Say you start with topwater or power fishing and then switch to finesse and you can’t even get finesse bites - what’s the next move? Let’s say going home isn’t an option and you have finesse fished the lower end, mid-lake, and the river and are still having a hard time… what do you do?

When I launch my boat the 1st thing I would do is survey the marina area with my sonar unit and also visually look in the water under docks etc to determine how deep the bass and bait is. By doing this it determine where and how I bass fish and eliminates unproductive water.

Can’t catch them if they aren’t there or wrong depth.

Tom

 

 

6 minutes ago, RHuff said:

what do you do?

If they ain’t biting over here, I’m gonna go over there. If they ain’t biting there I’m gonna go here.
 

I’m gonna throw a brown jig. If they don’t want the brown jig I’ll throw the black jig. If they don’t want the black jig I’ll go back to throw the brown.

If it’s a tough bite and even finesse can’t buy one, I start spamming the spinnerbait. Over and over. If I run it by enough fish, eventually I’ll get one. Spinnerbaits are the anti-skunk. 

Throw a Mepps #3 parallel.

When the finesse bite isn’t there for me, I’ll go the opposite way and throw a 9” worm. Can’t count the times this has been the answer. Some days they don’t want smaller baits. YMMV

As much as we’d like there to be there is no definitive answer.
This is where experience and persistence comes in.

Slow down and keep covering water rotating through your most confident baits in different sizes looking for feeding birds, isolated patches of anything, changing angles of every target before moving on. 


 

Mike

50 minutes ago, Jar11591 said:

If it’s a tough bite and even finesse can’t buy one, I start spamming the spinnerbait. Over and over. If I run it by enough fish, eventually I’ll get one. Spinnerbaits are the anti-skunk. 

Well said!! I ALWAYS have a spinnerbait on the deck. For whatever reason, a 3/8 spinnerbait will pretty much get bit no matter what. 

 

 

Like wrb, my thought process is to figure out where they aren’t and then go somewhere else. It doesn’t guarantee you catch anything, but it should give

you some confidence that you’re at least putting your bait where it needs to be. If there is a thermocline at 15’ then don’t fish any deeper. If the middle 3/4 of the lake is flat mud bottom at 30’ deep I’m probably not going to fish that. Assuming you know the lake has a decent number of bass (either from catching them before, tournament results, or biologist surveys), they have to be somewhere. 
 

my skunk buster currently is a zoom trick worn on a Neko rig. Around here, there are at least some 12” bass around any shalllow cover that will eat it. Green pumpkin or red shad for really clear or mostly clear water respectively. 

I've not seen too many days that I couldn't get bit on either a baby brush hog texas rig or a weightless fluke worked around some type of cover or some shallow structure.

4 hours ago, LrgmouthShad said:

If they ain’t biting over here, I’m gonna go over there. If they ain’t biting there I’m gonna go here.
 

I’m gonna throw a brown jig. If they don’t want the brown jig I’ll throw the black jig. If they don’t want the black jig I’ll go back to throw the brown.

Ahhh yes. Exactly. Only need a few colors nothing insane 

When I need a bass my go to is Slip Shot rigged 3 1/2 shad color reaper where I fish. This rig targets shallow to deep water imitating a shad bait fish.

Rig the hand poured reaper* flat side up using #5133 Owner hook size 2/0.

Tom

* US Baits smoke w/salt& pepper + fine gold flake.

 

5 hours ago, RHuff said:

 

Say you start with topwater or power fishing and then switch to finesse and you can’t even get finesse bites - what’s the next move? Let’s say going home isn’t an option and you have finesse fished the lower end, mid-lake, and the river and are still having a hard time… what do you do?

I don't usually even go to finesse unless I zero a couple of times in a row and really need to get my mojo back. I know we all have different opinions on the subject and I respect others'. But to me, that feels like fishing for small fish. I will often just go pitch a T-rig at every piece of gnarly cover or overhang I can find. If you can get a bait in the face of a big bass in heavy cover, they have two choices and sometimes will make the right one. There have been days that I only got a bite or two, but they were big. To me, it only takes one bite to make the day worthwhile.

 

If it gets really bad, try a different body of water, if that's an option. If nothing else, you'll get a change of scenery.

