saturday dec 8

[BASSTRACKER]

8 slats showing at launch, was 2 last week. starting to get worried about sliding the trailer into the mud, did that once last time it got this low and it was NOT fun trying to get it back out without 4wd. at boyscout"peninsula" the 60ft marker is just popping out of the water. but the fishing was good caught 2 on top waters right of the bat, oddly nuff both right up against a mud bank with no cover. then got on a school of bass staging below suspended shad and tore em up with a drop shot. caught 7 in 20 min. pays to read that graph when running! got slammed on spinnerbaits along some laydowns and finally got a nice 2lb tuc on a crankbait after he wrapped me in trees and pulled the rear treble out of the bait. got 15 bass and one tuc nothing big but several in the 2-3 lb class and a bunch od the 1.8lb variety. seems most of my patterns that have been producing for me lately have been after susspended fish, guess the dropping water is keeping em offshore. get it while you can though wont be long till its unlaunchable for trailers. oh ya on an intresting fish story note, that school of bass i found that i was drop shoting and the last bass i hooked into snapped my 8lb flouro leader on the hook set. then the bite went dead. we moved to a new spot but came back an hour later just to take a few more casts at it just in case! had a new drop shot setup on and on the vary first cast i hook up. get him in and unhook him. of course my son wants to hold him and as i go to take a pic i notice the drop shot weight still dangling from the fish. shake my head thinking "wait didn't i just unhook that fish" i look down and sure enough i had. turns out its 12 in of line and my other rig in that fish's mouth. line disappearing all the way down into the gullet. i figured the worse for him and was ready to cut is as far in as i could. but as i put tension on the line it gave and the head of the worm started to show. so i kept pulling and out popped the whole rig! the hook still texaposed in the worm, fish never felt the hook!! too weird.

[unkle brian]

Had an awesome day also. For us, it was a peacock bass day. Started off with my little nephew catching a little peacock bass. I think we were just passing you at that time. Took some pictures (and those would be the last because I thought I left home with a full charge only to find out that I had dead batteries). While traveling, I noticed some tucs going airborne at Kemoo Island. Used some Mepps spinners and Panther Martins and buzzed them along the surface. We ended up catching 5 tucs out of the area, nothing grand, the biggest just shy of 2 pounds. Switched over to Shad Raps to see if we could pick up any suspending fish but no luck there. Continued on further north and some activity caught my eye along the mud bank. Peacocks were feeding right along the bank. Started out with the in-line spinners. Not a single chase or follow. (The in-line spinners are easier for the nephews to cast and see the fish strike). Had to change everyone over to crankbaits. That change did it. Picked up another 5 from right along the bare exposed bank. Off the 5, the largest went 5 pounds 1 ounce, the other 4 in the 2 to 3 pound range. After the bite, I beached us to explore the area to see what drew the peacocks right along the shoreline. The only thing I could see was the school of baby tilapia cruising back and forth tight along the shore. Interesting. To round out the day, we caught a blue gill and 3 plecos all on crankbaits. I thought plecos just ate algae, or at least that's what they do in my fish tank. But the plecos we caught were caught with the hooks in their mouth. Interesting.

[Ca_Bass]

BASSTRACKER,

You gotta give this rig a try at Wilson, I would bet some serious money it would absolutely tear them up! Especially when they are chasing bait, but that isn't even needed.

These guys are a custom bait from Jaks Custom Baits
http://jakscustombaits.com/swimbaits.htm





Reaction Innovations Little dipper is almost identical but is 3.5 inches to the 3.25 Jaks. I have only a slight preference to the Jaks baits but they don't last as long as the little dippers and they take longer to get. On both baits I supper glue the head to the jig head and they will last quite a bit longer.

They work best on an 1/8th oz darter head jig, I get the jig heads from Jaks Custom Baits as well but bass pro makes a decent 1/8th darter and so does Big Bite Baits (I think they use a 4/0 hook that I prefer but they are painted black which I don't). Another jig head that works well are are the strike king jig heads. Occasionally I will fish em on a heavier jig head to get extra distance but the 1/8th oz definitely gives the bait a better action. Big Bite Baits also makes a 3.5 inch cane thumper which actually seems to get more bites but they will only last 1 to 2 fish max before they are torn up too bad. The cane thumpers have a smaller profile than the Little Dipper and the Jaks Swimbait, and is probably more similar to the shad at Wilson, but I seem not to catch the same quality of fish on em.

Fish them on 6 or 8lb mono or flouro, I generally will use mono because I don't trust flourocarbon that is less than 10lbs but will use 8lb flouro in really clear water. You can also use 14 or 20lb braid and add a 3 or 4 ft leader I like to do this when I'm fishing them on a spinning rod more than on a casting rod. Fish em fast, fish em slow, it really doesn't matter, I always start out fast though and cover lots of water but I would probably fish them a little slower at Wilson since there isn't as much water to cover. They are probably at their best when fish are chassing bait or suspended which is why your post made me think of them. For nearly the past three months this is almost all I've thrown! Only bad thing about them is when rigged on a darter head they don't come through brush very well. On the strike king jig head they are a little better. Back before the bass started moving into the backs of the creeks here they were staging on the main lake and secondary points to the major creeks often times they were suspending/sitting 20 to 30ft deep and were coming up to smash them as i burned them at about 3ft beneath the surface.

I have no connections or anything to any of these companies but this style of fishing has really caught my attention....and I WISH I KNEW ABOUT IT WHEN I WAS IN HAWAII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you give em a shot let me know, I would love to hear about you tearing them up on em!