Hot Tip Of the Week?

[JohnMickish]

I will post mine later today. I need to take some pics and forgot to do it this weekend. Getting ready for bed (I work nights now) so I'll get it when I wake up.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Awesome, MN.. look forward to reading it later today.

[JohnMickish]

OK, I can't claim this as mine, I read about it years ago and maybe everybody already knows about it??

When using hairpin style spinnerbaits if you have trouble with your knots slidding down the bait or if you use snaps (I use snaps on my wifes setups to make it easier for her to change colors) causing the lure to run foul and waisting a cast, here is what I do.

Use a small rubber band and wrap it around the "nubbin" you tie to. I paid about $5,000 to have about a million of these little things scattered around my house and vehicles but you can just go to your local orthodontist and get a pack of 100 for a buck or two. It works like a million bucks and last forever. They also work to tie on skirts in a pinch.

[Cecil]

Good stuff. And easy to do as well!

[ikeslayer]

heat shrink tubing works as well!!! and then also doubles as a wacky rig worm saver!!!

[Deitz Dittrich]

Yo tonka.. your turn bud.. what you got?

[TonkaBass]

Sorry, Just got back from the northwoods

I thought about a tip that I really started to learn better this past season, and I can honestly say that it is 100% effective.

My tip is properly managing spots.

Some of this is honestly gut instincts, but I think that a lot of fishermen shoot themselves in the foot when they find a school of bass. Typical scenario is you pull up to a spot catch a some quick fish, then they stop biting... I really do believe that sometimes a guy would be better off pulling off the spot and taking a lunch break and letting those fish rest. Simply by staying on the school and casting at them you are giving yourself away, educating the school of what a fishing lure is, and spooking the fish! I did really well this summer by pulling up to a school, plucking a fish or 2, and moving on letting those fish ease up before returning. Then, when I would return, it was like a fresh school of dumb fish all over again. This works really well when you have a lot of spots, but if you don't, it gives you time to search oput more spots while your proven ones are getting nice and ripe again...

Obviously this isn't the right move all the time. Sometimes, when they are really dumb (active) your best bet is to sit on them and do a full out bass whooping! This is when you hook one and all his relatives get all worked up and try to steal your lure out of his mouth. It's when they get greedy. That's when they're hot! This is where I think the gut feeling comes in though. You have to know when those fish are hot enough for you to stay, or if you are burning them... Little tip, I have found that smallies in particular don't like you casting at them for extended periods of time compared to largemouths. They also follow each other to the boat way more than green fish, so they may appear to be active when in reality they are just a curious breed. Often if you stay on them (smallies) they will still be there, and rarely swim off the spot, but they go into a drone mode sometimes. When they get like this, good luck, you screwed up and thats what we call burning a school, not good... They may not bite again all day!

Leaving a good spot in a tournament is always more stressful than when you are fun fishing. Is someone gonna come in behind me and figure them out? Are they gonna hit the spot without me knowing and shut the school down? The answers to these questions are out of your control. The only thing you can do is control variables in your own control. Sometimes the best option is to camp just off spot without even casting to it just so it doesn't get used up by competition. I've never done it, but I have talked to a guy who won by doing it (kind of anal, I am the kind of guy to search for greener pastures, but if he won, it's tough to argue his logic). The only thing that should be on your mind when you are fishing is catching the fish! some of the best fishermen I know aren't the best because they know how to properly set the hook, or their lure selecting methods are the best, or that they can cast the furthest (which is always nice though). It's because when they are fishing thats all that's on their mind. They aren't thinking about other boats, a nice looking girl on the jetski that just drove past, or what they want for supper when they get home... The are focused, or as I like to call it, they have their mojo (Austin Powers, I know)! It's up to you to determine wheather a spot is going to produce fish for you or if you are wasting valuable time! And you will never get the answer to that question if you are in La La land...

Hopefully some of you will try this out this upcoming season... Like I said, if you properly manage a spot, it will produce, 100% positive! If it doesn't, it wasn't properly managed! lol

[TR21HP]

Good stuff Tonka, I'll usually let the school tell me when to shut off but a number of times I have left a spot early only to get back on them, sometimes with a different approach as far as bait or technique goes and clobber them. I believe if you combine this with the last tip we had about taking time to know how and where you caught that first one will lead to some great times on the water.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Fun stuff.. thanks Tonka..

