Confused on Patterns

[bassNspear]

you have to remember, im slow, its the slow time of year bud.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Ok.. here is the fishing report from tonight.. fished 3.5 hours.. just me in the boat.. The lake I fished had very little for green weeds left. Very little. Some very shallow, but seemed like about a 3-4 foot weed edge, the lake was clearer than I last fished it however. I do feel some fish have moved to early fall patterns. I boated 38 fish in all, top 5 fish all weighed 4 lbs or better with my big fish at 4lb 9oz. There were quite a few fish in the mid depth rocks, 5-9 feet of water. But many were in the 3 lb class, no big fish. The biggest 5 all still came from typical summer spots, rock to sand trasitions, in 10-14 feet of water. which is deep for the lake I fished.

Drop shot caught 3 of the top 5 fish, while stupid rig/carolina rig caught the other 2... The other 20+ fish came on the same but add in a DT7 that I pulled the ole Kneel and Reel on em to get it down another couple of feet to make contact with the bottom.

SO there you have it, still some summer stuff happening, they havn't left yet, but as I said, a lot of fish in the mid depth, I assume working their way to some shallows... I talked to guys pounding the shallows, one had caught a 19", the other boat had quite a few fish but nothing over 3 lbs...

[bassNspear]

thanks for the information bud. As i get out of your report, it seems that anything from 5-14 fow is the way to target the bass right now, and if there not there, move to the shallow water.

Looks like you had a awesome night in the boat. Thanks again for the information. Helps me out alot.

[rangerforme]

Its gonna happen quick with highs in the 60s/low 70s and chilly clear nights.

I hear alot of guys tell me the deep bite will stay because the season is 2/3 weeks behind, but does that really matter, doesn't it have more to do with angle of the sun, weed growth, and water temps.

I don't think the fish say to themselves, well I was 2 weeks late getting to this weedline, I'd better stick around for an extra 2 weeks.

[rosspj59]

Nice work Deitz. 38 in 3.5 hours is insane! Thanks for the report on what is working.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Thanks Ross, when throwing cranks and the bite is on, you can load the boat pretty quick. I probably caught 15 of the fish in about 5 mins on the crank.. then the bite on that area shut down as quick as it started, or I caught all the active fish in that area, one of the two.

[Craigums]

Man o' man sounds like the action was fast and ferious I gotta get out fishing with you some day... maybe if I ever have enough money to buy your triton I'll make you "test" it out with me haha

Anyways that is a good report and we appreciate it. I plan on getting out tomorrow and fishing all day. I think I am going to start shallow in the early morning throwing topwaters until I get bored then work the deeper areas that I have confidence in...If the deeper areas slow down I will go back and work some docks. basically just fish until I notice a pattern. I will try to take pics of the spots that I catch each fish in and post them with a report. Good Luck to everyone fishing this weekend!

~CP

[Cecil]

Good luck Craigums! Tonka for me this weekend!

[CHM]

Nice report! I have been finding some fish in the pencil reeds and some on the weed edge - whatever edge there is.

I really don't do any cranking for bass, except for some lipless stuff when I'm searching.

I want to stop and buy one or two DTs on the way home after work. Any advice on a size and color?

Thanks!

[Fever]

I have grown to not only like my DT's but in a way I've begun to depend on them more and more as search lures because of their precise depth control. If I were to buy some today with the intent of fishing out the rest of this season I'd start with at least a couple DT4's, DT6's and at least one DT'10. I strayed away from the DT16 as I'm thinking the migration from deep to shallow will be coming shortly and you wouldn't use them too much this fall and I didn't mention the DT7 flat as I haven't used one. As far as color.... depends on water but I have had the most luck with blue gill, perch, firetiger, blue shad, silver shad, and silver/black as those are the colors I have... lol. Only bad part is these will set you back between $7-10.00 a pop so a guy is limited there. Good luck.

[Cecil]

I have a DT10 tied on year-round. Bluegill and blue shad being my best 2 colors as most lakes in the area are fairly clear. If it's a dirtier lake, I like the 2 craw colors. One thing to keep in mind, DT's are known for breaking by the lip. Do not slap these baits on the water to get weeds off like you might with most crankbaits. They are a little fragile but they need to be in order to get the action you need, and I will make that trade-off any day.

[Craigums]

Stupid question, How do you fish DT's?

I used to just cast and reel, cast and reel, ect.... and never caught a fish on one. then I read you should try to hit the bottom with the bait, so I did that and every single cast once I got it down it would get stuck in the weeds and I would pull up a HUGE clump of weeds. so it didn't take me long to give up on that and throw on my spinnerbait

[Cecil]

I think the most important thing can be where you cast. Especially when fishing a weedline. You need to get the bait as close to the tips of the weeds of the edge as you can. The idea is to just "tick" the weeds on your retreive. When fishing rocks there is more room for error, but you want to do the same and tick the bottom. There will be times that the fish will be outside of the weeds and this is a good tool to find them there.

