Bluebasser86

Any time I try fishing for carp, I never catch them. I wish I had a good place to catch some smaller ones for catfish bait. They're everywhere in our lakes, but I can sit on the bank with crawlers or corn for hours and I'll only catch catfish, bluegills, and drum.

I have 2 sets of the exact same shirts and pants from Academy because I like them and found them on clearance. Nobody has said anything yet, but I'm sure they're always thinking that I'm just dirty all the time, wearing the same dirty clothes in the tournament I wore for prefishing the day before.

If you're going to wait 5 hours for your first bite, at least make it a good one 🤣 40lb blue on cut carp. 5 minutes after she swam off, this 20lb flathead ate my sunfish.

Had my final regular season tournament of the year last Saturday on El Dorado Lake, KS. Historically one of the more difficult lakes on the schedule each year but those are usually the type that I do pretty good at. About a 7k acre lake, very shallow and typically dirty with a decent amount of timber, all 3 of the main species of bass, and a few pretty large creeks that all hold fish. It also has vast amounts of water that seem to be barren and the wind never seems to stop blowing there. For a little bit of a plot twist this time, the wind was actually suppose to be reasonable and the water was clearer than I'd ever seen it on the main lake. I prefished my favorite creek, had several bites but only swung on 2 just to get a judge of size then left for the main lake. I actually struggled in the marina, but when I got out on the lake, I got on a pretty good bite for smallmouth in the wind on main lake points with topwater and spinnerbaits. I thought I could get maybe mid 80's if I got lucky doing that and avoid the crowds in the creeks. Problem was, Saturday's forecast was for 5mph wind, not what I needed to fire up these shallow smallmouth. So I opted to try my luck in the creeks. Saturday was chilly as I hauled my kayak and gear down the steep 10' dirt incline to the water. To my surprise, nobody else ever showed up. I figured I'd have a limit in the first hour with nobody else there. I started picking apart the huge logjam under the bridge where I'd shook a couple fish off the day before when I saw lights rounding the bed of the creek. The AOY leader had launched at the mouth of the creek and picked his way through the minefield of stumps and and shallow flats to get back to the creek instead of pushing in from the embankment like I had. We talked for a moment and he started fishing back into the creek as I tried to remind myself I was lucky that there was only 1 person in there with me. I picked apart the entire logjam and to my surprise, got nothing. In fact, I fished all the productive laydowns and stumps at the launch from the day before and got nothing. Disappointed, I started to follow Scott back into the creek. I finally caught a fish off a laydown, but it was short of the 12" minimum. A few yards further down the bank, I had one hit my T-rig so hard in a beaver dam that it threw slack in my line. I expected a monster, but almost 45 minutes in, I was happy with the 16.25" fish. I was moving very slowly and picking everything apart. I rounded the bend and Scott was already around the next one and out of site. I pitched to a shallow laydown and had barely detectable pressure. I swung and had a 17-20 inch fish wallowing on the surface instantly. She bulldogged to the boat as I reached with the net, right as she popped off and was gone. I knew bites were going to be difficult, so losing a big one hurt even worse than normal. I fished on up to the next bend and picked apart a nasty tree when I got a light pull down bite. I hammered the hook into another big fish that rocketed out of the tree, and came off just like the last one. Another 17+ inch fish that just popped off a Texas rig for no apparent reason. I felt sick to my stomach but had to just keep going. A couple cast later I caught a 