Chunky bass, @ATA! What's the lure?

My guess is rattle trap 

Today was the coldest water temps I've had success in and really can remember seeing at 42degrees.     I've never seen Threadfin dying before, but throughout the day I was seeing them really stunned, and a handful of small ones that were dead.   Their threshold is 40d, so hopefully too many didn't die off, but I could tell the fish weren't hurting while we were having a week of freezing conditions.    

 

Caught 8 fish over 5hrs for 21lbs......that's a rare stat line in my book, a little over 1 fish per hr is less than stellar, on the other hand 6/8 fish were over 3lbs, including two 5lb fish which is excellent.   

 

All were caught strolling Jackall's 4" Drift Fry on the 1/8th super round tungsten/ 2/0 Kietech jighead.     I've caught over 100 fish, with dozens of Spots in that mix, and I've yet to burn through my second bait.    Might be almost $3 per minnow, but once amortized per fish......it's pennies on the dollar vs. my favorite Zoom products.   

Big fish was a 5.5, second weighed fish was a 5.3, and several fish squarely over 3lb including a pair of Spots, one of which had a tumor? that was insane.   

 

Long and leaner 5.5

 

Short and super fat 5.4

 

Craziest abnormality on a Bass I've seen, I present the Tumor Spot 

 

17 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Caught 8 fish over 5hrs for 21lbs......that's a rare stat line in my book, a little over 1 fish per hr is less than stellar, on the other hand 6/8 fish were over 3lbs, including two 5lb fish which is excellent.   

 

Alex, you picked up right where the storm cut you off. What I note is the string of condos/apartments in the third photo. Yours is a heavily developed lake and you're catching bass like you're fishing a lake in northwestern Ontario where no one lives and few fish.

 

I'm guessing if someone were watching you with binoculars from a bedroom window, they might think, "Our lake is full of toads!"

 

And then they'd go out and fish it, catch nothing, and wonder if they were imagining you catching bigguns.

 

18 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

All were caught strolling Jackall's 4" Drift Fry on the 1/8th super round tungsten/ 2/0 Kietech jighead. 

 

I've bought both of ^these.^ The Jackalls (three packages) took a long time to arrive. They might have come from Japan. Alex, if you don't mind, please post a close-up of the jighead in the Jackall. I want to rig mine now, even though I'm far from casting one. 

39 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Today was the coldest water temps I've had success in and really can remember seeing at 42degrees.     I've never seen Threadfin dying before, but throughout the day I was seeing them really stunned, and a handful of small ones that were dead.   Their threshold is 40d, so hopefully too many didn't die off, but I could tell the fish weren't hurting while we were having a week of freezing conditions.    

 

Caught 8 fish over 5hrs for 21lbs......that's a rare stat line in my book, a little over 1 fish per hr is less than stellar, on the other hand 6/8 fish were over 3lbs, including two 5lb fish which is excellent.   

 

All were caught strolling Jackall's 4" Drift Fry on the 1/8th super round tungsten/ 2/0 Kietech jighead.     I've caught over 100 fish, with dozens of Spots in that mix, and I've yet to burn through my second bait.    Might be almost $3 per minnow, but once amortized per fish......it's pennies on the dollar vs. my favorite Zoom products.   

Big fish was a 5.5, second weighed fish was a 5.3, and several fish squarely over 3lb including a pair of Spots, one of which had a tumor? that was insane.   

 

Long and leaner 5.5

 

Short and super fat 5.4

 

Craziest abnormality on a Bass I've seen, I present the Tumor Spot 

 

Nice job Bet that was fun.

Congrats

btw - not sure if you realize it, but seems like right after you hook up,

you're reeling against that drag a good bit. Line twist might be headed your way.

A-Jay

Thanks A-Jay, and thanks for the advice as well!

 

 

Lol Katie, always making me blush with such kind words.  There was another guy out there today and I thought to myself, if I wasn't using this bait I doubt I'd be getting bit as it really was such a slow day.   I usually miss as many fish as I catch, today I feel like I only got 8 bites, and caught 8 fish.  

 

Here's the setup I've been using, but I really like the action on these new Owner Range Rollers......thus far I've just tried the 3.5 Spunk Shad with it, but wow does it roll back and forth on that head.     My local store only had the 1/8ths in the 3/0 which I think is overkill and hurts the action, and I wish they were tungsten instead of lead.   You never feel the bite on this technique, or at least I don't.   Really make it your own, I was intimidated by the technique because all the folks I saw doing it were using it with FFS.    This and the Free Rig have been revelations.  Fujita had me curious, but when I saw Milliken hiding them in a video I knew I had to try it.    Took a really cool bait for me to try the technique, and I say all that because I don't think the Drift Fry is the only bait that would excel, but for me that's my confidence minnow now 😁

 

I really want the biggest size, the 5.2mellow I think it's called.   Then that 1/8th 3/0 would be perfect.    That's actually the size Fujita won with on Champlain.   

 

ETA:  one of the best features of these Drift Fry is they have a guide hole already in it, so you just insert the hook tip in the tiny hole and then you'll feel the hook point sliding instead of piercing straightly along that guide hole and then just come up in the area needed for straight indexing of the bait. 