I will often intentionally get it in some weeds every now and then just to make sure I'm in contact with them and to make sure I am around good green weeds. Just be careful as you can pull up too many weeds and spook the fish out of the area.

[Craigums]

how do you know your about to "tick" the weeds? it seemed like one seconds i was cranking my lure down and the second I felt something it was too late.

[Fever]

This is a good post as I think many people will learn from it. DT's are good because they come in DT4, DT6,DT7, DT10, and DT16's... So if you are getting all hung up you can either A. switch to a shallower diving DT or B. move your boat to a deeper part of that area. Some guys actually will at times bury their rod two - three feet into water at side of boat during retreive to gain additional couple feet to keep crank closer to their perceived water depth. It does work to keep DT in close proximity to bottom. Hope this helps. good topic lets keep it going. Tomorrow is our league championship tourney. After school I'm going to re rig....

[Cecil]

After you throw it for awhile you will feel when you are about to "hit" something. You really have to pay attention to your lure vibrations and the rod tip. Once you run into weeds, you have 2 options:

1. Stop reeling and your bait may back-up and get out of the weeds enough to keep reeling. However, if the weeds come up to 6 feet and you have a DT10 you will just keep running into them. If that happens you need to go to a shallower crankbait if that's where the fish are, or move out a little deeper to find the edge.

2. You can rip your bait off the weeds and it will hopfeully come free. Again, if you are in too shallow of water, this will just bury the bait further in the weeds. This works better if you are on the edge and you just ran into a clump or stray weed.

Reel slow and you will not bury into the weeds too far. This is a difficult technique to pick up and takes a lot of patience and time, but once you get it down, it can find you fish in a hurry.

[Deitz Dittrich]

I dont think we need to talk about DT cranks... They are a crank bait like any others. Its important to know how deep it will dive. You want your crank to come in contact with something. Not really important what it is, but something.. ROCK, SAND, WEED, WOOD...

Like Cecil stated, its much less important which crank you are throwing, its where you throw it and at what angle. And of coarse with the correct depth needed.

I do like Rapala DT crankbaits, but I also like Bandits, Poe's and Strike King.

[Fever]

Not pushing DT's but they certainly make it easier to KNOW what depth with those cranks. I to have others but the comfort factor is with the DT's for me. It seems more difficult to find Poes cranks around these parts and DT's seem everywhere and just more accessable. I agree with you for sure deitz. If you don't know what depth the crank dives it is of little use. Just not as effective.

Jon

[Deitz Dittrich]

I have a friend that when he buys a crank bait... he writes its diving depth on the bill in sharpie marker.

Most all cranks list the diving depth on the box.

[bassNspear]

if im not mistaken, all the DT have it on the bills.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Hit the water pretty hard this morning. Fished my fave lake, but went with the idea that I was not going to fish anything that I had ever fished before. I spent the first 2 hours with the side scan on just graphing stuff, marking way points and such of areas that looked good.. I then went back and fished the spots... I didn't keep track of how many fish I caught, but know I had 7 over 18"... and now I have 4 more spots to fish on my fave lake.. LOL

Few fish on a stupid rig, few fish on deep cranks, most on dropshot... The key today was to not shake the drop shot, just let it sit there. The fish seemed a little slow today, the hits were not hits, just weight, and not one single fish today jumped. They all wanted back down to the lake bottom. It was weird.

[CaptZ21]

Glad you had a good day. I fish a large metro lake and the only consistent pattern I had was the lack of a pattern. The bite with the exception of my first cast, which got crushed, was the same as yours,, little bit of weight more often than not. When do these doggies start jumping on the bait?

[BigGrassBass]

I did well yesterday throwing an unweighted senko to the same areas as Deitz. Yes, they were all sluggish but they were catchable if you were just patient. They also seemed to be schooled up. If you got one fish on a point you could go right back to the same spot and get a few more. They seemed to be on the tips of points for me. I only got one fish on an inside turn.

[CALVINIST]

Deitz, what kind of plastics are you using on your dropshot rig? Heading to Green lake in Spicer for a couple days and I figure with cold front passage that will be the time to finesse some fish. Any ideas on what I should use post-frontal?

[Deitz Dittrich]

I pretty much use 3 different lures.. I use a MisterTwister 4" dropshot worm(its a straight tail worm), I use a 4" tube at times, and I use a 3" OutCast Naughty bug(beaver imitation)

as for ideas, if fishing smallies, I might lean towards a brown tube on a carolina rig? But the dropshot would be a good bet as well.