Picked this up the other day been really catching them with it. Nothing big but sure having fun. 

I was throwing that directly at bed fish as hard as I could, hitting them on the side a few times (after several hours of failed conventional tactics). NOTHING.

I just casted it out. Lol

And reeled it in

6 hours ago, CrankFate said:

I was throwing that directly at bed fish as hard as I could, hitting them on the side a few times (after several hours of failed conventional tactics). NOTHING.

Try something more subtle at those bed fish like a trick worm, senko or creature bait. A short drop shot is pretty effective on bedding fish. I throw spinnerbaits more prespawn and in the fall. 

9 hours ago, Kidflex said:

Try something more subtle at those bed fish like a trick worm, senko or creature bait. A short drop shot is pretty effective on bedding fish. I throw spinnerbaits more prespawn and in the fall. 

I did. For hours a fish. They didn’t care. They didn’t even care when I hit them hard in the side with a jig. I even bounced a squarebill off one of them.

For those fish, I usually throw a small plastic bait well past the bed, and very slowly work it back towards the bed.  Painfully slow, with very long pauses in-between.

 

The trick is there's needs to be time for the bass to "forget" about the bait between splashdown and time they notice it. Otherwise they recognize it as something unnatural. Sometimes I'll just let the bait sit for at least 5 mins before moving it.

Bed bass are not feeding they are either in the egg laying fertizing phase or bed protection phase. Bass are catchable during the bed protection phase and each bass has a different triggering point but the longer something is in the sweet spot the faster the bass will react. Minnows, bluegill and crawdads are egg eaters bass react to, so use smaller lures that are highly visible that you can see well to detect strikes.

The old reliable spinnerbait is a good bass lure, but use the small swimbait on a 1/8 oz jig for bed bass.

Tom

 

Rage Tail Swimmer or Menace.

 

I think we can officially say this thread has been 'hijacked'?

3 hours ago, CrankFate said:

I did. For hours a fish. They didn’t care. They didn’t even care when I hit them hard in the side with a jig. I even bounced a squarebill off one of them.

By chance, were those fish floating on the surface, slightly discolored?

 

If so, they can be very difficult to catch.  I'd recommend a banjo minnow.

You didn't really spend "hours" on a bedding fish did you?

7 hours ago, OCdockskipper said:

By chance, were those fish floating on the surface, slightly discolored?

 

If so, they can be very difficult to catch.  I'd recommend a banjo minnow.

No. They were healthy, vibrant fish. 

7 hours ago, keagbassr said:

I think we can officially say this thread has been 'hijacked'?

It was born to be hijacked.

On 5/25/2019 at 7:58 PM, CrankFate said:

I was throwing that directly at bed fish as hard as I could, hitting them on the side a few times (after several hours of failed conventional tactics). NOTHING.

Definitely not the right lure for bed fish. I would try a jig or a soft plastic of some sort. If all else fails, a small nose hooked drop shot is the way to go -- I say nose hooked because you can pretty much put it in their face and it should give them more of a sense of threat than nose hooked.

18 hours ago, WRB said:

 the longer something is in the sweet spot the faster the bass will react.

Is this a Yogi Berra quotation?

10 hours ago, OkobojiEagle said:

On 5/26/2019 at 1:15 PM, WRB said:

 the longer something is in the sweet spot the faster the bass will react.

Is this a Yogi Berra quotation?

I read and re-read that line like six times and wasnt sure if there was something off or i was just super tired