14.75" fish off a laydown next to the same tree. Good to have 2, but all I could think was I should have 4 with 2 big fish already. As I went around the next bend, I caught another small fish, 13", and saw Scott heading back out of the creek. Right as I saw him, he hammered his rod back into what proved to be one of the thickest 20" bass I've ever seen. I congratulated him on his catch and he told me that was his first of the day. We passed each other near the back of the creek. I fished the rest of the way back with only a missed bite to show for it. I decided to switch the bait on my T-rig and fish back out. Shortly after I started back out, I caught a 15.75" fish from a shallow laydown. I fished all the way back out of the creek, and caught another 15" fish that filled my limit, but I still needed to cull most all of them out and was seriously considering loading up and going to the main lake because the wind was blowing way harder than 5mph. Then I saw Scott motoring out of the creek, I had it all to myself now, it was making my decision even harder. I pulled my motor and pedals and floated around the logjam, fishing and trying to make up my mind. I'd gone almost completely around the logjam and had pretty much decided to leave, when I got a light tap next to a root wad and my line ran down the side of the logs. A big head wallowed out when I set the hook as I pleaded with the fish to get in the net. She cooperated with me and I put a 19" fish on the board, and I wasn't leaving anymore. This one culled my 13 inch fish. Re-energized, I switched baits again and immediately caught a 15" fish that culled me up a quarter inch. I got back into the creek and pulled up to the nasty tree again, picking it apart with my tube. I pulled it over a limb and a fish swirled as soon as it sank. I whacked her and instantly had the fish on the surface. The hook had gone clear through the top lip and stuck around a limb on the way out. For a split second she stuck there on the limb, then shook loose and just sat there for a second on the surface so I could get a good look, before she sunk out of site again. I was stunned, 3 big fish lost and no explanation for how or why. Some days, it's just not your day is all I could think. I got all the way to the back of the creek with no more bites. I switched baits again to a blue Rage Bug and fished back out. Things really spiraled at this point. I had 4 or 5 bites on the way back out of the creek, 2 felt like heavy fish, but I never even poked one of them. I fished around the logjam, my nerves worn as they could get, then I got snagged and broke off with 20 minutes left. I wanted to quit, I wanted to just go home, but I grabbed my other T-rig rod and pulled the bait off it and put a black and blue Rage Bug on. I was going to put the trolling motor on and just flip as much as I could of my good stuff on the way back into the creek until time ran out. As soon as I started back into the creek, I pitched into the beaver dam and got tapped. The hook actually did it's job this time and a scooped a 17.25" to cull a 15. I jumped back up and quickly caught another short. Less than 15 minutes, I was dropping my bait by anything I could see. A lone stump I hadn't got bit off all day was sitting on a flat. Dropped my bait and the line took off immediately. I flipped the fish in the boat and the 16" fish culled out a 15.25". I had 10 minutes left and took it to the final bell, but that would be my last bite. Found out at weigh in, if I'd have landed any of those other big ones, I would have won. Conversely, the guy that won, caught his 21" big bass of the tournament, with less than a minute left in the day. The championship is the last weekend of the month. It's a 2 day tournament on the smallmouth lake I fish all the time with my family, so we'll see how that goes. Last weekend I went out on the river fishing for big uglies. Got a 40lb blue and a 20lb flathead 5 minutes apart from each other after nothing for 5 hours.

