Tag: Kansas Smallmouth

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.

Best Fishing Trip of 2016

The fishing trip of the year was a drive out west to Glen Elder Lake. There is not a whole lot of info on the lake when you try to research it. The Twins had an up coming Kansas Bass Youth Team Tournament, so I made a couple of calls and texts to get some info. We rented a cabin on the lake thru Kansas Wildlife Game and Parks. All over the state there are really nice cabins on many of the lakes in the State Parks to rent that make for a great weekend of fishing or just hanging out at the lake. So we packed up, heading out west for the 4 hour drive.

Off course it is western Kansas so you know the wind will blow. For three days the wind blew up to 20 mph. When we got checked into the cabin, it was nice and sunny so the boys wanted to get out on the lake.  There was no way we were going to be able to drive the boat across the lake, it was just not safe. I decided to use a south ramp which was at the end of a long gravel road and on top of it was a very long ramp without a service dock, so I was going to get wet. We finally got everyone picked up and on the way to some fishing. We fished the south side for a couple of hours without a bite. Finally, there was some stick ups and laydowns about three feet off the bank. Kyle threw up there getting hung up in a laydown. As I moved up to get him unhooked, I saw a big dark spot behind a stickup next to the bank. I wasn’t sure what it was, so I told Nick to throw right there at that dark spot. He threw right on top of the spot. Then just as he closed the bail, the water exploded as the fish nailed Nick’s bait. It took off towards open water right into the stickup and broke off. We all looked at each other like “What was that?” We would fish 200 yards more of stickups and little brushpiles along that bank without another bite. We decided to call it quit for the day, and go to the cabin and get rested because we were to hit the water early so we could fish a couple of spots before the wind picked up.

The next two days would be windy with alot of rain. But, the smallmouth and wipers were biting. We had a blast catching some really good smallmouth off secondary points in 7 feet of water. If you would throw up any shallower you would hook up with a small male. The females were holding out a little deeper ready to move shallow to spawn. With the cold front moving in, the females had moved out.  They were wanting to spawn. If the sun would have been out and it had stayed warm, they would have been all up shallow spawning. Kyle caught 4 really nice smallmouth with the biggest being 3.33lb, and she was full of eggs. It really started to down pour, so we decided to go eat.  I had figured after eating, we would go back to the cabin to hangout. But, the twins wanted to fish more, and we decided to fish from the bank.  The fishing was just as good. Nick caught a couple of three pound smallmouth and wipers. Kyle caught a 7 pound wiper from the bank which is his personal best. Melissa decided not to join us on Sunday as she was going to pack stuff up so we could head out sooner. After she dropped us off at the ramp, it started to down pour rain the whole four hours we fished. But the smallmouth and wipers bit still. We caught over 100 fish on the trip in really tough conditions. We had a really good idea how we were going to fish the next weekend in the boys tournament, but it would end up being cancelled because of the wind. You have to love the weather in April!  The boys cannot wait to go fish Glen Elder again.