This story's title is a bit misleading. If you're just now thinking about a new bass fishing season in Kansas, you're actually kind of late. There is some good bassin' to be had right now in the Sunflower State.

La Cygne Reservoir, a power-plant lake about an hour's drive south of greater Kansas City, is home to a year-round growing season for bass because of the hot-water outlet that releases water from the power-generating station back into the lake. Bass there have favorable water temperatures throughout the coldest part of a year, and they respond by giving winter anglers a real treat.

If you can't stop thinking about catching a largemouth on a shallow-diving crankbait or on a spinnerbait fished along shoreline cover, then you need to hook up the boat and head for La Cygne. When I moved to Kansas more than 25 years ago, the first keeper-sized largemouth I ever caught hit a little crankbait in less than 4 feet of water on La Cygne -- in February! I'll never forget noticing little bits of ice flying off the line guides on my rod when that 17-incher hit with reckless abandon. I forgot about how cold it was!

The outlook on La Cygne is good right now. And the forecast for the rest of the Sunflower State's bass fishery is positive, too, as the new season unfolds.

"Our bass fishery is not bad at all," said Kyle Austin, a fisheries biologist with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. "The dynamics change a little bit from year to year; that's inevitable. But statewide, I believe this season is going to be pretty good."

You may be a bit surprised at the reservoirs Austin tabbed as being at the top of Kansas' 2009 list of bass destinations. Joining perennial bass hotspot Hillsdale are Cedar Bluff and Sebelius reservoirs. Sebelius, in particular, surprised me.

"It's one of our western lakes that does suffer a bit of a yo-yo effect because of water level dynamics," Austin acknowledged. "But it really is a fish factory. It's part of a very productive watershed -- one of the better ones in the state, actually -- and you can always catch fish there."

Although this story is about bass, it's worth noting that Austin applied that statement to all of the lake's game fish, which also include wipers and saugeyes. "The key at Sebelius, as on pretty much all of our western lakes, is maintaining the water level," Austin said. "We are working on some things that will help us achieve more consistent lake levels there, and we believe that will only make a good fishery better."

He noted that Sebelius also suffers through some less-than-productive shad spawns, and that also affects the fishery because of a lack of food. There may be times when anglers catch bass that don't look so healthy because they don't have the forage base they enjoy in other seasons. That also contributes to the yo-yo effect.