Brian_Reeves

I hate summertime fishing. It's hot, there are 54billion people on the lakes, and the big fish hide from me really, really well. The last few trips to Stillhouse have been reasonably productive on my new love, Carolina Rigged Senkos, but I'm not pulling anything over 3lbs out. That's bad. The best I've gotten so far is a 2lb largemouth off of an Ika. In a hydrilla choked reservoir with submerged roads, bridges, weedlines and weedbeds, and steep rocky bluffs, I can't seem to find any real good fish. There are plenty of submerged and flooded timber lines and humps and we've targeted them all. Jigs, C-Rigs, T-Rigs, Ikas, senkos, crankbaits, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits....1-2lb fish. Needless to say this is getting to be a waste of $3 a gallon gasoline when I can go to a small pond and pull 6-8lb fish out of a $200 boat instead of a $17k Nitro. It's annoying. Any tips on finding deep water beasts in this Texas Summertime heat? I've read up on the articals on this site written by a few guys (and re-read the Mike Iaconelli one 40 times) and nothing really seems to be paying off. What do you guys do to find the big ones when the temperatures are threatening to melt your outboard down to a pile of goo? I haven't tried night fishing and because of my schedule, I probably won't be able to. My fishing schedule is pretty much saturday and sunday morning from 4am to 10am and that's it What do y'all suggest?

My biggest fish have come out of lakes only a few acres big...so I try to fish stuff like that as much as possible. But for more challenge, I like fishing large, heavily pressured waters. If I can pull a limit of 2lb bass out of highly pressured water, I consider myself extremely successful. On small lakes, I can sometimes pull in 20-30 fish ranging from 1lb to 8lbs. Either is fun, depending on the day I guess....but nothing is like running 60mph across the water trying to outrun the regulars to fishing holes.

Shade was the pattern today in one of the smaller lakes I fish. An ika or senko where the sun and shade met meant you were getting a fish 3 outta 4 casts.

When I dont' get bit on the fall, I fish it like a fluke. Seems like the right thing to do and I've gotten some good action on them like that anyway.

Look for some humps, flats, or points and try dragging carolina rigs around them. That's where 75% of my luck has been coming from. Stillhouse isn't THAT deep, but often you're working with 30-50ft of water there. If the fish are suspending deeper than a good ole crankbait can run, try going with a dropshot. That's the only thing I can figure...but I'd put more money on the c-rig senkos.

I'm part of Jim's fan club too.

Never used a fat ika on a C-Rig but I have used a Spidergrub on one. I was impressed with the results.

I use spidergrubs (T-Rig or Jighead) instead of jigs and they work great for finesse applications as well. Same profile, slower fall, and something slightly different from the other 1000000000 jig throwers.

I'm at fort hood but I am not a member of any of the bass clubs around here. If I hear anything about them I'll drop you a line.

not sure how to do it but copyright it. If you own the rights, you can sue if they rip your idea off That holds weight when you approach businesses.

I'd compare a T-Rig more to a jig than I would a C-Rig. C-Rigs are an extremely useful search and destroy tool as to where T-Rigs are more practical punching into cover much like a jig.

>< I wish people wouldn't be so vocal about that bait lol. Thats my backpocket secret in my neck of the woods. I still have yet to see more than 3 people fish an ika here. Everyone loves those jigs...and they can have them.

This is going to be a really non-specific answer, but I fish a lure until one of the following things happen: 1) I lose confidence in the lure because of weather or water conditions or because the presentation just doesn't feel right. 2) If it starts becomming limited due to water structure (getting hung up, diving too deep, penetrating too far into grass, casting awkwardly etc) 3) I spot a certain type of forage in the area that my bait does not imitate. 4) If it just doesn't seem like it's going to catch fish. 5) If I get impatient. Most of the time I switch between my 5 rods and each are set up with completely different lures for different presentations, so that keeps me occupied and lets me tinker around with different presentations and lures in the areas that I fish. That pays off bigtime. Multiple rods are a must on larger lakes. On ponds, they are a hassle.

Want crawdads the easy way? Take your dipnet and put it in the water close to the bank where you see some crawdad activity (ie holes, actual mudbugs, or whatnot) and put a turkey or chicken neck in the middle. Go fishing for an hour or so then pick up your net. Usually will work.

