Category: Triple Hooked Blogs

Coffey County Bass Fishing

Here a story that happened last year on a beautiful November day.  We decided to get the boat out, and go down to Coffey County Lake to fish for some smallmouth with my dad. 1478394451993I was worried about the fishing with the power plant not running. But, when we showed up at the ramp, we saw all the boats. I knew we were going to catch them. It started out slow, but like always, it took a little time to figure them out. It had been a month since we were there. We started fishing riprap in the hot water area with finesse baits. We were able to catch 5 fish. On one of the fish, Nick broke a rod swinging the fish into the boat. The twins wanted to move to an area with grass mats on the surface that held fish the last time we were there. I pulled up to the spot.  The grass was gone, and the boys were upset. I told them the bass are still in the area  and had just moved to the rocks. Nick’s very
1478370859935first cast with a weightless stickbait, and he hooked up with a really nice fish.  The fish started to make a run to deep water, then the hook popped out. So, we went back to fishing the riprap. This time it was Kyle’s turn to hook up with a good smallmouth, which we lost at the boat. I noticed there was some tall grass on the graph which was holding the fish. Next time through, my dad hooks up with a smallmouth, and we were able to get it landed. Throughout the day, we revisited the spot catching good smallmouth and largemouth. On one trip, Kyle caught three bass on three straight casts. We were able to fish a couple of other spots catching fish but the better size came off the tall grass along the riprap. We ended up catching 30 fish. It was a great day with the twins and my dad.

While I was loading the boat, the twins wanted to fish the bank. I told them it was okay, but to make sure to stay out of the way of the people that were already there fishing. It was not very long, and I heard Nick yelling “Dad I caught one.” Then a couple more minutes, Kyle caught one. While I was cleaning the boat, I heard someone say something.  So, I said “What? You have another?” Then I heard someone from the bank say ” Yeah, they have another.” Nick then caught one more bass. We finished with 34 fish, and most were 16 inches. Making memories with the boys and Dad is priceless.

GLEN ELDER FALL FISHING

We made a trip out to Glen Elder for a B.A.S.S. Kansas Youth Team Series Event. It was a great day on the water with my boys. We arrived at the ramp while the High School’s event was going on. There were a couple of teams fishing around the ramp, and they were hooking up almost on every other cast with white bass or non-keeper smallmouth. The fish needed to be over 15 inches to weigh-in with a bass pass which will allow tournaments on Kansas to weigh-in 5 fish over 15 inches between Sept 1 thru June 15 then released back into the water.

It was a very difficult day to pre-fish with the wind and high school kids fishing on most of the spots. Also, you try to stay out of the way of the High School kids fishing the event. I decided to start in an area we had luck before and was out of the wind. Nick hooked up with a tiny smallmouth right away. Then we moved to the back of the cove which I made a mistake and threw by some stickup. My line started swimming off and I set the hook. It was a nice keeper largemouth.

Then a high school team moved in on the spot, and we decided to move out of the way. We watched them catch two non-keepers off the stickups. I decided to move over to the south bank to some other stickups I have had luck on. It didn’t take long to hookup. But it was the wrong species, wipers. Twins were having too much fun not to let them catch some wipers. After a couple of hours, we decided to go watch the high school weigh-in, and after the weigh-in we would come back out.

We fished a couple of main lake points which we hooked up with drum and wipers. We were moving around and not having much luck, so the twins wanted to go catch some more wipers. We decided to hit the south bank again which we should have never fished again. Kyle threw up by a stickup with a small crankbait and hooked up with a keeper smallmouth. He was just so excited about catching the smallmouth that he was shaking. We then caught a couple of more wipers and smallmouth.

Tournament Day was very tough for the boys. I cannot fish on tournament days; I can only coach them, run the trolling motor and the big motor. It is so hard to be patient when they are not catching them. You keep thinking should we be fishing over there on that point. Maybe the dam or back of that cove. Then should they be throwing this or try that. I have not made very good decisions this year. We tried the stickup in the back of the cove which I caught the keeper largemouth. The boys caught three non-keeper largemouth right away, but then went another 30 minutes without a bite. I decided to move them to the south bank, and we would not even get a bite. Not good; we should have never fished it so hard the day before. We moved to a wind main lake point which Nick caught a non-keeper smallmouth on a crankbait. Then, I made a mistake instead of continuing to fish down the riprap along the point, I moved us over to the south bank again. The boys would hookup with a couple of wipers, but with 30 minutes to go I decided to go back to the point and fish down the riprap which Kyle would catch a keeper with 20 minutes left in the tournament. Then both the twins caught 3 more non-keeper smallmouth. They would just weigh one fish in. I found out the winning team fished riprap on the north side in the wind. Oops!!! I should have listened to that first smallmouth Nick caught off the point. The number one rule when you catch a fish is she maybe telling you whats going on. If we had fished down that riprap 2 hours earlier maybe we could have caught a limit.

White Bass Fishing in Kansas

Every year on most of the Kansas lakes that have white bass, they will turn on in September and October. The white bass move shallow to feed. It is a great time to take kids fishing. They can throw about almost any bait out and get hooked up. I prefer to have the boys throw Square Bills, Lipless Crankbaits and small spinnerbaits. If they are busting the surface, Topwater baits work great. We had a trip out about a week ago that we caught 23 white bass in 10 minutes, and ended catching 82 fish for the day. We could have caught more, but we decided to fish for smallmouth. You can always tell if you are going to catch the white bass when the birds are diving in the water for baitfish. Even Trey had has first double on a square bill. So, grab a rod and go fishing before the season is over. Good luck!!!