 

 

 

Thanks for all the info, Alex. I did a search at YouTube for "rolling jig bass," because it sounds like a specific technique, but the search just produced videos about swim jigs. Are "rolling" and "swim jigging" the same thing?

 

Never mind. Further research suggests that "rolling" and "slow rolling" are simply dragging a jig on the bottom: "a football jigs pigskin-shaped head allows it to roll over rock and rubble without falling into the cracks."

 

My concern about dragging a jig over the bottom is that the water I fish is so shallow that there's a mat of weeds on the bottom. There are a few ponds where it's nine feet deep and maybe that's enough depth to keep weeds from carpeting the bottom. 

Happy to help! 

 

Yeah Katie you're gonna wanna search for "mid strolling" in order to find technique stuff, and then on the actual baits what makes them especially fit for that technique is the rolling action when you "stroll" or twitch the rod tip.    The whole hover/mid/bottom stroll/damiki rig/mopping really makes for a confusing deal.  

 

TacticalBassin had a good, dedicated video a month or two ago.   

Alex, what furthers my confusion is that the verbs they've chosen (rolling, strolling, etc.) make no sense to me. The vocabulary reminds me of assembly instructions for a product made in China. 

 

I'll go looking for that Tactical Bassin' video now. 

@ol'crickety, don’t let the terms confuse you, ten years ago it was called “keeping your bait in the strike zone.” Before that it was called crappie fishing 

49 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

what furthers my confusion is that the verbs they've chosen (rolling, strolling, etc.) make no sense to me. The vocabulary reminds me of assembly instructions for a product made in China. 

It’s all just ‘marketing.’ The industry has become somewhat of an embarrassment at this point, but they can’t help themselves. Like one of those ‘slow motion train wreck’ type metaphors  🤑 💰 

Cloudy and upper 40s, but the wind was light (NE) and the rain stayed away. Switched lakes for a variety of reasons - only the 2nd time I've ever fished this one, the first being about 3 weeks ago. Water stained w/about 18” of vis at best and 42 degrees. Had a decent afternoon with 4 keeper bass on jig and Ned. Ready to get back out there when the rain finally moves through…supposedly not until Sun. Hoping to catch a break before then, and if not, that the lakes don't get trashed since they're just recovering from the last downpour.

 

 

@Team9nine, boy, oh, boy, you winter bassers are sure landing some fine fish. What state are you fishing right now? Indiana?

1 minute ago, ol'crickety said:

@Team9nine, boy, oh, boy, you winter bassers are sure landing some fine fish. What state are you fishing right now? Indiana?

 

South Carolina

On 1/22/2024 at 1:29 PM, ol'crickety said:

Chunky bass, @ATA! What's the lure?

rattle trap 1/2oz

Got out on the water and caught some fish, what a relief. I nearly forgot how to drive a boat. Also saw a tiny iceberg and a cool mud line 

 

That's a daygum STUD shellcracker!   I don't even have to ask if it will be in the fryer soon 😆

 

Love those fish.  

Hahaha actually everything got to swim away today , I’m at a retirement party for my wife’s boss (should have thrown them on ice anyway) 

That iceberg was so close to sinking you. Just remember, if it ever does, save your Rose because your love will go on. 

@ol'crickety 

 

 

“iceberg!!!! Dead ahead!!!!”

It's been two weeks since I chased smallmouth due to the snow and cold temps.It was 50 degrees and raining at daylight this morning.Perfect weather.First fish of the day was on a dinger.The rest came on jig.My scales quit working today but nothing was over 3lb.Landed a dozen.Just glad to be out playing in the rain.

 

Great stuff, and beautiful scenery @Creek Pirate!   

 

 

 

21 hours ago, Team9nine said:

Hoping to catch a break before then, and if not, that the lakes don't get trashed since they're just recovering from the last downpour.

 

Just light rain here today, with more of the same forecasted tomorrow and Friday.   Hopefully this won't blow out the lakes.  The forecast here for Saturday is rain in the PM but temperatures in the 50's and 60's.   If that holds I'm going Saturday morning and will probably fish until, or into the rain for a while.   Hopefully the warmer weather will wake them up and make them hungry.   

 

If the rain blows out my normal lakes I may try Monticello Reservoir Sunday.   It's a 7000 acre "pumped storage facility" that used for nuke cooling.   It doesn't usually get muddy.   A friend says they're catching them there suspended near the tops of flooded timber in ~80 feet of water.   

36 minutes ago, Woody B said:

 

If the rain blows out my normal lakes I may try Monticello Reservoir Sunday.   It's a 7000 acre "pumped storage facility" that used for nuke cooling.   It doesn't usually get muddy.   A friend says they're catching them there suspended near the tops of flooded timber in ~80 feet of water.   

Just looked it up - I’m about an hour and a half from there. Looks like a big, open lake. I’d have to watch the wind forecast closely to risk a drive like that in the small aluminum. Thought I’d seen reports though that it had a good population of fish in it.