Any one still fishing?

[RK]

Hiya -

I was out this weekend a little. It was pretty good overall. Mix of smallmouths and largemouths, most slow rolling spinnerbaits over weed flats in 6-10 FOW. Caught smallmouths mixed in with the largemouths all afternoon yesterday, and they've been mixed together in the same general area for 6 weeks. Caught some fish on jigs and a couple on crankbaits too, but a 1/2 oz spinnerbait was better. Just crawling it through the weeds on the flat, and finding clumps of green weeds. Could catch several fish of a clump, and come back to it after things settled down and catch more.

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Juan Grande]

Fished a small 100 acre lake yesterday. Got rained on and it was chilly, but not bad considering it's late October. Water temp was 52 and we caught four bass with the biggest being 19.5". The few fish we caught we out away from shore in 4-8 feet of water on cranks and spinnerbaits. I guess we should have stopped pounding the shoreline earlier.

We were marking schools of what I assume were suspended crappies in 15 feet of water or so. Just got a new transducer for my Lowrance, it's amazing what I've been missing the past few years!

[HellaBass]

had 52 degree water on metro lake on Sunday, we caught 6, lost 2, in about 2 hrs

[EBass]

Ugh - hit up my local lake and caught 1 and my buddy caught 2 in 4 or so hours. It was slow. Temp 49-53 - I think its turning over. Water was brownish, but I dunno when that happens.

[TonyKay]

caught one bass and one northern in about 3 hours of fishing today....sloow to say the least. water temps ranged from 49-51 all morning. I also think that the lake is turning over. very very cloudy from one end of the lake to the other.

[Aaron Carrell]

Was out with a buddy Saturday afternoon for 5 hours on Cedar & Isles. 2 bass to the boat and another 1 or 2 lost. Boated 3 muskies and a pike though to make up for it. Slow day, and no clue where the bass were. The only 2 caught were in semi-healthy milfoil clumps. Water temps were 52-55º depending on how dingy the water was. Hadn't quite turned over yet I don't think.

Glad the weather was beautiful, otherwise that trip wouldn't have lasted that long.

[kt]

Was out saturday and sunday on 3 different lakes and did real well on both smallies and largemouth. Pounded the smallies on saturday morning, found them on mid depth rock with weeds nearby. Saturday night we pounded largemouth on shallow wood and inside weedlines. Sunday went out in the rain and did well on the smallies again, this time we caught them shallow 2-6 feet on sand flats with scattered weeds/rock. No monsters but lots of 2.5-3.5 smallies and several largemouth in the 3-4.5 range.

[fishn]

Fished on Friday last week on a small metro lake. Caught 8, biggest was 20inches smallest 16inches in 3 hours all on jigs. Fish were scattered on the edges of large flats with tons of bait fish suspended out there also. Water temp was 53 degrees. Cant wait to get out again.

[cruiseforever]

Got out for four hours yesterday. Had a great day, 32 Bass between 15-20 inches. Lost and missed a bunch. Was using a Black and Blue jig with a small plastic trailer. All the fish were 8-10 ft. They wanted it very slow and always hit on the fall.

Time to put the boat away and start planning for next spring. I am really getting into this fall fishing. I would like to try later, but my storage area is hard to get into when the weather turns sour. I use the 91 Halloween storm as my reminder.

[Juan Grande]

What weight jigs do you guys fish with when you're in open water and not flipping docks or heavy cover?

I've never caught a fish on jig and I try one almost every time out, albeit only for 15 minutes or so. I think the jigs I'm using are too heavy. If you're fishing a break or something you just chuck it out, let it hit bottom and then drag or hop it back?

[RK]

Juan G -

It's a little different in fall when a slower fall can sometimes work in your favor, but in the clear water I am fishing, I want a fairly heavy jig so the drop speed is faster. I think I can trigger a lot more reaction bites with a faster fall, and you just cover water faster. I actually fish jigs pretty aggressively.

I would guess most of the time I use jigs in the 1/2 to 5/8 oz range if I'm in water deeper than 5 or 6 feet. You can adjust the drop speed some by changing trailers too - a 5/8 oz jig with a Strike King KVD Chunk falls faster than a Chigger Craw which falls faster than a Paca Craw which falls faster than a Rage Tail Craw... Thinning a skirt out or trimming it back some helps them fall quicker too.

I got a real object lesson in drop speed earlier this season. I was catching fish off a big flat on crankbaits when the wind changed and the crankbait bite died. So I switched to a slow falling jigworm, fished through the area, and had a couple really weak, tentative bites. Missed a couple, and lip hooked the ones I did catch. Knew there were fish there still, so I switched to a 5/8 oz jig, fished through it again, and wore them out. Fish that didn't react to a slow falling bait smoked a fast-dropping jig - had to stick my hand down their throat to unhook most of them.

Fast drop isn't always what they want, but at least how I fish them, most of the time when I'm jigging clear water (other than jigworms) I want it dropping pretty fast at least to start out. So light jigs don't see much time for me.

Cheers,

RK

[RK]

BTW - the best way to learn to fish a jig is to leave everything else at home for a couple trips, and force yourself to stick with it. You'll be motivated to make it work

[74mph]

RK - When you are fishing jigs like you say in the Fall. Are you just making short casts and letting it fall near the boat or are you making longer casts and hopping it back to you? Also how much weed growth should you be looking for. Since the weeds are dying back I was trying to find weeds in the 8-10 ft range over the weekend and "hop" the jig through. That wasnt working for me so I tried shallower thick cover with short casts just sinking it to the bottom and yo-yoing a few times. Still nothing. Water was about 50-51deg throughout the lake. I need some advice to try something else - got a little burned out over the weekend with only one bass in the boat.

