For Us KC Area Guys - Fishing Reports

[KU_Bassmaster.]

I thought I would start this thread so we can help each other out.  My hopes for this thread is that it will be ongoing.

After you go fishing, come in here and post your results ... good or bad.  What worked, what didn't, lake conditions, etc.  As much or as little detail as you would like.  I figure that for those of us who can only get out one or two times a week, it could give us a good starting point.    Like for instance, I can only usually go out during the week and others only usually go out during the weekend.  So I know a lot of us fish the same lakes, so in theory we could have fishing reports for various lakes in the area that are a few days old.

[senile1]

I think that's a great idea, KU_B.  I fished Smithville Lake after the tournament on Saturday.  Water temperature was 77 degrees and stained.  Wind was 10 - 15 mph, but closer to sundown, I found some still water in the coves.  In the last two weeks Smithville's temperature has gone from 65 degrees to 77, so there is still some spawning going on.  I could see bass in the shallows but it was very tough to get a bite.  (I like to believe that was because of the Thursday night and Saturday tournament pressure and not my fishing skills. 8-))  I fished from the bank to 8 feet deep.  I landed 3 bass from approximately 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm.  The first bass was approximately 15 inches and on a watermelon black fleck senko t-rigged with no weight.  The second was between 12 and 14 inches on a Rapala original floater.  The last bass was over 5 lbs on my cheapo scale and just over 21 inches.  I caught it on a pearl colored Zara Puppy.  She was in 2 - 3 feet of water next to a stump.  In the interim time periods between catching these fish, I tried different colored senkos and brushhogs, with no takers.  The fish were grabbing the tail of my 5" senkos but they wouldn't commit.  

[basspro05]

Also fished Smithville, Wednesday had 5 fish limit in about 3 hours all fish in the 15-17" range, carolina rigging points, thursday night tourney had 2 fish 4lbs 14 oz lost a 6 pounder at the boat, again carolina riggin points, had two saturday 4lbs 8oz lost over 5 fish due to light leaders, carolina rigging points, sunday 4 fish 9.64 lbs, caught fish in the trimble area flipping tree lines

[senile1]

BassPro05, I like reading your posts since we both fish Smithville.  Since some of the bass at Smithville are still spawning I didn't try c-rigging this weekend, though I was only out for a couple of hours.  Sounds like you had some luck with the c-rigs.  Do you think these were post-spawn fish you were catching off of the points and were these secondary points you were fishing?  The 5 lb'er I caught was in wood off a secondary point.  

[basspro05]

Thanks Senile, these fish were definetely spawned out in the post spawn stage, these fish took a beating this weekend, during both of my tourneys there was a boat on every main lake point, thats why we went into rock creek to catch our fish sunday, much less pressure, the bigger fish i have been catching are coming on the secondary points and the smaller ones on the main lake points

[senile1]

Thanks, BassPro.  I fished Camp Branch and a small cove in Crow Creek.  I wanted to put in off of highway W and go up to Twin Coves but the ramps were so busy and there were so many boats up there I went to Camp Branch Marina.  I'm surprised Rock Creek didn't catch more anglers.  

[basspro05]

well we had two out of rock creek in about a half an hour and left, and there was about three boats in there which isn't that much for how big that creek is, it was hard to find a place on the main lake, plus the weekend boat traffic was bad, my friend won the MSTA tourney on sunday he had 5 that weighed 20lbs he stuck it out on the main lake and just waited for points to open up for him to fish

[huskertko]

Well, I went out to Kill Creek on Saturday.  Water temp was between 77 and 80, I caught about 12 fish, all but one were in submerged standing timber in 14-17 ft of water.  The largest was 2# and the rest between 1 and 1 1/2#.  The one exception was still in submerged timber but it was in about 10ft of water.  Caught all of them on a Senko/Tiki stick except one on a red/white chatterbait.

[IneedAnewScreenName9886691]

I put my boat on a 20 acre watershed near Fredonia.  We fished for 4 hours and had kind of tough time with it.  We were on by 7:00 am and the lake was glass.  I didn't even fire up the big engine it was just still.  My buddy ran a spook and buzz and couldn't get a fish, I went right for the senko and had good success for about an hour, when the sun came up we couln't buy a bank fish.   The water was crystal clear and couldn't find a bass on a bed, I did however see a lot of empty ones.  We found the fish in 8 to 10 foot of water in the grass beds and did well on mini carolina rigs and ..you guessed it Senko's (or Senko style) baits.  