We’re in the “In between”. We’re In between summer and fall but it isn’t really either one. September is historically the worst month of the year for me that isn’t the winter months. The fish are scattered everywhere and heavily pressured, baitfish are plentiful, lakes start to turn, it’s rough.

I’m lost, why do you need the fish to move? If you know it’s there, set the hook?

I have 2 double sided Plano boxes that have assorted gear and one small, double sided Plano with terminal gear. I have 3 bags of soft plastics divided into flipping/creatures/tubes, worms/finesse, and Ned baits. The top slide outs have trailers, dyes, specialty hooks, baits I plan to use that day, and a couple other misc. items. I keep everything pretty generic in the boxes and bags, but always add items I feel are needed for specific trips to try to keep clutter down. My crate is a Hart rolling tool box.

I like the baby brush hog and full size brush hog. Kind of an in between that gets overlooked by a lot of people but is one of my favorites for flipping, especially for big fish, is a Big Bite Baits Craw Tube in Hematoma. Kind of a tube, kind of a creature, kind of a craw, 100% a fish catcher.

I’ll always offer but I’ve seen enough times that 2 people in the same boat are fishing the same thing and one is catching while the other is blanking that I would really have to be struggling to go to the exact same thing. Happened Tuesday in the tournament with my buddy. I had struggled all night with a couple shorts while he had 2 solid keepers in the box. Instead of tying on a bluegill bladed jig like he was using, I went to my solid blue and ended up added 2 keepers of my own behind him. I doubt I would have caught those fish if I’d gone to the exact same thing because he never got another bite after I switched. Something changed and they wanted the different color.

I fish a Ned through weeds and wood that would shock most. Ned searches out weeds to target in most of his fishing trips and has lamented the states war against aquatic vegetation and its detrimental effect on our lakes in many of his reports. If you can find the tiniest space to fish one, they’ll pluck fish right out of those weeds if you’re willing to deal with the headache of cleaning weeds. I don’t think it’s probably worth the hassle from your reports though, doesn’t seem you have any issue getting bit on standard presentations.

They’re her favorite. She loves fishing a Ned so it makes sense. She somehow managed to only catch smallmouth Sunday too while I also caught drum, crappie, catfish, sunfish, and a spotted bass but fished a Ned way less 🤷🏼‍♂️

Took the family to the lake Sunday to meet my MIL with her pontoon and jetski. We got there a little before the rest of the group and caught some fish before they showed up. Once they were there, the kids hopped onto the pontoon to go swimming with their cousins. It was triple digit heat indexes but not awful with a good amount of wind blowing. Mrs. Blue and I had the rare chance to get out and fish by ourselves and the fish were more than willing to bite despite the heat. Not a lot of bigger fish, but lots of biters and hard pullers.

It was a good week. I took the family for a few hours Sunday and caught a bunch of smallmouth too.

Tuesday I met up with my good buddy Jon for an evening boat buddy tournament. Fishing is historically very difficult there, not unusual for a single 2lb fish to win, and he’d told me it was holding up to its reputation recently. Not expecting much, the lake held its own for the first hour, producing only 4 small fish that were well short of the 15” minimum. I was starting to feel like we’d be lucky to get a keeper as we ran to a new spot when we noticed that our favorite area had opened up, so we headed back to it. The usual stretch didn’t produce, but as we fished up the other side, Jon slowly leaned back into his bladed jig rod and what he thought was grass, started pulling back. I was ready with the net and we quickly had a very solid keeper in the box. I hopped into the back and went to make a cast when on his very next cast, Jon leaned into another one. Almost an exact replica of the first, things we’re looking up quickly. We decided this was our home for the remaining couple hours and started picking it apart. I caught a just barely short on a frog before we went across the cove and started worked back to where we had originally pulled into the cove at. As we did, we both noticed a sizeable wake pushing bait along the shallow grass line. I switched my bladed jig from green pumpkin to my favorite all blue as the sunlight faded and we neared the hunting fish. We were really working that area when a fish stopped my bait as hard as one has in a while. It wanted to jump bad but I buried the rod long enough for Jon to get the net and we put a third in the box. In the last 10 minutes, we were fishing through where Jon caught his keepers when my bladed jig got smacked again. I saw a flash and it looked small so I called Jon off with the net. When I swung it in, it was obvious I shouldn’t have and the board made it more clear when it stretched over the line. We had a good laugh about it as we headed for the ramp. Of the 13 boats, only 5 other fish were weighed and only one boat had 2 fish for 4.5 pounds. Our 4 were good for almost 9 pounds and the win!

