoc Pitbosses. My wife had big fish of the day with about a 3lb catfish on a spinnerbait

I use a telescopic one by Frabil and it has paid for itself so many times over, not just retrieving my lures but also getting other peoples lures out of trees. For deep water the paper clip and sinker or old spark plug works well also and if you don't get it back you aren't out much.

Some swimbait guys spraypaint their own hooks white to hide them better with the bait. I don't know how long it would last but it would be easy to do and inexpensive and you wouldn't have to change to different type of hook than what you usually use.

I don't think the main issue here is livebait, I think it's the fact that it was a 12 year old that caught the fish. Fishing livebait makes catching fish easier, and making it easier is a good thing to help get kids hooked on fishing. We have to do our best to pass this sport down to future generations and blasting a kid for using livebait is for sure not the right way to do it. Personally, keeping livebait alive is too much of a hassle for bass fishing but if someone else wants to use it, then that's up to them.

If they aren't doing anything to break the laws, then they aren't doing anything wrong. I'm strictly catch and release but if I didn't have a job and had to feed my family, I wouldn't think twice about keeping any legal size fish to make sure they had something to eat. Most lakes have limited shoreline access, when people keep all the fish they'll eventually fish most of the fish out of that area. In a 100 acre lake there should be plenty of other spots that hold fish that will be out of their reach. If they're breaking the law though, report them.

Last time I got skunked was probably 6 or 7 years ago on a really tough neighborhood lake. I fish a lot but the lakes I fish usually produce good numbers of fish so the chances of getting skunked go way down.

I don't run much, bad knees, but I do throw the frisbee for our sheltie quite a bit. If I don't do it she drives me crazy bringing a tennis ball to me so I can throw it across the living room. After about 20 minutes of that I just give in and go throw the frisbee for about 5 minutes and she's done. I walk her once in awhile but she's still a puppy and gets spooked pretty easy and I don't want her to run out into traffic.

I use the same rod. It's super light so it doesn't wear your wrist out and fights fish very well. Plus I'm not slapping the water all the time like I would with a longer rod.

I upgrade most of my hooks right out of the box. I save the old hooks and put them on baits I find so I can give them to my friends kids to use. If I can get away with upsizing I will. Some baits, like poppers and jerkbaits, it's best to stick with the closest hook to the stock hook you can find.

You're right, something in the water is making the hooks rust if I don't dry them off. I always leave my baits out to let them dry. It only takes about 10 minutes to dry completely, but it takes a whole lot longer to replace a bunch of crankbait hooks

Thanks guys! I heard from a local guide who said there was 3 tournaments on Table Rock last weekend and we would have won any of them with the fish we were catching, even the guides couldn't find them Wish I would have known about them, would have been nice to take some extra money home

If I don't let my baits dry a little before putting them up the hooks rust also. It's mainly if they are cheap hooks or hooks with some feathers that hold the water longer. I doubt I'm getting much brackish water in Kansas though

I was at Pomme Monday 10/3 from 7:30 to 7:30. We fished mostly for bass but tossed some bucktails for muskie early and late also. The bass would eat anything as long as it was a shakeyhead on a steep rock or bluff wall in the Lindley arm. We ended up with 44 fish, 14 of those being keepers. All fish were on shakeyheads with trick worms in various colors except for 1 on a jig and 1 on a spinnerbait. Lost one next to the boat that would have kept on a fat free shad. Only managed 1 short in 3 hours of trying in the Pomme arm. No real solid fish, biggest was 15 1/2 inches. My friend broke off a good fish though and missed a couple good bites on a jig. My friend also had a follow and one hit on a bucktail but didn't connect on either.

I wouldn't want to use one rod for all of the baits you've listed. I have a different rod for cranks, one for rattlebaits, and one for ripbaits. If I had to pick one for everything it would be a 6' 6" M/M of whatever make rod you like.

I like them really well but like others have said they don't fish well around cover, but when I'm dropshotting a 4" worm on 6lb test I'm usually not around real heavy cover.

Super spook jr or fluke. If they stop surfacing as soon as I start moving the boat towards them then I'll run a grub through the area.

