For Us KC Area Guys - Fishing Reports

[kanasbassfisher08]

hey blue the master bait out there is a 200 series bandit in a mad cow color you can catch anything you want its magic atleast thats the dream i had last night fishing hahaha!!!

Fished Hillsdale Monday with the old man, hopefully I learned my lesson and will never go back there. Fished from 9-2, trolled cranks, casted cranks, casted grubs, jigged crawlers and grubs, drug shad on a 3 way rig. I ended the day with 3 whites, 4 crappie, 1 walleye, 1 catfish, all while casting a grub, dad caught a drum jigging a crawler. We were fishing for walleye but I still have yet to catch a keeper walleye from Hillsdale. Should have just gone to Wyandotte, at least I could have caught some bass and still had a shot at catching some walleye.

[Chris S]

Fished Hillsdale Monday with the old man, hopefully I learned my lesson and will never go back there. Fished from 9-2, trolled cranks, casted cranks, casted grubs, jigged crawlers and grubs, drug shad on a 3 way rig. I ended the day with 3 whites, 4 crappie, 1 walleye, 1 catfish, all while casting a grub, dad caught a drum jigging a crawler. We were fishing for walleye but I still have yet to catch a keeper walleye from Hillsdale. Should have just gone to Wyandotte, at least I could have caught some bass and still had a shot at catching some walleye.

Well there needs to be at least one lake you dont completely beat the heck out of

[Bluebasser86]

Well there needs to be at least one lake you dont completely beat the heck out of

I have never even started to feel like I figured Hillsdale out. We could have caught quite a few white bass but we were trying to get some walleye so we had to keep away from the whites if possible.

On a brighter note I hit Gardner from the bank along the dam and did pretty well on a spinnerbait and rattle trap. First fish I hit was a solid keeper, probably 16-17 inches and thick, one of the biggest bass I've caught from Gardner. I'm hoping this means Gardner is coming back. I only fished it twice this year for maybe 5 hours total and caught a keeper both times and know of one 5 pounder caught out there this year.

[retro basser]

I almost pulled the trigger on another overnighter Monday, this time to Lyon Co lake east of Melvern, but the forcast convinced me to save it for another day.... Anyone ever get out that far? Looks like they take their bass pretty seriously. I'll probably go next Monday night... maybe nose around Melvern a little bit too. It looks like cove paradise, as far as KS is concerned.

Instead on Monday I took a buddy out to DG CO who ususally is content to drink beer and fish a worm on a bobber...i gave him a setup and he finally caught some dinker bass... Let's just say i think the lightbulb finally came on...

[Bluebasser86]

I almost pulled the trigger on another overnighter Monday, this time to Lyon Co lake east of Melvern, but the forcast convinced me to save it for another day.... Anyone ever get out that far? Looks like they take their bass pretty seriously. I'll probably go next Monday night... maybe nose around Melvern a little bit too. It looks like cove paradise, as far as KS is concerned.

Instead on Monday I took a buddy out to DG CO who ususally is content to drink beer and fish a worm on a bobber...i gave him a setup and he finally caught some dinker bass... Let's just say i think the lightbulb finally came on...

I've never fished Lyon but from the people I know that do fish it, there is lots and lots of bass in there, so many that they encourage people to keep fish on the under size of the slot limit. One guy I know goes out there with his wife and regularly catches north of 100 fish, he keeps a clicker fish counter to keep track and I've fished with him and know he can catch them like that. Melvern was tough last week but with this cold weather they could really turn on. If you fish rattle traps or shallow to medium running cranks out there this time of year you can catch every type of fish that swims in that lake.

[retro basser]

SOLD!!

I can't freeking wait now. It's only about 80 miles away from here, and all slow-poke backroads that the Rig Digs...

I'll keep myself modest and shoot for 50 .. hehe

Thanks.

[Chris S]

Cabelas has some good stuff on Clearance, I got all of this for under $28, $6.99 Rapalas for $1.99!

I am interested to see how these Northland Live Forage Spoons work in deep water! Any one else tried them??

[Bluebasser86]

Nice haul Chris!

I got a report on La Cygne a couple days ago from a dependable source. Said the lake was about 10 feet low now. He fished for 6 hours and had 1 bite but it was an 8 pounder, caught it on a jig. Hopefully they're getting some of this rain down there to help bring the lake up a little bit before winter.

[Chris S]

Amen on Lacygne!

[ks cranker]

Everyone still fishing?

Last weekend only got out Sunday afternoon at Gardner and seemed the fishing really slowed down from the previous week. Still got some, but not the numbers or size. Not sure if it was that the weather broke from windy/cloudy to bright and calm or not. Surface temp was 54-56.