Last Saturday was another stop for the Kansas Kayak Anglers tournament circuit, this time it was a roadrunner format. I thought it was the same as last year's format, but found out a month ago that it wasn't. Instead, this year we were allowed to fish any state lake in Kansas. This threw a major wrench in my plan because our state lakes are mostly terrible and especially the ones close to my area. I had time to prefish a couple of them leading up to the event and settled on Montgomery State Lake near Independence, KS as my destination despite having only ever fished the lake once just 2 weeks before. I camped near one of the ramps the night before and the "30% chance of storms", turned into wild thunderstorms with torrential downpours, high winds, excessive lightning, even hail, for about 6 hours straight. Everything in my tent was soaked and I got very little sleep. At least the storms had mostly passed by launch and there was only distant flashes by the time first cast came at 6AM. 2 other guys had chosen to fish the lake also but launched from a different ramp so I didn't know who they were. I started fishing right at the ramp and just a few cast into the morning with my bladed jig, I caught a 15.75". I fished around the cove a little and ended up catching a small limit, which was a surprise for me as my first trip I was averaging about a bite a hour and it wasn't even 7 when I caught my 5th fish. The lake is shallow and dirty with weeds all around it. I had heard lots of fish in the very shallow weeds, so I ran a toad between some cattails and water willows and got one to suck it down. A little better fish at 16.75" The lake had probably dropped a foot since I fished it the first time 2 weeks ago and a lot of the weeds I'd caught them in then were barely in the water, so I was really struggling. It had become clear that I didn't know the other 2 fishermen on the lake, but they knew each other. I was right across the small lake from them when I swear I heard one of them exclaim to the other "I just caught another 20!" Not what I was wanting to hear. I needed to make a change because the size had gone way down on the fish. So I took off the now useless frog that I had put on, I tied on a spinnerbait. Not ideal to fish a spinnerbait on a 7' 3" H/F with 65lb braid, but I didn't have high hopes for it in the 90* water anyways. So my second cast, it got slammed and she jumped as high as I've ever seen a fish that size get. Really glad I had a trailer hook because it wasn't hooked great, but I still got the 20.50" fish in the net and on the board. I caught several more small fish, including a small cull, but nothing like I needed. There is a pretty sizeable creek that I'd caught some fish out of in practice, but the bites I got were in the back. So I cranked the motor on high and ran to the back of the creek. Once I got there, I skipped my Texas rig into a big laid down tree. I hadn't caught anything out of it before, but this time, there was a little pressure when I picked up, and a big head came wallowing out when I set the hook. I kept her up and moving so she couldn't get back in the tree and slid the net under her. That was one of the only bites I got back there, but at 19", it was worth the effort. I fished around for the next couple hours and didn't catch much. My wife did her normal lunchtime check in that has a history of bringing me luck, and this time was no different. I flipped my T-rig into the grass and got thumped. Had to get off the phone so I could take the pictures of the 17 incher. I felt like I was close, but I still had a 15.75" I wanted to get rid of. I had some really good bites on the T-rig one lay downs, but they would just whack it and drop it for some reason. In the last 30 minutes, I ran to the same spot I caught my big one and ran a bladed jig across the grass line. I had a big fish load on. I set and she was immediately on the top, shook her head, and came off. That would be the last bite I'd get and proved to be the difference between me and the other guy on the lake that was doing a little better. Turns out they both lived right by the lake and fish it all the time. His buddy that also fishes it all the time, managed a single 10.25" fish, holding up to it's reputation as a lake with big fish that are difficult to catch.

Skipping bladed jigs under docks and overhanging trees has been a solid pattern for me lately.

I think I had 3 of them at one point? For sure still have one, too good of a bait not to own one.

The topwater I have is very nice. It walks and spits without moving much at all. Only got one bite on it so far but he blasted it. Haven't fished the jerkbait yet but I might give it a shot next weekend after seeing how clear the smallmouth lake was yesterday. Mrs. Blue wants to go back after kicking my butt out there yesterday and see if she can repeat her success.

Prefishing for a tournament Friday and for once was actually catching fish on a crank bait like I knew what I was doing. The Besotted squarebill caught probably 20 fish that all looked like they hatched from the same nest.

