Sekrah

Anyone know of any doughbaits out there, either homemade or on the market, that are appealing to Bass? Do Bass have any smell mechanizisms that would make them appeal to a certain type of stinkbait the way Catfish and Carp do?

Went to my normal hole today along the Susquehanna River (Central PA) looking for those smallmouth bass. Threw out the Heddon Teeny Torpedo I already had on my line, looking for some topwater action, 10-15 minutes, nothing. Pitched out a Senko, 20-30 minutes, nothing. Flipped out some Berkely Gulp 3" Minnow Grub for a while, zip. Tied on a Rapala X-Rap, 15-20 minutes, nothing. Went to my "Moneymaker", 3 1/2" Gitzit tube (white/black flakes), Zilch. Just about to head home after about 2 hours of this crap. But instead I decide to give it one more shot. I went to a generic brand 2-inch tube (light pink body, dark pink skirt) that I had lying around. I don't think I've used this thing for weeks. Put a small 1/16 oz jighead on it and pitched it out there and twitched it along. 1st cast.. BANG. Smallie. 2nd cast.. BANG. Smallie. Worked the banks of the river for about 6 or 7 Smallies in 20-30 minutes. For those who were reading my other thread I posted earlier, I wasn't missing the hooksets for once! Started to give the rod a little pop and the fish stayed on!! When the fish aren't biting, just keep going through your tackle box. Something will hit. Anyone else with similar stories?

With a good soft plastic, especially some of the scented/flavored ones, a bass will sometimes swim around a bit and even put up some fight just holding the bait in its mouth. So even though you feel the weight of the fish and some pull, you still need to give a solid hook set. Also, when you see the fish coming to the surface for a jump, get that rod tip down and keep the fish in the water if you can. A big jump and head shake will probably throw a single hook a lot easier than a treble. As a relative newbie I've probably lost more fish on the jump than any other time. And like RW said, let us know what kind of hook you're using. I use 4/0 EWG for almost all soft plastics. When I first started, the hook looked huge to me. But I've caaght real dinks, like 6", on a 4/0 hook, so it seems like it's hard to get a hook that's too big. I've been using 1/0 Gamakatsu offset shank with a 4" Senko.. With my 3 1/2" Gitzit tubes, I'm using the tapered jighead that came with them, not sure of the size of that hook but it seems large enough that the hook shouldn't be a problem. I'm pretty certain that the problem must be that I'm not setting the hook hard enough. I've lost some pretty large smallmouth's the past several days on these two baits. Probably over the last three times I've went out, I've had 12-15 fish on with these two baits and only landed about 3 or 4 of them, it's pretty pathetic. (And of course, the biggest ones have gotten away)

Over the past couple weeks I've had fish falling off at alarming rates. I've been using various soft plastics, gitzit tubes, senkos, berkley gulp twister grubs... I can't keep any fish on the hook. Usually on the first leap out of the water they've been spitting it out/falling out. I am finding holes and they are hitting my lures left and right before I can't keep them on. One addition, I've been a Rapala/hard bait guy for a long time and just beginning to venture into the soft plastic world, and I'm getting fish to hammer them, but I would say 75-80% of the fish I'm getting to hit are falling off before I get them to the shore (or into my hands if I'm wading). Extremely frustrating.. What am I doing wrong? The only thing I can think of is that I'm spoiled on the Rapala treble hooks "setting themselves", and I sadly have no idea how to set a hook on these plastic baits. But when they hit these plastics, it feels like the fish are on the hook and it doesn't need "setting", but as soon as they jump.... %!#$! Thanks for any help!!