Planning to hit Melvern on Saturday. Anyone got any tips? Looking to catch some smallies. Looks like it is going to be a little windy, so might not be able to fish everywhere I'd like to, but might group those whites up on the windy spots...

Anyone else going to be out there this weekend?

[skunked_again]

were going to Melvern Sat. whats the worst that can happen?....heh.

[Bluebasser86]

I've heard the whites are going good at Melvern but haven't heard much about the smallmouth. Last time we went a few weeks ago we caught lots of smallmouth on cranks and jerkbaits but no size at all.

[Hi Salenity]

I made it to Cabelas Today but they were out (or I didn't find) the $1.99 Rapalas.

They did have a few Dobyns rods

Savvy $99

Extreme $219

I got to play with the new Rage rods. I wanted to buy one so bad!

[Chris S]

Pretty sure they got snatched up ASAP! When I saw them I grabbed two of each.

[ks cranker]

were going to Melvern Sat. whats the worst that can happen?....heh.

Looks like the wind is going to be little to high for me on Saturday, planning to go Sunday now...

Anyone have any suggestions on how deep or shallow to look for smallmouth this time of year?

[retro basser]

Well I FINALLY got down to ol' Lyon Co lake after about two solid weeks of trying to find a pair of days that weren't windy, wet, cold, or all three...I shot down Thursday night and got rewarded with having the whole lake to myself and lemme tell you, camping out in freezing weather really aint so bad if you happen to find a night with only 2 mph wind

The lake was pretty darn nice. Now that I've been to a few of these 'County State' lakes let's just say I accept that dealing with one or two 'less than ideal' conditions are part of the deal. Not this one...It really has it's **** together as far as KS lakes go... Even better, it's clearly designed with Bass fishing in mind. Frankly, I wouldn't pick this lake to go catfishing off the shore because there really are only a couple of piers in good spots next to channel bends. Also they have a no booze policy so maybe it keeps a few of the 'lets get drunk all night and leave a bunch of trash the next day' crowd away.

Here are some bassy things about this lake:

- The lake had great structure: relatively deep water all the way up in the channels, lots of sharp drops, and 30+ ft depth by the dam, submerged humps if you can find em...

- Cover EVERYWHERE. They have these impressive rip-rap islands, fishable laydowns everywhere, submerged trees, some deep water plants and some serious shoreline vegetation species that I've never even seen before, which might get tough in the summer but was very fishable now. More importantly these plants have taken so well you can see there is just SO much room for the youngin's to grow.

- Finally clearer water than I've seen in many KS lakes and good boat lanes too.

The ONLY bummer was the lake was down about two feet, so you could see plenty of exposed hidin-holes you would love to drop a lure in front of if only it was underwater...It really limited where you could practically do shoreline fishing. I noticed the bulk of the fish were holding closer to channels and underwater cover 20 feet off the shoreline. I'm not very good at fishing those scenarios, so I stuck with the white spinner and a crank for the most part, kept exploring and took what I could get..

I got to be on the water from about 2-5 on Thurs and 8-12 on Friday and managed to pick off 5 that evening and 4 the next morning. Secondary points up the creek in the evening and actually moved a little deeper to the mouth of the coves in the morning which was interesting. They were all over 10'' in fact most were exactly at 13'' strong, healthy bass, real fun to catch. They were eating the bait on the drop in the evening but in the morning you had to wait longer, slow roll it along the bottom and let them leisurely run it down.. Wish I woulda figured that out sooner

I probably coulda caught more: I know I missed plenty of targets and quite a few strikes actually, but hey this is my first year with a boat and really learning how this works so don't let my numbers fool ya. This lake is for real.

This is the best one I caught I think: a 'non-keeper' at 14''

If you can't tell, I can't wait to get back in the spring and spend a couple more days down there, maybe i'll check out melvern as well..

[Bluebasser86]

Went to Wyandotte for a couple hours today to try out the new luck e strike jerkbait and some hand poured worms that I just got. The wind was pretty strong but I got one on my second cast with the jerkbait.

Lost a keeper on the next cast that pulled the split ring and the hook off? I guess I'm going to have to change the split rings out on that bait. Did my best to feel the little slider head and worm and managed my only smallmouth of the day.

Switched back to the jerkbait and got one that would have been close to a keeper.

Probably caught 8-10 mostly on the jerkbait but also caught two on an XR50.

[skunked_again]

we caught a lot of small smallies on jerk baits on the back side of the wind. whacked the bigger smallies fishing fat alberts on shaky heads of all things. it took us a while to get on the fish.

btw.............hardest wind ive seen anywhere, ever, today.

