TOXIC

Just a side note. My Ned setup is spinning gear, 6lb mono and a 7ft medium Smoke rod. Always rigged hook exposed with a Yamamoto 3 or 4 inch Senko or a CaliRoll. Occasionally a 5 inch Yamamoto kut tail or baby Ika. The Ika is the toughest to get a hookset because it is thicker.

Just got home to Virginia after a week in Florida in shorts, a weekend in savannah in shorts and when we hit the exit on 95 north yesterday to head the last hour of an 8 hour drive home, we went through a snow//sleet squall. I’m not gonna warm up for a few days. ?

Change heads. I can’t recommend any because I have a friend who pours his own and I get mine from him. Not a problem with them coming unbuttoned. Without seeing how you play the fish, it’s hard to tell if it’s technique or equipment.

On our trip to Okeechobee a couple of weeks ago, the shiner guides at Roland’s were complaining they couldn’t put clients on fish. If you can’t get them on shiners, then they are shut down. Period. I was able to catch a few with a weighted Senko during that time. I am first and foremost a finesse fisherman but will adjust to the hot bite like cranks, traps and jerkbaits.

We get current temps from this site…

Oh, and I almost forgot, they have one of the reactors shut down for an outage so they are not pumping any water. That is not good. It seems to affect even the creek fish that are not directly exposed to it. You can check online for the reactor status and output temps as well as the different pool temps.

Just a side note, I do leave the main power to the boat turned on when I leave the boat in the water for an extended period of time. That allows my auto bilge to work.

Don’t forget one other factor to consider and that is the manufacturer of your fluke style bait. Some plastics are much tougher than others and require different gear and hook sets. Personally, I only throw Yamamoto DShads and since they are made from the same plastic formula as a Senko, it is pretty soft. I use the hook size to adjust the type of fall and weight of the bait. I use anywhere from 3.0-5.0 wide gap ewg gamakatsu depending on conditions. I have never felt the need to weight a DShad and have fished it as deep as 15 feet.

Just remember, if it is in fact 2 tone or half and half colors, no matter the fleck, it’s a laminate and will have a 9 series number. If it is a solid color and different color fleck it can be any other number on the color chart.

If it is half and half or upper and lower different colors, it is a laminate and will have a 900 number. Here is the majority of the laminates, there are more but they are all color tipped tails. You can go to www.baits.com for the color chart as well.

Thanks. I’m hesitant to give you any specifics because that’s 2 weeks out and that side is right in the beginning of a pattern change. You “might” find them on the beds up in the creeks. We saw the beds last week and I’m not going out this week and next week I will be driving to Florida. If you want some steady producers, Ned rigs with your favorite baits as long as they are green pumpkin or some combo of green pumpkin red.flake. Pound the banks and first drops up in all of the creeks and under docks. We like Compton and Elk creeks. Dropshots with the same colors as the Ned baits. Personally, I use all Yamamoto either a 5” kut tail or pro Senko or a Shad Shape Worm in goby or green pumpkin black fleck on the dropshot and a Cali Roll on the Ned. If you are good with blade baits graph the pools and look for schools. Drop straight down on them and jig the blade.

If you’re like me and keep your vehicles 200,000+ miles, and are a tad bit anal on looks, you do everything in your power to keep your truck looking nice. The steps really do help you drop more straight down on the leather seat and not slide in and out. Seat covers are not an option since I have heated/cooled seats. I did have both of my side steps replaced under warranty because the chrome coating peeled off the hard plastic base. It came off in a pattern that looked like you ran through some mud and it splattered up on the steps except it was a caustic chemical. Drivers side did it fairly quickly after I bought the truck new and then the passenger side did it right out of warranty. They covered it under goodwill but not until the service manager crawled all over the underside of the truck looking to see if I off roaded it. The replacements have held up fine. Hard for them to rust when the only metal is the brackets that hold them on.

My buddies side scan is tuned in well enough to see beds. We use it a lot. I personally prefer downscan but sidescan has its advantages.

There’s 2 kinds. First the ones that protect the side rails of your truck from rocks when you go off road also known a nerf bars. Second are the ones we all have that are step assists to get in the truck. Even though my truck is not lifted, the side steps help from sliding across the leather seats and prematurely wearing them out. They for sure would offer no protection off road as they are nothing more than chromed plastic with metal braces. If you don’t like the looks you can get the retractable ones that extend when you open the doors. The most worthless are the solid tube style with the steps that are on solid drop down from both the front and side doors. They are designed for off-road but they would be the first thing that gets ripped off if you ever took them there.