[Juan Grande]

Thanks for the tips RK!

I hear ya 74, it's hard to stick with something you don't have confidence in. Still, so many guys on this forum fish jigs they must be deadly if you fish them correctly.

One thing I need to work on is that I like to work baits back to the boat with my rod at 3 or 9 o'clock, depending on the side of the boat. I would guess that to effectively hop/work a jig you need your rod more at 12 o'clock with the rod pointing up? Another problem I have is not being patient and I work the bait too quickly.

Pretty much all the lakes I fish (except Mille Lacs) are low visibility.

[Superduty]

I'm not sure there is a wrong way to fish a jig. If I was only allowed one bait in the boat, it would certainly be a jig. I can swim it, drag it, flip it, cast it and do just about anything except fish it as a topwater. I can effectively cover all depths with a jig if needed. Don't get me wrong. Other baits will outfish a jig when the fish are on a certain bite. The jig is a jack of all trades.

[Gekhang]

i learned to love jig fishing by fishing in a lake such as chisago where your chances of catching a bass are alot higher and that helped build my confidence with jigs and now i always have a jig on one of my rods.

[RK]

Hiya -

74 - whether it's fall or otherwise, cast length kind of depends on cover and angles. If I'm going parallel to a weedline (which I do a lot) or over a flat with patchy cover (like you get in fall when some weeds die back) it's bombs away. I don't mind making long casts. When I'm casting to a specific clump, or to a weedline I'm sitting outside of, a lot of times it's just an underhand roll cast almost, so fairly short. I rarely fish a jig all the way back to the boat. Most of the time, especially if I'm casting to a specific piece of cover like a clump, finder, or inside turn, I fish it for maybe 20 or 30 feet, then reel in and cast again. Same with weedlines - fish it a few feet past the weed edge, then crank it in and get it back out there.

When I'm looking for green weeds, or just thick clumps in fall, I use a crankbait to find them (I'd use side imaging if I had it. Maybe next year ). A crankbait is a heck of an interpretive tool, plus it can help you locate fish. If you catch one in the fall, there's usually more. I'll then mark the stuff I want to hit with a jig somehow - line it up with shoreline objects, GPS, or a marker buoy. I throw a lot of markers some days, especially on offshore spots. Lots easier to keep yourself oriented.

Juan - I hop jigs pretty aggressively a lot of the time. I really am trying for a reaction bite. I start fast and aggressive to see if I can get away with it. If I can, I can cover water that much faster. I slow down if I have to. Missed fish, short hits, fish barely hooked (the bite can tell you a lot if you pay attention) or just no bites when I think I should be getting bit can be signs to slow down - reduce the drop speed, ease up on the snapping. I guess I hold my rod tip at 10 o'clock and lift it to 11:30 or 12 - it's just a matter of how hard the lift is. Lots of hits come when you hang up on weeds then snap it off.

SD - skitter a swim jig:) Jig/topwater.

Cheers,

RK

[74mph]

Thanks RK - I could definently spend more time with the crank bait. This is something that I havent been doing. I was so focused this summer on pounding a deep crank over rocks that I have almost forgotten about them for a search tool over shallower areas. It would be great to find some nice green weeds on the crankbait.

I typically throw rapala DT series crankbaits DT6, 10, 14 and 16. I would assume this time of year I am going to be looking in that 6 - 14 foot range so Ill be throwing those depth cranks. This should make for a pretty fun weekend!

[Nick Kuhn]

Every fall the first thing out of my box is something that I know will hook into weeds. If I find some, then I make the choice of whether I want to fish down in the weeds (usually sunny days) or fish above them with a jerkbait or swimbait. Some weeds die off from the bottom up so fish are not always right on the bottom in those weeds.

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Well it was another beautiful fall day on the water, better yet the fish were cooperating once again.

Their werent many docks left in the lake but the ones that were left had fish on them. Id say I caught at least one fish off 75% off the docks. Better yet they were good size fish, had 17.17 lbs for my best 5, with one just over 5 lbs. Got all my dock fish on a northstar baits jig and craw chunk. Got a pic of the big one but turned out bad, not sure what I did when I put the timer on.

Also caught some bass throwing a sunfish swimbait on a large flat, in about 5'. I didnt find any large concentrations of fish doing this though just one here, one there...

At the end of the day I was pitching my jig to some lily pads. On one pitch almost as soon as my jig hit the water the line started going sideways, hookset, this is a big fish! Its running hard, Im thinking (hoping) bass of a lifetime. After a few big runs I start thinking pike or 'ski, then I get a glimpse and it ended up being about a 15lb...

CARP!

First time Ive ever hooked one on an artificial lure.

[river rat316]

haha,if you had put your face in that pic I would definitely put that one on my bragging board Sounds like a good day no less!

[Prairiefire]

We boxed our dinner in about 15 minutes yesterday.

Then we kind of switched gears and sat on some rock piles for smallies.

They still have a lot of pull even with 49 degree temps. I had one completely straighten out my hook. It was kind of cheating with a jig and minnow, but you have to take advantage of your opportunities this time of year.

[Wayne Ek]

Their stacked up pretty good in that S/W corner. Hopefully they will stay there for a couple of more weeks.

[Friar_Tuck]

turnupthefishing~i've actually caught several carp on jigpig myself, i was just as surprised the first time. thought i had smallzilla on just to find it was a mud salmon...

[TurnUpTheFishing]

haha,if you had put your face in that pic I would definitely put that one on my bragging board Sounds like a good day no less!