[retro basser]

I hit Perry today just because the weather was nice and it turns out I had one of the most fun days of fishing I've had all year... I only caught three, all bass, but they were all over 13''

I probably wouldn’t have stuck with the rattletrap as long as I did if Blue hadn't recommended it out there. I was fishing a blood red Yo-zuri for about 30 minutes around the slough creek rip-rap with no bites. But instead of going to the spinnerbait or something else I changed over to a shad color and picked up two nice largemouths almost back to back right under the bridge... one 15'' (which is a helluva fish for me at this point) and a 13''.

Here's the first, bigger one, I thought I caught a snag at first so I was pretty suprised that it was this nice of bass..

I stayed there a bit longer but a guy wanted to fish for crappie from the bank so I went exploring up the lake...

I picked up this wiper on a little blue-chartreuse spinner (1/4 oz) i think on a secondary point up a cove... I caught it on only 6lb test line with no trouble. Biggest one I’ve ever caught.

What's the best thing to troll for these for? A little spoon or rooster-tail or something?

[retro basser]

By the way... You guys think that a white bass or a wiper? I guess I never really knew there was a difference.

[Bluebasser86]

I hit Perry today just because the weather was nice and it turns out I had one of the most fun days of fishing I've had all year... I only caught three, all bass, but they were all over 13''

I probably wouldn’t have stuck with the rattletrap as long as I did if Blue hadn't recommended it out there. I was fishing a blood red Yo-zuri for about 30 minutes around the slough creek rip-rap with no bites. But instead of going to the spinnerbait or something else I changed over to a shad color and picked up two nice largemouths almost back to back right under the bridge... one 15'' (which is a helluva fish for me at this point) and a 13''.

Here's the first, bigger one, I thought I caught a snag at first so I was pretty suprised that it was this nice of bass..

I stayed there a bit longer but a guy wanted to fish for crappie from the bank so I went exploring up the lake...

I picked up this wiper on a little blue-chartreuse spinner (1/4 oz) i think on a secondary point up a cove... I caught it on only 6lb test line with no trouble. Biggest one I’ve ever caught.

What's the best thing to troll for these for? A little spoon or rooster-tail or something?

Glad you had some success out there. More than likely that's a white bass, I don't think they stock wipers in Perry so unless one got in there somehow it's probably a white. I catch a lot of them swimming grubs on a 1/8oz ballhead, rattletraps, and shad raps. They will hit about anything though.

[ks cranker]

Made it out to Melvern on Sunday 11/13. Water temp was low 50's. Caught several decent largemouth on a spinnerbait, but for the most part the white bass kept me busy most the day. They are really grouped up. Ended up fishing the dam area in the afternoon. The whites had totally taken control of the 0-6ft dept on the dam. Caught them dang near the whole length of the dam on a jerkbait.

Skunk, what dept did you catch your smallies on the grub?

Bluebasser - did you take a pic of your 5lber for the marina at Melvern. Some guys trolling the dam told me an older guy caught a 5lber a couple weeks ago and the pic was at the marina... i know you aren't too old, so guess someone else caught a nice one too.

[Chris S]

What's the best thing to troll for these for? A little spoon or rooster-tail or something?

I use a 1/2 oz lipless crank bait on Hillsdale for them, purple/white and green bottom or purple/chrome and green bottom.

[Bluebasser86]

Made it out to Melvern on Sunday 11/13. Water temp was low 50's. Caught several decent largemouth on a spinnerbait, but for the most part the white bass kept me busy most the day. They are really grouped up. Ended up fishing the dam area in the afternoon. The whites had totally taken control of the 0-6ft dept on the dam. Caught them dang near the whole length of the dam on a jerkbait.

Skunk, what dept did you catch your smallies on the grub?

Bluebasser - did you take a pic of your 5lber for the marina at Melvern. Some guys trolling the dam told me an older guy caught a 5lber a couple weeks ago and the pic was at the marina... i know you aren't too old, so guess someone else caught a nice one too.

Nope, no pictures of me in the marina that I know of. I hooked one the day before on the dam that was as big if not bigger but it tossed my bait so there is for sure some bigger ones in there. Those big whites down there are a blast aren't they? If you can find them schooled up it's easy to forget that you're fishing for smallmouth.

[ks cranker]

What's the best thing to troll for these for? A little spoon or rooster-tail or something?

I use a 1/2 oz lipless crank bait on Hillsdale for them, purple/white and green bottom or purple/chrome and green bottom.

Chris - Are you asking about white bass? If so, I normally just cast to them. Spinnerbaits, cranks, lipless cranks, jerkbaits, spoons... I guess I could go on and on, but they pretty much eat anything that moves, ha!

For me right now, any wind blown bank is a possible white bass zone. If you catch one, there should be some more in the area. If you don't get hit in a few cast there probably isn't any in at that location.

I'm no expert with them, just happen to run into them from time to time looking for black bass. I'm sure others will have some better tips for you...