Remember, gps enabled sonar units will have a constant draw. Have you checked your trolling motor? How is it wired and what is your full battery setup and what is run to what an what are the battery sizes? Obviously as has been said, a multimeter can be your friend but there are a lot of possibilities. I have 2 breaker shut off switches. 1 for my trolling motor and 1 for the main power to the boat. With both shut off all 4 of my batteries are isolated to the charger. Is your charger showing your batteries at full charge?

When it came time to replace my wife’s Equinox, we looked at everything except Mitsubishi.? No dealer within 50 miles. Ended up with a Toyota Highlander. She’s very happy.

I’ve always said having a consistent fishing partner is like having a second wife!? I’ve been fishing with the same partner for 20 years. While there are things he does that I don’t always agree with, we have taught each other our respective strengths. Me being primarily a finesse plastics guy and him being a moving bait fisherman, I have learned a lot more about crankbait fishing from him and he has learned finesse from me. While I am better at boat position from being a guide and always aware of where the back deck is, he is good at telling me what cover he has fished and actually leaves me some prime spots from the back deck. He knows that if he is moving fast with a crank or spinnerbait and I am using plastics, I will be casting pretty far forward to give me time to work my bait. All that being said, we will usually identify a pattern and both of us will be throwing the same kind of baits.

Spotsticker screwball shakeyhead. Multiple weight choices. I prefer the screw lock style because it gives a better weedless rigging.

Our reasoning is that with the slower finesse baits we will catch anything that’s up shallow including any that may be on the beds whereas, those fish would probably shy away from your moving baits. Since we caught all knot heads up shallow, we knew to move deeper. ?

I tried it all and twice just to make sure it was as bad as I remembered. I first had a mustache and since I get really, really tanned in the summer, my friends were telling me that I was going to get asked for my green card. I then tried to grow a beard and I looked like an escapee from the Amish Mafia. The second round of both was worse because by then it was salt and pepper. Wife made me go back to clean shaven. I’ll let it grow for a week on fishing trips but it comes off as soon as I get home.

Here’s what we did to figure them out on Sunday facing the same conditions you have but even worse….we had sustained 20mph winds with gusts to 40. Water temp 60-65. Most likely pre spawn. We saw a lot of beds with no fish on them. We pulled into a known spawning cove with shallow docks, a deeper channel in front of them and a hump on the outside of the channel and then another secondary channel with another hump behind it. From there it was main lake and deep water. We started throwing locating baits, Ned’s and Senkos. Caught some small bank runners and what we thought were prespawn bucks. Nothing of any real size. Next pass we worked the dock facing side of the hump in the drop from the hump to the channel. Same locator baits. We caught better fish. We then fished the top of the first hump and the backside leading out to the main lake. No takers so we moved to the inside edge of the second hump. No takers. So we moved to the last edge facing the main lake and now the wind really came into play so I switched to a 1/4 oz dropshot and that’s where we caught our better fish. Later in the day we were able to catch them under docks that were in deeper water. Every situation is different, every lake is different but I hope that gives you a glimpse into how we picked the water apart.

Heartland Tackle makes a stout underspin.

We fishermen must have somewhat of a reputation for color. When I bought my 2016 Silverado brand new off the lot, the new car Manager was also a fisherman and we had talked a long while since I was a guide and when we looked at the truck and it’s options, he asked if I wanted it in any special color to match my boat.?. I told him it made no difference unless it affected the price.

There’s actually a term for that, it’s called the “Bubba Shot” when you upsize your dropshot into the heavier lines and bigger baits. Some will dropshot a 5” and up size Senko which is something I have never seen the need to do. Once you get up to that size, it’s not a finesse presentation anymore in my book.

Originally it was but it is so adaptable that it is now used in many, many applications that could never be described as finesse. I drag a Senko on 35lb braid and a 1/4 oz football head jig on St Clair. I have been with Yamamoto for over 30 years and I can tell you what Gary himself told me….”A Senko is meant to be a finesse presentation fished on light line, a spinning rod and a 3.0 ewg hook”. There’s exact reasons for every aspect of that rigging. It has become so popular that rigging is now all over the spectrum. I actually wrote an article for Yamamoto on 78 ways to rig a Senko. A lot of them are not in any way finesse.