[JConrad]

Tonka, thanks.... it's got me thinking!

[olski]

Hey tonka, so what if your tournament partner goes out to pre fish and catches ALL the fish on the spot the day before. Is that bad management? LMAO

[Deitz Dittrich]

LMAO @ Olski... OR... You have a tournament on the same body of water as another club.. And a dude named Olski Wins it on the spot you had planned to fish the next day.. I still cant believe you found the same pattern I did that week.. RATS~

[Cecil]

Did you try fishing that spot still?

[Deitz Dittrich]

Yes sir, for 4 hours.. It was really tough, wind came up really hard the day I fished it, and I did manage to pull one good fish off it.. Hurts when Olski pulls 18lbs off it a day before though.. LOL It was a pretty small spot too..

[TonkaBass]

That Olski, I tell ya... gotta watch him LOL

Olski- Nate never did that... At least not when I fished with him. I cant say for other tournaments... He does love to stick fish way more than find their home though!

[Juan Grande]

I'm still waiting to encounter my first school

[Deitz Dittrich]

Juan- when you do.. its Magic and stupid fishing.. This last summer.. I caught 52 bass from one spot that was no larger than 20' X 20'.. It gets stupid at times! But you can go back to that same spot a week later and get skunked..

[TonkaBass]

I agree, schools are often small... Cast there and get one every time, cast 10' off and nothing...

[MN BassFisher]

52 Bass in one spot?? Haha that is CRAZY!!

[TR21HP]

Tonka,

Timely tip of the week. Faircloth, at the Classic, was hitting his spots and getting off them only to return in an hour and felt that was the key to him keeping his spot hot.

[RK]

Tip of the Week - 2.22.10

Power Fishing with 'Finesse' Lures for Summer Smallies

Soft plastics like tubes, grubs and jerk shads are key players in any smallie angler's bag of tricks. They're "have them or don't fish" necessities. But as prevalent as they are, I still think a lot of anglers don't appreciate the full range of their capabilities. They're often regarded as 'finesse' baits to be fished slowly and carefully - baits to turn to when conditions are tough. "Power fishing" - covering water and looking for active agressive fish - is for hard baits like jerkbaits, cranks, or spinnerbaits.

Automatically thinking 'finesse' when it comes to soft plastics is a mistake, especially for summer smallies. Power fishing with soft plastics can excel for summer smallmouths, especially in clear water or when fish are heavily pressured.

Power Tubin'

Aggressively fishing tubes is one of the most effective methods I know of for covering water and triggering smallies. The spiraling fall of a tube is an almost magical trigger sometimes. While finesse tube rigging means light jigheads or split shot rigging, power tubin' cranks up the weight and the speed. 3/8 oz is a minimum size head for shallow (3-6 feet) water, and I more commonly fish tubes on 1/2 to 3/4 oz heads. The right head - and the right hook - is pretty critical. 3/0 to 4/0 light wire hooks penetrate well without opening up a huge hole in a fish's jaw. For solid-head tubes like Northland Flipping tubes, Northland Slurp jigheads are great, but only come up to 3/8 oz. Heavier heads that don't have X-heavy flipping hooks are hard to find, and I don't enjoy sniffing lead fumes enough to pour my own (I'm dumb enough as it is without additional "dain bramage"). So hollow head tubes work better, and the best jighead, by far, is the Bite Me Tackle Big Dude, which comes in 1/2 and 3/4 oz sizes, and was designed for dragging tubes on Lake Erie. For hollow tubes, I like Northland Jigging tubes (some *awesome* colors) and ISG Dream Tubes.

Match them with a long (at least 7') rod in Medium to Medium-Heavy power and 8# Fluorocarbon. (I currently use a 7' St Croix LTB, and it's good, but I wish I could find a 7'6" MH spinning rod...). Long casts not only cover more water but help keep fish hooked. Fish jumping with a big jighead close to the boat can cause some lost fish, but you seem to lose fewer when they're further out. So bombs away - and you can really launch a 3/4 oz tube... The amount of water you can cover fishing tubes this way is amazing.