NOTE:  I missed a bunch, I mean a bunch of bites on the senko.  I would get my worm back and only have half.  My dumb butt didn't think to switch to a fry or something smaller with hopes of hooking those bites.  

we left around 11 am with 19 bass in the well.  We took them to another new pond and released.  I don't know if watershed reports are worth posting.  Most of the time, I cannot brag about skill like putting together patterns on large lakes like the above posts but there it is.  Shooting fish in a barrel.  

Going to Eureka tonight for a quickie.  

Hydrilla

[IneedAnewScreenName9886691]

6-5-06 Eureak small watershed.

Fished last night from about 7:00 to 9:15 on a small watershed E of Eureka.  My buddy threw a buzz or spook all night and caught about 20 little bass and one 2 lbr.  I tried to throw the weightless Senko and I caught a couple but I couldn't turn down the topwater with my buddy 'Tuna Boating' Bass after Bass.  

When it was over we caught nearly 40 Bass all but one under 1 lb.  Almost all but about 5 on topwater.  The owner of the lake really needs to let us cull that one.  But he is very committed to C&R which isn't a bad thing.  

Good luck to all.  

Hydrilla

[KU_Bassmaster.]

6/6/06 - Leavenwoth County State Fishing Lake

Put in about 5:30 am and fished to about 10:30.  Between the two of us, we caught 14.  Water temp was 73-76 and crystal clear.

I caught 6 on a black Horny Toad buzzed across the tops of grass mats (sparse) until the sun came out and then that bite disappeared.  Caught a solid three pounder doing that.  My buddy caught 6 on a 5" junebug Dinger all fished on the outside edges of the grass mats in about 5-8 ft of water.  Then I caught another two on a 6" watermelon Dinger wacky rigged on the outside edges of the grass mats.

We were going to C-rig the main lake grassy points, but the T/M battery ran out of juice. (South wind was blowing pretty hard).    

[cgs2004]

I fished Tuttle Creek this afternoon just to see if bass existed out there ;D  I caught 1 nice 14"er pretty far south on the lake in a very clear water cove (for a muddy lake) on a blue fleck worm.  Once I moved north and ran into murky water I had no luck.  Some great looking stuff on the lake, I just need more time to find better spots.  

Bonus- The big Gar are on the prowl and are hitting absolutly anything you throw in front of them, I landed my biggest fish of my life today with a 20+ lb. gar ;D ;D ;D

[IneedAnewScreenName9886691]

sweet CGS, good to see someone is fishing the puddle.  The gar fishing sounds like it could detour the bass fishing for a day or two.  20lbs is fun to catch!  

[KCDave]

I fished the pond at Stoll Park last Saturday (june 3), and caught many channel cat which were around a pound or so.  Not much in the way of bass, caught a couple small ones.  Most of the fish caught were between 6-7:30 a.m.

I believe the lake is stocked with catfish, so not sure if bass fishing is ever really any good.

Thinking about checking out Cedar Lake or Gardener Lake this weekend.  Will update after.

[huskertko]

KC Dave, if you have any luck at Cedar please share.  I have never had any luck there, I think that I have only caught 3-4 fish maybe and none bigger than 1 pound, however I talked to a wildlife biologist who says he has seen 5-7 pounders in there.  

[cgs2004]

I'm right there with ya husker, I've had very little luck out there but have heard many good things about its bass.

[whatnext]

My boss fishes Ceder lake most every weekend with very little bass action, just them saugeye (or however you spell it) and blue gill. :'( But he is a tried and true nightcrawler fisher.  So take it how you want to, its just what i've been told.

[KansasBassin]

Great topic KU...I will post reports from either Kill C or Gardner this weekend.  

[codogs]

This is a repost of mine from another thread.  Thought I'd add my experience from Gardner last Saturday.  Hopefully it'll help those of you considering fishing it.

6/3/06

I got on the water around 5:30am and fished until noon.  Caught 8 in all, but nothing over 2 lbs.  Most of the one's I caught were in 3-5 feet on a bleeding bait tube.  I started the morning out with a top water frog but no takers.

