everythingthatswims

In a kayak you have to set the hook VERY hard, I use rods stouter than what would be typical for whatever technique I'm using to help combat this when kayak fishing.

@Bluebasser86

And so it begins

"right after the pause" makes you think a little

The fish that died in the High School National Championship were given to a member of the chamber of commerce in Paris, TN, who helped with te event, and some of his buddies who also wanted some fish to eat I didn't know where to share this but this thread is close enough

If your river has alewives, then the bass there must be pretty impressive. I'm jealous!

A zara puppy or small jerkbait is an excellent smallmouth bait when they are feeding on shiners, which I assume is what you are seeing.

Senko Senko Senko

Don't doubt the Sienna

I have some interesting info for you guys about our National Championship 2nd place finish... The rod that I threw the spinnerbait on, which caught 75% of the fish we brought to the scales, is a BPS Extreme, that my uncle gave to me many years ago. I'm pretty sure the rod is older than I am, it is balanced differently than rods nowadays, I think the reels back then were way heavier. The tip on that rod is a replacement, as well as the last 3 guides, including one that I had to replace a second time with a little glue and sewing thread. The reel I was using on that rod, is a Lews Lazer MG (their most inexpensive reel 79.99), that I actually snagged this winter while jigging a blade bait in 35 feet of water. It was all gunked up but I took it apart and with a little grease, oil, and love, she was ready to go! And the spinning rod that I used to fish a drop shot, is a rod that used to be a baitcaster. A member from this forum contacted me a while back to see if I wanted it (thanks again, by the way!). He said he wasn't impressed with the rod as a baitcaster and decided to replace the first two guides with spinning guides, shave down the pistol grip, and chop off part of the cork to make it balance better. The problem you run into then, is a bass-ackwards spined rod that is supposed to load for a cast the way it now loads on a hookset, and vice-versa. Tell that to the 5lber I caught with it on the final day. The reel on that rod is a Shimano Sienna 2500 (29.99) that has been used so much, that the bail is actually starting to wear out and sometimes when you flip it, the wire is the only thing moving, not the rest of the reel that should move with it (you can still cast it like that though ).

He has an account but he never uses it. Everybody send him a PM haha @flakes

My partner and I had an AWESOME final day on Kentucky Lake. We were very worried after our first stop yielded zero bass, and then finding the fourth place team (who ended up winning) at our second spot where we had started on day 2. Turns out, Colorado (the winners), and ourselves, had been fishing the same >5acre >5feet cove every day of the event, with lots of big fish coming from it. We were fishing the same water with a different technique. I threw a 3/8oz chartreuse and white war eagle spinnerbait, and my partner would follow up with either a senko or shakey head. The Colorado team was throwing floating 5" chrome and silver jerkbaits!!! I couldn't believe it, but we watched them do it, and they caught some nice ones. On the final day, we could tell the lake had dropped about a foot, and the bass were no longer in the bushes like they had been. So we pulled out to the mouth of the cove and fan casted with the spinnerbait, and a big bandit squarebill. We put 4 in the boat around 2-3.5lbs before leaving, and the Colorado team in the back of the cove was catching some very nice fish. We caught our 5th keeper at another location and pretty much thought we had done all we could do. My partner and I said we would go fish some rock bluffs for smallmouth and just have fun on the final day. On our way to the bluffs, I said "lets hit that spot we fished this morning one more time". We pulled into the cove and I started working the same area with the spinnerbait that the 4 fish came from in the morning. A fish crushes my spinnerbait and after a few nerve wracking moments, we netted the 5lb largemouth. We were ecstatic! At this point we decided we would hang out at this spot for a while longer. The mouth of the cove produced no more bass so we moved into the back of it. There was a small stickup in about 3 FOW that I caught a decent fish off of on day 1, so I picked up my drop shot rod and tossed to it. The line started swimming towards me so I picked up the slack and leaned into the fish. It wouldn't move, I didn't even think it was a bass. I chased the fish around for a while on the troling motor and then she jumped, another 5lb class largemouth! She ran back to the stick I caught her off of, and wrapped me around it once. I stepped on the trolling motor and managed to get the fish out of the stick. A few jumps later we slid the fish into the net! We caught a few more fish in the cove but none that would cull. We decided to head back early to get our fished checked, because unfortunately the 85-90 degree water is rough on bass in the livewell, no matter how hard your pumps are running or how much ice you can keep on them. We lost 3 of our 15 fish this week. I will say that running back early did save one of our five pound fish, she was having a hard time but once we parked in the shade and got ice on her, she recovered. The weigh in was a nail biter! We brought in an 18lb, 9oz limit of bass. They weighed from 12th to 1st and since we were 10th, we had to watch everyone else weigh and hope our weight held! We sat on the hot seat for a few places, but Colorado bumped us out with a 16lb, 11oz bag of fish, a mere 12oz over what they needed! Once we got to the top 4 boats, we just knew we were going to get bumped. 2nd place on day 1 had a 7lb advantage, and 1st had a 9lb advantage. We were stunned when both teams failed to bring a limit to the scales, I think each had 2 or 3 fish. A 2nd place finish was way more than I had expected, and even though it was such a close finish, I was happy to see the Colorado team win. They are both very respectable people, also, they fished the same event last year and didn't even weigh a fish! We talked with them for a long time after the weigh in about the magic cove and how many fish it produced. What was even more shocking, is that the fish they were catching in the back of it, were huge smallmouth! I know that no one could have predicted that the winning pattern would be fishing floating jerkbaits in the back of main lake coves, catching smallmouth! We learned a lot about the fishing industry this week. B.A.S.S. did not interview us until the final day when they pretty much had to, because we don't have jerseys covered in sponsors. We were almost the only team there that didn't look like nascar drivers with logos all over everything. Half of the boat captains had wrapped trucks that matched their wrapped boats! We talked to a team that didn't make the final day cut who said "well, there's a local tournament in the morning, and the entry fee is "only" $250 so we are just gonna fish that!" But it proves that anyone can do it. It's not about money, it's about fishing. I am going to try to do some sort of "road to the national championship" story on my blog, covering everything from out first (of three) state qualifying event, the state championship, and the national championship. That may take a while but I will post a link to it when I finish! Don't worry, we never forgot to have fun. Because that's why we fish.

