Never Again......

[Deitz Dittrich]

Never Again will I say that line or color makes that big a difference. Ok, maybe thats a lie, but wow..

Tournament on Whitefish saturday. Fishing with Cecil, we each had 3/32 Outcast money jigs on, with a 4" senko knock off. Roughly same color. He had a yellow head and 8lb floro.. I had a pumpkin head and 20 lb braid. Weeds were fairly thick, so the braid should not have been an issue. Brent had 11 bass in the boat before I finally hooked one. I know I was not missing the bites as the bass were litterally POUNDING his jig, I could see the line jump on his rod and almost pull the rod out of his hands.. my jig fell lifelessly to the bottom untouched.

Weridest thing I have ever been a part of. Only thing we could think is that the line had the jig falling different? Or as he says. its all about the yellow head.. Need to find some yellow heads now I guess.. LOL Anybody got yellow paint?

[Cecil]

I do! Its a very special paint though and its not cheap

[Tator2k]

Funny! I felt the same way with my buddy a couple weekends ago. He was running 20lb Big Game with a Black/Blue Powerbait Craw and I was running 30lb PP with a Black/blue Havoc craw. It was about an 8 to one fish count on me in the first 90 min. I finally asked if I was missing them and he said can you miss a freight train when you're standing on the tracks? Oh...

Switched Rods to 17lb. Siege with same bait and it picked it up.

[Craigums]

Clear water? Forage type?

[RK]

I would have to guess drop speed might have had something to do with it. Bigger diameter, slower fall with the FC. Could have been the yellow head too I suppose, but I'd say fall rate is more likely.

I know drop speed is something I pay a lot of attention to in clear water. Usually I want a faster drop speed to trigger fish, but sometimes it's the dead opposite, and they want it gliding down.

All the variables... Stuff like this will make you crazy if you think about it too hard.

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Deitz Dittrich]

Clear water? Forage type?

Clearish water.. weedline was in 10-14ish?.. Fish were probably in 8-10ish feet... cabbage and coontail mixed. typical forage.. sunfish/perch my guess..

[rangerforme]

Just painted up 100 pack of 1/8 money jigs, Chartuese(yellow), orange, cranberry red and purple, them nice!

Usually use black 90% of the time for searching but once your on them in a tourney I'll bounce through all the colors.

Pretty easy with a heat gun and that powder paint(cheap) at gander.

OR

Use spike it and chartuese the tail of your stickbait. Has the same affect I think.

[Cecil]

Im going with fall speed, and fall angle. I think the flouro gave it a flatter fall and a little slower. Most (ok all) of the fish took it on the fall and were choking on it. So had it fallen faster or not glided as much, I think I would of had less bites since it seemed like the fish were up in the weeds a bit, not on bottom.

[Nick Kuhn]

Could be the line but I doubt the 2 of you are otherwise able to work them identically. Some days some people just have all the luck. Color was likely the bigger factor though. I am convinced that yellow/chartreuse/green is the most visible color range to any fish.

[Cecil]

I agree on the color, but it wasnt the way we were "working" them, because I wasnt even "working" the lure. It was one of those where they are just eating it. I didnt do anything

[Deitz Dittrich]

you set the hook.. over and over and over... my hands still hurt from culling.. anybody got any bandaids?

[TruthWalleyes]

You must have ribbed him hard cecil if he's looking for answers on here!

I can think of a few days where a buddy of mine, same presentation, outfished me 10-1

What about scent? Anything on your hands like suntan lotion that would detract the bite...I'll assume that this isn't the case on tournament day.

Sounds like it was a fun day either way, especially for cecil!

[Cecil]

No ribbing, team deal and I hope next time it happens to me. A check is a check no matter how you get it. I have only seen it one other time and it was exactly the same scenario. Braid vs Flouro and flouro SMOKED the braid.

No sunscreen or scent Saturday

[Craigums]

Interesting, It could be a combination of line and color. Cecil mentioned they all bit on the fall. With a 3/32oz. jig it was probably dropping relatively slow and the fish may have had a chance to study the bait a little bit, Maybe they noticed the braid and it was enough to turn them off.

And maybe when you switched to the yellow head it gave the fish something to focus on (other than your line) and thats why you started sticking a couple.

I don't know if thats right but it sure sounds good. Congrats on cashing a check you two.

[RK]

Nice he had a livewell slave along so he didn't have to waste fishing time culling.

I brought it up a while ago, but this is another one of the cases (a pretty blatant one) where the strike tells you a lot - if they're hitting it on the drop and gulping it down, they're up high and apparently the slow fall was the thing (I'm convinced after hearing they were hitting on the drop that this was the case). Earlier this summer I had the opposite play out - I was getting weak, mushy hits on a slow falling jigworm, but fish smoked a fast-falling, heavy jig and pig.

Yesterday, same lake, it was more like what you guys found. Slow falling jigworms or a wacky rigged stick bait on a jighead got hit, and jig and pig didn't get a sniff...until a put on a lighter jig with a bigger trailer to slow the drop. But jigworms on a 3/32 oz head still worked better.

[beakgeek]

So is this why you Pros fishing with 2 foot floro leaders tied to braided line?

[blakjack23]

I agree with the others that said its more than likely how the line made the jig fall that made the difference here.

[Ray Esboldt]

I might have been a little late to the flouro party (used it for 3 years now), but I am a firm believer in it now. I believe it has improved my performance in clear water.

I say in this case it was the drop speed. If I am going to fish in the weeds I will use the lightest jighead I feel comfortable with. Usually a 1/16th is my first choice, but I carry 1/32nd if the weed cover and wind are light.

Good job Cecil and Deitz.

[Timmy D]

Nice job guys!! Sounds like a fun day and a great finish!

[Wayne Ek]

RK, think about it. Cecil turned Deitz into a bass (starts with a .

But they are correct. A check is a check and it's always fun to cash.

[cruiseforever]

Maybe you had stinky fingers.

[CHM]

FC sinks, braid floats. Not sure, but I think the jig with 8# FC fell faster than the one with 20# braid. Or they saw the braid and hesitated.

[RK]

I might have been a little late to the flouro party (used it for 3 years now), but I am a firm believer in it now. I believe it has improved my performance in clear water.

I'm convinced I get more bites with fluoro in clear water. I even pitch plastics in shallow cover with fluoro (17-20#) for as long as I can early in the season, until the rushes get thick enough to force me to use braid.

For jigworms and the like, you get the visibility benefit, plus it sinks, so your line doesn't blow around on the surface on a windy day, which means you can usually get away with a lighter jighead and overall my presentation is better. I think it's easier to feel hits with fluoro, just due to it being a more dense material. You can feel hits even with a slack line, which braid really doesn't allow.

For sure a place for both braid and fluoro, but I've become a real big believer in fluoro in a lot of situations.

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[TonkaBass]

Congrats on the nice finish! I also try and nipick things apart and pay attention to details. But when it comes down to it, the only thing that matters is getting the fish in the boat, and you both take part in that as a team. Even if Cecil had that sneaky Chartruese jighead Very impressive school of fish, almost a winning school for that lake! Vermilion is next and I can focus more on those brown ones once again