IndianaFinesse

What's so special about the kvd 1.5 chartreuse/black back?

Spool mono on a medium power rod, and don't set the hook till you feel the fish. Although i love Topwater fishing, it is so hard to not set the hook the instant the bass blows up on your bait.

Come on, you can't just leave us hanging like that!

You are not going to be hooking very many fish using a reel set. You are fishing with big, thick hooks buried in soft plastic and trying to drive that big hook through the plastic and a big basses tough jaw. Swing hard enough to cross there eyes.

A reservoir west of Indianapolis.

Good first day, it sure would suck only being able to fish for half of the year.

Fished this afternoon for about four and a half hours. Caught a total of 28 bass with the largest being a monster egg laden ~18 inch smallmouth! I would tell you how much it weighed, but no one would believe me so you will just have to guess.. The smallie was on a rip rap point in about eight feet of water caught on a coppertruse colored trd, unfortunately in clear view of half a dozen boats who came over and watched. I was sure I had hooked an eight pound bass it fought so hard. I don't know why, but smallmouth always seem to fight much harder than largemouth. The rest of the bass are in the backs of coves, on the shorelines while raining and once the clouds cleared off they moved to the docks. I used a skitter pop while it was raining, and later switched to this Ned rig fished with a swim glide and shake retrieve mostly skipping underneath docks. I also landed a bonus crappie, so some of them must still be up shallow.

Those are some very nice fish! The ones in the photos have to be at least four or five pounds!

Answer to question #1: You are correct in saying they start spawning at around 60 degrees. Some people say to watch a dog wood tree and when it's blossoming, in means the bass are spawning. Answer to question #2: Immediately after laying her eggs the female retreats to deeper water to recuperate from the rigors of spawning. Thay are very hard to catch for one to two weeks after the spawn as they don't eat at all. Because the bass don't all spawn at one time I usually target the females who either haven't layed there eggs yet, or the fish that have already recuperated from the spawn and are up shallow feeding heavily. The only possible way to catch the recuperating females is to down size to something like a Ned rig and fish it extremely slowly and drop it onto there nose. Try the Ned rig, it is by far the best bed fishing bait I have ever used. The trick to fishing for spawning bass is to change lures constantly, every couple casts grab another rod rigged up with something different. I usually bring six rods, one with a Ned rig, jig, yum crawbug, split shot rigged four inch lizard, a drop shot, and a small crappie two inch slider type plastic. The Ned catches the majority of the fish, then the crawbug the next most and the crappie grub is in third place.

Either Big game or powerpro, personally I almost exclusively use braided line but big game is much cheaper at seven bucks for 1500 yards as opposed to powerpro which costs twelve dollars for only 150 yards. If you choose big game you will have to change it out if often, but with braid you never have to change it out. Another thing to consider is that braid gives you a much farther casting distance, which is extremely helpful as a shore angler.

I changed my mind on going to cataract this morning when i looked at the Louisville daily lake report that stated the lake is fourteen feet high and they are letting 1200 cubic feet of water per second from the dam. i mighty have gone even though would have to launch the boat from the road, but when they are letting that much water out it really trashes the fishing so instead we went to raccoon. The crappie at raccoon are in that very late stages of the spawn and in the early post-spawn funk, but we still managed 29 crappie and one bonus carp. They are up in three to ten feet of water holding tight to the abundant brush, and we were catching them two to three feet down on tubes and minnows. I tried the adjust a bubble with a small tube underneath like oddchase suggested (thanks oddchase) and caught the majority of the fish twitching it every minute or two and then letting it set. The carp are beginning to move up shallow to spawn, the one I caught was making its bed when it decided to nail my minnow. I know most people look down on carp, but it sure put up a heck of a fight on a ten foot light powered crappie rod.. Thanks for the help team 9.

A culling system is usually used with colored floats that are attached to the individual bass and is used to figure out which one to throw back and is smallest when you catch six or more fish in a tournament. For example, you catch a 1.3, 2.1, 3.7, 3.9, and a 4.5 pound bass and have green colored float for the smallest and red for the biggest and then you catch a sixth bass. With a culling system you write what color correlates to how much that fish weighs, and if the sixth bass weighs 1.6 pounds you keep it and release the green tagged bass. A more accurate thing to do than using a scale is to get a culling beam if two basses weights are similar, place both of them on it and which ever bass tips it's side down is the heaviest. Every system is different, but most have some basic similarities. Often the boater and coboaters combine the fish and a team for many of the tourneys, but when the coboater is fishing against the other coboaters and visa versa, the person in the back puts his fish in the back live well and the same for the front so that they are in separate live wells. You really don't need a culling system unless you fish tournaments.