Fish the tubes by aggressively popping them off the bottom then letting them spiral back down. In water deeper than 10 feet or so I rip the rod upward, lifting the tube from 3 to 8 feet off the bottom, then let it drop and pause on the bottom for a few seconds. Experiment with the lift height and pause length. In shallower water over rocks or sandgrass, sweep the bait to the side in long strokes.

Burning Grubs

Burning grubs is a tactic I use in situations where I suspect a lot of other anglers would reach for a spinnerbait - over shallow rock reefs or gravel/sandgrass flats, for example, or when smallies chase perch and minnows in shallow sparse weeds. They're great for rock reefs where anything fished on the bottom either gets hung up or covered with rock snot. Grubs have some of the same triggers as spinnerbaits - speed, vibration and flash - but dial down the intensity. It's great for clear water and spooky fish, and I think really exploits the innate curiosity of smallmouths. They can hear it coming but it's subtle enough to make them hunt for it a little, and by the time it's in their zone, their predatory instincts are cranked up.

I use primarily 4" or 5" grubs, mostly on 1/4 to 3/8 jigheads (any good ballhead with a premium hook will do), but occasionally go as high as 1/2 oz. I match them with a 7'6" Medium-Light fast action rod an 6# mono on a large spool reel (Diawa SS Tournament Series 1600). An ML rod can seem too light at first, but when smallies hit grubs fished this way they seem to rush them from behind and overtake them - the rod just loads up all of a sudden. The light rod keeps you from pulling the hooks out on a strike, and the additional length makes for (again) long distance casts that are critical in clear water. The retrieve is simple - point the rod tip at the water and slightly off to the side, and reel..that's it. Speed can range from moderate to as fast as you can turn the handle. For summer fish you almost can't fish too fast. Fish that only nip something at a moderate speed will engulf a bait burned by them... Experiment with speed ranges and running depths.

Grub colors for me fall into two categories - translucent shades like smoke, clear/black flake or sand, and 'shock' colors like pearl white, school bus yellow, or pink/yellow. Especially for real high speed work, shock colors can kick butt. Translucent colors make baits a little tougher to find I think, forcing fish to hunt them down.

Snapping Soft Jerkbaits

Soft jerkbaits usually get fished Texas-rigged, which is fine of course, but they also fish exceptionally well on a jighead as fast-moving reaction baits. 3/32 to 1/4 oz jigheads with quality light wire hooks work fine, and I like jigheads with a flat underside like Northland Mimic Minnow or Slurp heads, or Outkast Money Jigs, as they make the bait dart and glide a little more. For baits, any soft plastic fluke-style bait works well - Zoom Flukes, Gulp or Power Bait Jerk Shads - whatever. I match them with a 7' medium power fast action spinning rod and either 8# fluoro or 10# fireline with a fluoro leader.

To fish a jighead/jerkbait, fire it out, let it sink to the desired depth, then aggressively snap it in short, sharp jerk-baits interspersed with pauses to let the bait dart and glide. Different baits glide differently - deeper, flat-sided baits like Lunker City Fin-S-Fish dart more than rounder baits like Gulp Jerk Shads, so you can play around with how aggressively you want the bait to move. You can also fish them similar to a heavy tube - letting the bait fall to the bottom then making a long, high lift before letting it fall again.

Jerk shads like this are great for fishing along deep weed edges, or for fish suspended over deep rock humps or points. They can really shine on waters where fish see a lot of hard plastic jerkbaits.

To sum it all up - soft plastics don't always have to mean slow and subtle. Power fishing with soft plastics can really rock summer smallmouths if you're willing apply a hard bait, power fishing mentality and a slightly different set of tools to the equation.

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Deitz Dittrich]

Awesome Stuff Mr. Kimm

[Juan Grande]

I always look forward to your posts RK. Probably because they're typically geared towards my fish of choice, the smallmouth.

Great info!

[TR21HP]

Good stuff Rob, I have tried jerking soft plastics on Mille Lacs for smallies although not on purpose. I was using too heavy a weight and kept getting hung up but everytime I shook loose I had a strike. It only took about 5 times before I thought maybe I'm on to something here. I went down in weight and tried snapping the plastic like a jerkbait and just clobbered them.

[Juan Grande]

When using the heavy jig heads with tubes, are you jerking it before it hits bottom? I fished heavier jigs in windy conditions last year and got snagged a lot on rock piles.