Greg and brother Jeff: Central Kansas - 9/7-8

The fishing was mediocre in Kansas. The weather was damn awful with wind every day but Sunday. Coffey County was my lake of choice when I lived in Kansas City. Fifty fish days were pretty common 8 or 10 years ago.

Sunday at Coffey County Fishing Lake near Emporia: My brother and I met 3 of my old co-workers from Kansas City. We spent the first hour catching 13 inch crappies in some flooded trees. Each of us caught a limit (5 fish) pretty quickly long-lining minnows under the boat. With limits of crappie in our boat, we switched over to trolling gear (deep diving cranks) for walleye, white bass and wipers (white/striper hybrid). After locating some white bass by trolling, we switched over to jigging over schools of fish we saw on his electronics. Fish weren't particularly aggressive, and fishing was kinda slow until early evening. In the last hour, we enjoyed good fishing for whites, wipers, catfish, walleye and drum. A bottom bouncer/smile blade/crawler produced several fish. By far the most productive technique in the evening was a chrome blade bait. The blade bait caught walleye, white bass, wipers, catfish, smallmouth, and drum. Jeff and I probably caught 25-30 fish for the day.

Monday at Cheney Reservoir near Wichita: We hit the lake at daybreak expecting to be blown off the water by lunch time. We began trolling deep diving cranks over humps and sunken points for white bass, walleyes, and wipers. We got a bite or two in the first hour, but the action was slow. We changed to vertical jigging over schools located by electronics. Once again, the blade bait proved to be the best technique for me. I boated 15 white perch (invasive species) in less than 30 minutes. These fish closely resemble a white bass, but don't get much bigger than 13 inches. They are quite delicious, but reproduce so quickly that they can ruin a fishery. I also caught a 20 inch wiper on the blade bait. My brother became tired of being out-fished. He finally relented and switched to one of my blade baits, and landed a 22 inch walleye in short order. The bite died around 10 AM, and we were blown off the lake around noon.

I wish that I would have known about blade baits when I lived in Kansas City. That crazy combination of lead and metal caught 7 different fish species in two days.