Excalibur XR50 or XRK50 in ghost or red craw.

That's what I was thinking. I really want to try one of them but not if they're going to do that Of course unless I stick a big catfish I won't be setting into anything like that around here!

I've done it several times. I like it when I get snagged and as soon as it pops loose it gets hammered!

I'm within an hour drive of 2 powerplant lakes that both have good fishing for a variety of fish, so I never pack it in. About the only thing that limits me is wind because they both get really rough when the wind starts blowing. They don't even let you on one of them if it's over 20mph, which it is a lot around here.

Got back from Table Rock and Pomme late Monday night. Table Rock was Table Rock and Pomme was Pomme. We started off fast on Table Rock Saturday morning with me catching a short spot on my second cast with a grub and then a keeper largemouth about 10 minutes later on a wart. Chris (kanasbassfisher08) caught a keeper largemouth on a shakeyhead and we caught a few more shorts of all 3 species before the sun got up. Once the sun got up and the wind died completely it got tough. I caught a short spot on a sammy (our only topwater fish all weekend) and a keeper largemouth on a shakeyhead. Chris stuck a good fish on a jig that got hung in a tree on the way up. The way he could lift it a little ways and it would stop you could tell it was on an old line. I tried and tried with my lure retriever to get it loose. Finally on a desperate attempt to just catch the line I caught something and pulled and felt a line pop. I lifted and swung in about 15 feet of line, an old jig, and Chris' keeper smallmouth that weighed 2lbs 9oz. It got really tough from there. We tried to run to Cedar cove when my boat went into alarm because the outboard was overheating. We limped to a point and could see nothing wrong. We weren't far from Big Cedar Lodge so we putted to the docks there but they don't work on boats. Thankfully one guy had the number to someone who does work on boats and he was nice enough to listen and answer our questions. He said it sounded like my thermastat was stuck and was an easy fix and not expensive. It took about an hour to get back to the ramp at idle speed but we finally got to Bass Pro in Branson and they took a look at it. It was the thermastat but they didn't have one and neither did the 5 or 6 other shops he called. Luckily BPS in Springfield did have one so we hit the road and got the part. Back on the lake it continued to be tough but at least my motor was working. We scratched out a couple more shorts before hitting a bluff wall we'd caught a could keepers off of earlier. It was getting dark and cold but we could see pretty well with the light bluff wall and half moon. I flipped a jig next to a tree and turned to say something to Chris when a fish about yanked the rod out of my hands. After a pretty good tussle to keep it out of the cedars I swung my biggest smallmouth of the trip in, 3lbs 3oz. We ended day 1 with 15 fish, 7 of those being keepers. Day 2 started terrible. 38 degrees and fog so thick we could hardly see the trolling motor. In the first 3 hours we caught 5 fish, no keepers. I was tired of picking the spots so Chris scrolled around the topo map on my depthfinder and found a spot he liked. Someone else liked it too and was already fishing it when we got there so we hit a different area close by. Soon after getting there some fish started busting shad. We caught a few short spots throwing grubs but nothing even close to keeping. I noticed a large standing tree out in the middle of the cove in about 40 feet of water so I dropped a spoon down next to it. It barely sank out of sight when my line jumped and I stopped the spool with my thumb and set the hook into our first keeper spot of the day. As I fought it up about 15 or 20 others chased it. I dropped a grub down with the first one still on and doubled on keeper spots. The school disappeared quickly so we ran back to the bluff we'd done well on the day before. I quickly caught another keeper spot on a jig. A couple more shorts and then I got thumped hard on a jig and stuck a good fish. She jumped like a smallmouth and fought really well before I lipped her. 20" 4lb 6oz largemouth was our biggest at Table Rock. I wish every fish that I caught on a jig ate it this good! We ended day 2 with 16 fish and 5 keepers. We caught fish on several different baits but a jig was by far our best bait for keepers and numbers. Pomme was fun, lots and lots of fish but no big fish. We ended the day at Pomme with 44 fish and 14 keepers but the biggest was only a 15 1/2 inch largemouth. Chris had one muskie follow a bucktail to the boat and another hit his bucktail when he wasn't paying attention and missed it. I couldn't get any love from the toothy fish. Trip was a lot of fun and Chris got to learn a lot about fishing deep, clear water like he was hoping to.