1 hour ago, WRB-2.0 said:

When I need a bass my go to is Slip Shot rigged 3 1/2 shad color reaper where I fish. This rig targets shallow to deep water imitating a shad bait fish.

Rig the hand poured reaper* flat side up using #5133 Owner hook size 2/0.

Tom

* US Baits smoke w/salt& pepper + fine gold flake.

 

Solid winner there!

I don't change location much. Instead, I change presentation. Often times when vertical finesse presentations won't produce, I'll switch to a horizontal one. A RoboWorm split-shot rigged, or a dart head jig and grub, or my favorite, a crappie size crankbait will produce when that Ned or 3in. tube won't.

A tube or ned on rip rap will usually catch something.

 

Will use this technique this week. Forgot about it. Going to be cooler ...

Good Fishing

When I fished pressured water, I fished four-pound and six-pound test with the least possible weight and the lightest possible hooks. Of course, many of us fish water way too weedy for such light line.

Most of the time the water I fish is ultra clear, so if the finesse bite is off I'm in for a long day. 

Not sure that I've ever seen a ned rig not get bit.  It attracts hordes of 12 inchers sometimes.

 

That's assuming a 12 incher is a desirable catch.

3 minutes ago, gim said:

Not sure that I've ever seen a ned rig not get bit.  It attracts hordes of 12 inchers sometimes.

 

That's assuming a 12 incher is a desirable catch.

 

You know, that's where I was at the past two years with a ned rig.  It was my finesse bait of choice and on those really tough days I could swim it along and pick a fish here or there.  This year?  not so much.  Every time I've throw a ned on the tough days I haven't caught fish.  I've now gone to a neko or a 4" texas rigged finesse worm with a tiny sliding weight.  

Sometimes they’re not eating the little stuff. Sometimes, they’re not eating the normal sized stuff either. I had this happen to me at Table Rock a few years ago. I struggled for 2 days with normal sized offerings and finesse. Finally, the last morning I decided to go for broke and started tossing a Chad Shad. I ended up having a blast for 4 hours straight with fish chasing and eating my bait. I lost quite a few, kind of a common issue with big swimbaits, but I saw and caught so many more quality fish than I did the previous 2 days, it was really crazy to

 

In hindsight, I did a terrible job reading the conditions. The water was up into the bushes and the shad were spawning in those bushes. I tried all the normal spinnerbaits, swim jigs, top waters, with limited success. It wasn’t until I put that glide in front of them that I started having wolf packs coming out of the bushes after my bait.

 

20 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Sometimes they’re not eating the little stuff. Sometimes, they’re not eating the normal sized stuff either. I had this happen to me at Table Rock a few years ago. I struggled for 2 days with normal sized offerings and finesse. Finally, the last morning I decided to go for broke and started tossing a Chad Shad. I ended up having a blast for 4 hours straight with fish chasing and eating my bait. I lost quite a few, kind of a common issue with big swimbaits, but I saw and caught so many more quality fish than I did the previous 2 days, it was really crazy to

 

In hindsight, I did a terrible job reading the conditions. The water was up into the bushes and the shad were spawning in those bushes. I tried all the normal spinnerbaits, swim jigs, top waters, with limited success. It wasn’t until I put that glide in front of them that I started having wolf packs coming out of the bushes after my bait.

 

 

Not being a glide user yet, do they pull fish in from a depth?  For instance, will it pull fish off the bottom when throwing one in 15-20’ deep standing timber?  I’m not going to sink a glide down into the branches- that’s just a losing venture even with a plug knocker.  But I could thread one through where I can see.  The water is crystal clear and you can see bottom in 15’.  I was thinking a glide through the treetops might be enough to pull them up.

25 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

 

Not being a glide user yet, do they pull fish in from a depth?  For instance, will it pull fish off the bottom when throwing one in 15-20’ deep standing timber?  I’m not going to sink a glide down into the branches- that’s just a losing venture even with a plug knocker.  But I could thread one through where I can see.  The water is crystal clear and you can see bottom in 15’.  I was thinking a glide through the treetops might be enough to pull them up.

Yes and I think you’d be surprised how many fish will be suspended up in those trees, just out of sight.