Around 10:00am I started c-rigging a lizard on some deeper structure (10-20 feet).  Although I did get quite a few hits, I couldn't get them to hook up.

Knowing now how the day went, I wish I would have spent more time fishing deeper structure.  The one's I caught on a tube in 3-5 feet were dinks for the most part.  I'd recommend getting off the banks and fishing c-rigs, deep-diver cranks (10-16 feet) and jig-head worms.  Gardner Lake is seeing pressure like it hasn't seen in many years and the banks are getting pounded.

I'm undecided on where I'll go this weekend.  I'm actually considering my taking my annual beat-down at Hillsdale.  I'd like to fish the points and creek channels.  If I don't go there, I'll probalby hit Lone Star or Osage.

[KU_Bassmaster.]

I'm undecided on where I'll go this weekend. I'm actually considering my taking my annual beat-down at Hillsdale.

I hear that.  I usually hit it up one time a year as well.  Never catch much if anything, but yet something tells me to go out there once evey year.  So far I have stayed away.  I think this year I might hit it up in the fall.  Never fished it then.

I am either headed out to Kill Creek or Gardner in the morning.  I will be sure to post results.

[huskertko]

If I can get away from the house for a while, I am either going to head to Kill creek or Shawnee Mission on Saturday as well.

[KU_Bassmaster.]

6/8/06 - Kill Creek

It was a sore thumb day ........ actually two thumbs.

We put in around 6:00 and took out around 11:00 (only because of a stupid dentist appointment >).  Water temp ranged from 77 to 80.

I started the morning off throwing a chartreuse shad Sammy.  Caught one on my very first cast.  This is usually a sign of bad things to come, but not today.  I worked the Sammy on the north side of the lake, near the swimming beach, around all the grass mats.  Went to the south side of the lake and caught a few there was well on it.  My buddy started out with a Pop-R, but was unsuccessful with that.  I think they wanted a faster moving bait.

When the sun peaked up, I hit up the "leafy" grass on the south side of the lake near the grassy area where the bike trail ends.  I threw a black Horny Toad and caught quite a few buzzing it over the top of the grass.  My buddy threw a senko around that area, but had no takers.

After I got done fishing the leafy grass thoroughly, I switched up to a wacky-rigged senko and my buddy switched up to a T-rigged power worm (motor oil) with a 1/16 oz bullet sinker.  We fished it on the outside edge of the tree line on the south side.  He absolutely started tearing them up with the power worm, while I was only having a few hits with the wacky-rigged senko.

By the time we reached the grassy area on the south side again, I switched up to a YUM Wooly Hawg Tail on a Spot Remover jig head.  I was still catching a few while my buddy continued to tear them up on the power worm.  So ended up switching to a Zoom finesse worm (watermelon w/ red flakes) on the Spot remover and I started tearing them up as well.  We continued fishing these set ups until we left.  We were fishing them on the outside edges of the deeper grass mats (10-12 ft) on mainly the north side of the lake between the swimming beach and dam, but also in the very SW corner of the lake.  I am pretty sure we could have caught bass all day long doing this.

Some Key Points:  About 9 am the sun came out pretty good and I looked down and I could see a log that was in 13 ft of water.  This was the clearest I had ever seen this lake.  That prompted me to pick up my spinning reel with 6 lbs test and started making longer casts.  I think that was key.  It could also explain why the preferred my quicker moving Sammy opposed to my buddy's slower moving Pop-R.

So we caught huge numbers, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 or so between the two of us.  We caught several over 2 lbs, but maybe only a few that would have pushed three pounds.  It was a great day and good for the ego as well. ;D  Kind of makes you feel like those bass aren't so tricky after all ........ until tomorrow

[cgs2004]

Kind of makes you feel like those bass aren't so tricky after all ........ until tomorrow

LOL, exactly ;D

[IneedAnewScreenName9886691]

Great report KU, thanks.  

[basspro05]

6-8-06- Smithville Lake report- Fished the Thursday night burtons tourney, again carolina rig is what i was using, we won the tourney had a 5 fish limit that weighed 12lbs good for 1st place, quite a few fish being brought in from spinnerbaits and jigs on rocky banks, i caught my fish on points biggest being 4.5 lbs and the rest being about 2 lbs, lots of fish being caught in both the main lake and the trimble area.