I think a slightly shorter rod of 6' 6" or so would be better for the added accuracy needed to thread a jig under low hanging docks. I personally use a 6' 4" medium heavy spinning rod for skipping jigs and a longer seven foot rod for throwing jigs around other areas. You might just find it is easier to skip with spinning, I know I was very pleasantly surprised when I switched.

I think a slightly shorter rod of 6' 6" or so would be better for the added accuracy needed to thread a jig under low hanging docks. I personally use a 6' 4" medium heavy spinning rod for skipping jigs and a longer seven foot casting rod for throwing jigs question pound other areas. You might just find that skipping is easier done with spinning tackle.

Don't know how to help you. I have the same problems, lately it's been a guy who continuously screams his lungs while cussing me for having a wake in no wake zone when I am obviously not pushing any wake at all. Then the guy goes running to security and tells them I have been running a wake in no wake zone, and at are lake if someone complained three times, you are not allowed to fish there for three days and he has already falsely reported me twice. Four or more times is three months. So I'm kind of stuck. But if he does it again, I think I am going to have to call in a few anonymous tips on him harassing, and maybe drop a couple limits worth of fish in his fish box and call security on him. You mess with my fishing, I mess with you.

I fished this afternoon for about two hours. The cold front shut them down, and it had a cold wind and just enough rain to make everything wet. Caught fourteen fish, but they were all dinks except for two decent fish at fourteen-fifteen inches. Unfortunately the water clarity is down to a foot and a half thanks to all of he rain, it was really fun being able to watch there reactions and the size was great. I used half of a zinkerz fished with a swim glide and shake retrieve fished in two to five feet of water on the edges of docks and between them over spawning areas.

Have you tried the Tubez, and if you don't care for it, what other tube would you suggest? I like the bitsy tubes, but I am trying some others to see what is best.

Looks like a great little jig, exact size as the crawfish are currently at my lake. It's kinda pricey though, so I wanted to get your guys opinions on it first. Anyone try it, and what would you use as a trailer?

Welcome to the forums! Like bluebasser86 said, there is an extremely active Kansas city area report page to check out.

Lol. What was that tourney you won last week? And how big was that flathead?

Go all out on mother's day ( even though it's just a hallmark holiday), that way you might earn some brownie points so you can go fishing more often.. I personally hate mother's day, fathers day, and Valentine's day because they were created to make this expectation from the mother's and wives that they will receive a card (from hallmark of course) and dinner out. But you gotta play to the ump, and if the wife ain't happy then nobody is.

Is the trd very good for early post spawn fish, and how fast will the bass start migrating back out to the main lake? Do they immediately pull back off the beds into deeper water and follow the channel, or do they follow docks and other cover out to the main lake? I've never actually never fished for post spawn bass before, in the past I always crappie fished during that period. Thanks for all of the advice!

Great fish! The last one is a fat pig.

Nice fish! Nothing like having brand new to you equipment prove itself right away.

It is basically a down sized shaky head on a smaller mushroom head usually weighing 1/15 or 1/16 ounce. Now that more and more people are starting to use the Ned rig, it is starting to also mean a mushroom head with a trd or half a zinkerz, but that is not the true definition. In fact, before all of the hype started it was just called Midwest finesse fishing, which basically is fishing with small baits three or four inches and under with the intention of catching as many bass as possible no matter the size. But the current favorite bait of dedicated Midwest finesse fisherman is half of a zinkerz on a mushroom head, with small buck tails coming right behind the finesse shadz, hula stickz, and trd in popularity. Another difference is that a shaky head usually has a large hook, 2/0 to 4/0 and is most often rigged weedless. They are also after weighing 1/8 to 3/8 ounce, while the Ned is between the weights of 1/32 and 1/15 ounces and usually poured on a size 4 hook. Shaky heads are used with four to ten inch plastics, and the Ned is for under four inch. There is six different Midwest finesse retrieves for the "Ned rig", ranked by popularity is first the swim glide and shake retrieve, drag and deadstick, hop and bounce, strolling, drag and incessant shake, and the straight swim. If you try the "Ned rig" you will come to appreciate the many differences between it and the shaky head jig.