Get legit and I'll hit you up for a trip on Canyon. I'm about to get transfered to Ft. Sam Houston if everything works out for me. $150 is a dern good price for a place like that.

Worst lure would probably be a jig just because I have horrid luck on them. I feel bites, set hooks, fight fish, and haul in water. Worst technique would be locating and pressuring deep water grasslines.

That's the thing with frogs. It happens I always call those either bluegills or dinks to make myself feel better

Smuggle a few nutrea rats in from Louisiana and turn them loose. They will eat all the grass! Yeah...don't do that. The game warden will take your entire life from you lol. Those things SUCK, though they do tear up grass. I fish a lot of scummy, grassy, nasty ponds. If the water is moderately clear then you might have luck using the exact same baits that I do. Try a popper, buzzbait, or walk-the-dog bait early in the morning. As the sun comes up, switch to a watermelonseed or green pumpkin super fluke or fat ika. A spidergrub works well if you wanna fight T-Rigging or jigging one with light weight. The Fluke imitates some swimming bait. In that color, I'd have to say perch of some kind. Use a dye pen if there is a lot of chartruse or yellow in your native baitfish. If it is shad or minnows, some sort of grey would probably work better. The Fat Ika has a perch/minnow look when your pulling it, but more like a darting crawfish when you let it out on semi-slack line. (Rig them with the skirt up, opposite of a tube and it will swim away from you.) This is a good cover-harrassing bait as well as a pretty decent search tool since it imitates many types of forage. The spidergrub imitates everything in general and nothing in particular. That's why it's becomming my favorite bait. You can make it minnow/perch ish or you can crawdad it. Using different retrieves it can really do it all so long as you get a little creative with what you are wanting to do with it. I'd say t-rig it with a 1/8 weight or put it on a 1/4 jighead and kinda hop/swim it around like a perch feeding. Anytime you see or feel a drop, let it parachute to the bottem and do the whole crawfish thing. The way the bass hits that lure will tell you a lot about their feeding preferences and you can adjust from there. Hope this helps.

He's not even there yet and he's already talking smack ;D He's practicing for Charlie moore. Anyway, I've casted about 3 times wacky rigged and got mad. I hauled in a piece of grass, a stick, and a leaf. I flipped it over to a T-Rig. I'm gonna try it again and pay more attention to what I'm doing and see what happens.

That's not very nice. :-/ lol I agree though. Location>anything.

You could always double or triple skirt your normal jigs and upsize the trailer. This will give you a bigger profile and accomplish what you are looking to do without having to learn the characteristics of completely new jigs. I use the FLW finesse jigs and I double skirt them. Seems to be working fine for me. For a trailer, I don't use chunks. I either use grubs, spidergrubs, or crawdad baits. I'll race you to 10lbs lol I'm trying for double digets myself and they gradually get bigger and bigger

Central TX (Stillhouse lake) 1lb-Dink 1.5-3lb-Decent fish 3-5lb- Average Good fish 5-7lb- Better than average good fish 8lb-9lb-Lunker 10lb+ You know the deal

I'd put my chips on deepwater weedlines adjacent to both shallow and water, variations in cover/vegitation/bottem structure, an abundance of forage (crawfish, bluegill, big shad, or frogs) and a lack of fishing pressure. Structure+Cover+Forage=Fish. Personally I don't think that there is a better big fish bait than the Jig and pig...or plastic. A 3/4 oz jig in 20ft or so of water along a weedline or slightly into the weedbed is probably a good place to start looking for some bigger fish. Larger profile crankbaits and spinnerbaits slow rolled across points or crashed around in submerged timber is another good place to look. 5-15ft (some lakes dont' get any deeper) banklines with a lot of shade from cypress trees and things like that are another good place. Just think like a big fish. You don't wanna use up all your energy, you don't wanna be caught by fishermen, and you want to eat a lot. So when you fish, go big and slow in "big fish places." Hope this helps

The offensive part of the commercial is that they are trying to sell GULP! I hate GULP!

I'd throw one of 3 topwaters depending on the types of structure: 1)Open water/semi grassy- Pop-R 2)Grassy, timber-buzzbait 3)Really grassy/lillypads-frog