The weigh in should be on bass master.com live this afternoon, I'm not sure what time but i know we have to be at the ramp by 2:30. Team OCHS with the blue shirts.

There is a KS team in 12th, they had 4th yesterday I believe

My partner and I are now sitting in 10th place in the High School National Championship! Everyone below 12th place was cut and tomorrow is the final day of the event. This has been one of the greatest experiences of my life, truly incredible. I think we are the only top 12 team fishing shallow, but we don't know how to fish ledges so we are doing what we know. There is a crazy mayfly hatch and we are catching fish under what I think are cotton wood trees that are there to feed on the bluegill eating mayflies. All of our fish have been in less than 3FOW. I am throwing a war eagle spinnerbait and my partner is following up with a senko and shakey head. Today we only got 5 keeper bites, but they were the right ones. A 4lb largemouth, a 4lb STUD smallmouth, and 3 15-16" keepers. We ended up with 14lbs even. One plus four is a limt!

@Raider Nation Fisher please tell me what I am supposed to think of this

I use a small snap swivel on blade baits and jigging spoons to help with line twist, that is all I use them for.

20lb fluorocarbon is very sensitive, I use it for jigs. I tend to prefer fluoro over copoly or mono unless I'm fishing topwater because it is sensitive and doesn't stretch much. All of my spinning rods are 10lb braid with an 8 to 12lb fluoro leader, also because of sensitivity. People who fish straight fluoro on spinning rods tend to do that because the line sinks meaning you don't have a bow in your line that you would have with a line that floats.

My partner and I are sitting in 12th place out of 170 boats with 5 fish for 15lbs 13oz, hopefully we can get into some more fish tomorrow and make it to day 3! After tomorrow only the top 12 boats will advance.

It was not through our high school, the high school we attended did not have a fishing team so we fished with a neighboring county. It's not hard to start your own though. It's an awesome thing to get involved with and I would recommend it to anyone! To get to the Nationals we had to qualify for the state championship by fishing 3 Virginia qualifiers. The top two spots from the state championship advance to the national championship, and we won ours.

we found an almost 5 pounder today, just gotta find her friends tomorrow!

She has been tough! My partner and I have landed around 15 bass in the past 2 days, most small, and a few over the magic 15" mark that we will need on Thursday. The lake is incredibly large, quite overwhelming I must say. The ledges that are supposed to be the way to go have proven to be pretty difficult for us. We can see fish down there, but whatever they are, if they are bass, are not eating. We did pull one keeper largemouth off a ledge but that was all. Tomorrow is our final day of practice and we are going to go look for some grass! 16.5"er Chunky fish that I would love to see again Thursday

Don't feel bad, she's ROUGH this time of year

I have never seen bass in a body of water with that high of a gradient before!

I pretty much only fish from a kayak