Got back from Table Rock and Pomme late Monday night. Table Rock was Table Rock and Pomme was Pomme. We started off fast on Table Rock Saturday morning with me catching a short spot on my second cast with a grub and then a keeper largemouth about 10 minutes later on a wart. Chris (kanasbassfisher08) caught a keeper largemouth on a shakeyhead and we caught a few more shorts of all 3 species before the sun got up. Once the sun got up and the wind died completely it got tough. I caught a short spot on a sammy (our only topwater fish all weekend) and a keeper largemouth on a shakeyhead. Chris stuck a good fish on a jig that got hung in a tree on the way up. The way he could lift it a little ways and it would stop you could tell it was on an old line. I tried and tried with my lure retriever to get it loose. Finally on a desperate attempt to just catch the line I caught something and pulled and felt a line pop. I lifted and swung in about 15 feet of line, an old jig, and Chris' keeper smallmouth that weighed 2lbs 9oz. It got really tough from there. We tried to run to Cedar cove when my boat went into alarm because the outboard was overheating. We limped to a point and could see nothing wrong. We weren't far from Big Cedar Lodge so we putted to the docks there but they don't work on boats. Thankfully one guy had the number to someone who does work on boats and he was nice enough to listen and answer our questions. He said it sounded like my thermastat was stuck and was an easy fix and not expensive. It took about an hour to get back to the ramp at idle speed but we finally got to Bass Pro in Branson and they took a look at it. It was the thermastat but they didn't have one and neither did the 5 or 6 other shops he called. Luckily BPS in Springfield did have one so we hit the road and got the part. Back on the lake it continued to be tough but at least my motor was working. We scratched out a couple more shorts before hitting a bluff wall we'd caught a couple keepers off of earlier. It was getting dark and cold but we could see pretty well with the light bluff wall and half moon. I flipped a jig next to a tree and turned to say something to Chris when a fish about yanked the rod out of my hands. After a pretty good tussle to keep it out of the cedars I swung my biggest smallmouth of the trip in, 3lbs 3oz. We ended day 1 with 15 fish, 7 of those being keepers. Day 2 started terrible. 38 degrees and fog so thick we could hardly see the trolling motor. In the first 3 hours we caught 5 fish, no keepers. I was tired of picking the spots so Chris scrolled around the topo map on my depthfinder and found a spot he liked. Someone else liked it too and was already fishing it when we got there so we hit a different area close by. Soon after getting there some fish started busting shad. We caught a few short spots throwing grubs but nothing even close to keeping. I noticed a large standing tree out in the middle of the cove in about 40 feet of water so I dropped a spoon down next to it. It barely sank out of sight when my line jumped and I stopped the spool with my thumb and set the hook into our first keeper spot of the day. As I fought it up about 15 or 20 others chased it. I dropped a grub down with the first one still on and doubled on keeper spots. The school disappeared quickly so we ran back to the bluff we'd done well on the day before. I quickly caught another keeper spot on a jig. A couple more shorts and then I got thumped hard on a jig and stuck a good fish. She jumped like a smallmouth and fought really well before I lipped her. 20" 4lb 6oz largemouth was our biggest at Table Rock. I wish every fish that I caught on a jig ate it this good! We ended day 2 with 16 fish and 5 keepers. We caught fish on several different baits but a jig was by far our best bait for keepers and numbers. Pomme was fun, lots and lots of fish but no big fish. We ended the day at Pomme with 44 fish and 14 keepers but the biggest was only a 15 1/2 inch largemouth. Chris had one muskie follow a bucktail to the boat and another hit his bucktail when he wasn't paying attention and missed it. I couldn't get any love from the toothy fish. Trip was a lot of fun and Chris got to learn a lot about fishing deep, clear water like he was hoping to.

I'm headed to the Rock either Friday night or Saturday morning. Going to do that for the weekend and then Pomme Monday to try and get a muskie. Sounds like the fishing has been good both places so hopefully it stays that way.