Ondrejka

A boga for a little walleye?

The tube Smallie bite at Melvern is one of my favorites.

Much Stripers, much Spots

Jumped in Keith's boat Saturday morning for a much needed Melvern trip. Water temps were 63-64 across the board. Fished a lot of Eisenhower arm and Turkey Creek, mainlake was too rough for much else. Keith stuck a 3.5 in the first 20 minutes. I had a big Carp gulp my Ned down in Turkey. They didn't need anything but the Ned. Caught one Largemouth on a jig, and Keith lost a TOAD Smallie boatside on a jig also. All in all I'd say we put 50+ fish in the boat by 4pm, and probably had that many come unbuttoned too. Keith's wife gave us both a run for our money! Great day. Going to be a busy week for me with my Dad's birthday on Thursday, and my sister's college graduation this weekend with family from WI coming to town. Won't make Olathe Thursday night.

Clinton is so clear I barely even recognize it anymore. Zebra Mussels are definitely the culprit, unfortunately. With that, I have run into quite a few of these guys while Crappie fishing the past week. Can't complain.

Peg board is a garage must.

Cedar Valley

It does, but still regularly produces. #1 fave in Kansas.

Read again. 2.10#.

Had a pretty awesome and exhausting weekend. My Dad and I fished a Crappie tournament at Clinton to benefit the special olympics. After battling rain and wind since 5:30am, we came out in 4th place out of 28 boats, with ten fish at 7.46 lbs., and my Dad's big fish at 1.23 lbs. Walked away with $150 and great memories for my Dad and I. Couldn't be happier. Took the first trip this season to Melvern on Sunday. Weather was not what we expected at all. Very cold and very windy. But we still managed to catch a few fish on the typical Melvern spread. I caught 5 different species, including my first Melvern Sauger on a Sizzle 110. Made a really rough run down to Turkey Creek, didn't yield as much as I'd thought. Ended the day on the dam. My 2.10# Smallie came on a Buzz's pink 110. Could have been better, and left by noon, but I'll be back next weekend.

Thought I would weigh in as well, since this was my first time ever fishing LOZ. It was an absolute blast and forever changed my perception of the lake. Got in Thursday evening, and had all of Friday to pre-fish. We stayed at about the 8.5mm on the mainlake, so we had a pretty good milk run of spots marked all the way up to the Gravois arm every day. I've never gotten to sight fish to many bed fish in my life. Man was that fun. Granted, most of them weren't what we were looking for tournament-wise, but we just enjoyed catching tons of fish on a huge, new body of water. DJ's first chunky Kentucky Just over 3.5, caught outside of tournament hours on Saturday evening before 7pm. There were two fish sitting on two beds about 3 feet away from each other that we'd beat up and couldn't get either to eat. I had my buddy tie on a shaky head with a finesse worm, and within three minutes, she ate. Super nice Spot. So then, after about 5 minutes she went straight back to her bed. I pitched my shaky head up to her, and she ate AGAIN on the first try! Right as I was landing that fish, DJ had the second bed fish on. Ended up right over 3lbs. That was so much fun. Caught my new PB Spot, 2 lbs. 11 oz. I saw this fish sitting on her bed directly under a dock cable. I maneuvered in and pitched up to it, and first cast went right over the cable It was hanging perfectly right on her bed, and I saw the dark silhouette turn and go straight at my shaky head, and before I knew it she was on and thrashing around with my leader rubbing all over the cable. I hit 5 on the trolling motor and got up to her with just enough time to give her a run or two and land her before my leader (probably) would have broken. Awesome fight. This was the fish we ended up getting to go and weigh in at Alhonna on Sunday afternoon. We'd fished this bed since Friday and could not get her to eat, but knew it was a big fish. We were up in the Gravois arm on our last spot(s) of our milk run, and the cove we were fishing had a strong wind blowing right into it. I positioned the boat so that the back end was facing the deep bed (amongst 2 cables and 2 trees), and the boat was sitting perfectly up against the dock. I was retying my leader when all of the sudden DJ had her hooked. She made runs into the trees below us, so in a panic I crawled up to the trolling motor and hit 5 to get us away from all of that. When she jumped for the first time we were convinced it was a 6 lber. After a few hairy runs on light spinning tackle, I had her in the livewell and we were off to weigh in. She ended up at 4.17, which had us tied for 12th at 2pm. We stayed in and around Alhonna and kept refreshing the live results page to see where we'd end up. We knew we didn't have much hope, as after about 10 minutes our names dropped further down the list, and by 2:45 we'd been bumped out of the money. Had this been a 5 fish bag tourney, we would have had close to an 18-19lb bag on Sunday! But, it was an epic trip, and we caught so many 2-3# fish and had so much fun and have so many good stories, it was all worth it. My Kentucky was definitely a top highlight. There were definitely a few fish we should have maybe taken in for the exact weight, but it was pretty hectic. No regrets. I will definitely be back in October for the fall one. Sorry for the long post! See you guys tomorrow.