Minimum in these tournaments is 8”. These ones are at local lakes and only for 3 hours in the afternoons, so they usually have a much smaller big fish than the bigger tournaments. I’ve actually only caught 3 fish bigger than 16.25” in the Tuesday night tournaments all year and they were all in the same you tournament 😂

Last night the Tuesday night tournament finally swung by the lake by my house. I never fish the lake, but 5 minutes from me, I wasn’t going to miss the chance to fish if it worked out and I just happened to get off work early enough to make it. I asked my oldest son if he wanted to go with me and he said he did, but it was going to rushed because he had to go to a night before school started event. So I unloaded the kayaks and mom ran him out to me 5 minutes before the tournament started. I forgot my extra measuring board so we had to stay close so he could use my board for his fish. The weather was perfect, cloudy and cool with a decent breeze, so of course the bite was brutally tough. I missed a couple on a frog and it was 45 minutes into the tournament when I finally hooked up with a fish on a homemade micro jig off a dock ladder. I was a mess all night, skipped my frog under a dock and got it stuck so bad I had to get out and crawl across the dock to cut my line and get my frog back. Then cast my bladed jig so high in a tree I couldn’t reach it. I was so worried about Lake getting fish, I was having a hard time concentrating. Right where I got my bladed jig stuck, I caught another fish on a wacky rig. I was letting Lake lead, telling him where to cast, but the frustration was pretty obvious and he was having a hard time focusing and listening. I caught another behind him on a wacky rig right off the spot I’d just told him to cast his wacky rig to fill out my limit. I told him he just needed a few good cast and he was right back in it and there was still 1.5 hours left. We ran around a point to some deeper water and I crossed paths with another competitor who fished the lake a ton and he said it was really tough and he only had 3 dinks. Lake was behind me and right then I heard he had a fish on! It wasn’t a big fish in size, but it was his first ever tournament fish so it was a huge accomplishment and a big confidence boost for him. I had one dock on the south end that if you told me I had 5 minutes to catch a fish for a million dollars on that lake, that’s the dock I’d go to. So we fished all the way down to it, passing another competitor who said he had nothing but a bluegill. I made several pitches before I finally got bit but it was another decent fish. We turned and went back towards the ramp, fishing the opposite side of the lake. I caught 3 more, including a disappointing dink that hit a 6” Bull Shad Wake. With 11 minutes left, we ran to a main lake point that had 2 docks I wanted to fish. I was fishing one while Lake worked the point and he hooked up. He got it in and was holding it in the air over the water while I was about pleading with him to get it over his kayak, when it fell back in the water. I know he felt bad but I probably felt worse than he did. He kept casting though and just a few cast later he hooked up again and this time got it in the kayak and put it in the net. With 2 minutes left, he scored his second keeper. He got bit again while I was hurriedly taking his picture but missed it. It was an exciting final few minutes and he was so close to getting a limit in his first tournament, I was really proud of him. I thought for sure someone would have caught them, but turns out it was tough for everyone and my limit was good enough for the win. Lake finished ahead of a few guys and would have been right in the middle if he’d had that 3rd fish that was probably 12 inches.

I color my braid when it starts to get faded. I carry a fat Sharpie with the flat tip just for that purpose. Also works well for writing my identifiers for kayak tournaments.

I can understand why someone would buy one. Not every reel is an everyday use reel. The reel on my deep cranking rod is probably going to get 100 cast on it a season, it just doesn't get used, but I want to have one in the box because every once in a great while, I actually catch fish deep cranking. However, I don't want to buy another 150-200 reel like what most my workhorses have on them. I got lucky and found a Pflueger Supreme on FFO for $50, but I was looking for something cheaper that I could get by with and just happened to find them.

Excited about the BBB lineup, some solid looking colors coming and I like their plastics already. Yamamoto 4" grub, smoke/no flake on a 1/4 or 3/8 jighead just cast out and reeled back in is the easiest way to catch a fish on Table Rock.

Stunna, 6th Sense, Strike King 300, Head Hunter, and Duo all do a lot of work for me when I need a jerkbait.