Great report Butch and great jig Keith. Guys Keith is the up and coming jig tyer to put your trust in. He ties some very good colors and does custom colors if you want.
This is very educational. I feel like I know a lot about the shad and herring movements and habits in our lakes being a striper fisherman at heart. But I know absolutely nothing about grass shrimp. You mentioned certain parts of the lake where they congregate. Can you elaborate a little more on that? I assume the first thing would be the presence of vegetation for the grass shrimp to live in. But the fact you are long lining in 15 feet implies more open water in my mind. Are they more back in the creeks and coves than off the main lake?
I have seen the brown masses you are talking about in crappie, hybrid and white perch belly's this time of year. I honestly assumed they were mayfly larvae. I even powder coated a few jigging spoons brown and tied brown feathers on the hook to imitate the may fly larvae this time of year. Haven't tried them much but the perch do seem to like them.
Usually the tell-tale signs whether grass shrimp is in a particular creek is the brown in crappies bellies and the shed "skins" floating on top of the water where the shrimp are at. It doesnt take green vegetation for the shrimps to be there. I honestly dont know what draws them unless they just hatched from out of the mud in a certain part of the lake. I find fish feeding on them in the same areas as I usually fish pre-spawn and post-spawn in depths of water @ the 10'-20' depth of water ranges. And usually it's the beginning of May when I notice theyre there. I fish as much as I can during the month of May and once the water surface his 80* at first light I'm done fishing until the weather/water cools off again in the fall. By this time of the year alot of the parts of the lake I enjoy fishing (20' deep or shallower) is lacking oxygen and the fish are headed towards deeper waters back onto the brush to avoid the heat and hunting cooler water.
Now.......probably none of what I just stated holds any truth to it since the night bite says everything I just said is a lie, but it's my reasoning for what I do and when I do it and it works for me!
That's interesting. I've seen the floating "skins" I think you are talking about. I mistakenly assumed it was something from mayfly larvae, not knowing what they were. Interestingly I have mainly seen the brown "skins" floating in the mid lake big water at Murray in July and early August on the wind blown sides. Usually when I see them, there will be loads of herring around and of course that brings the stripers.
Grass shrimp are largely algae eaters and my understanding is as the water warms algae grows on the bottom and I seem to find them on humps more than flats but I'm sure the same holds true for back waters. If you find them crappie will be nearby and a tied jig can put crappie in the boat.
No you don't see anything on a graft as the grass shrimp goes but you will see a concentration of fish holding more on certain humps and these fish are feeding on them. A lot of finding their location is from years of seeing this happen at this time of the year. You can take the information in this thread and try to locate fish at these kind of areas of the lakes. You will find that in different parts of the lakes you will see more grass shrimp in the stomach of fish. I first tried a imitation of a grass shrimp years ago after being asked to tie a jig for this use. I had to research grass shrimp to see the colors needed for this jig. After hearing that crappie were feeding on them I started adding areas to remember for the next year after fishing the lakes and trying areas that fisherman would give me to try. (this doesn't mean they would tell where to fish but from looking for areas close to what waters they described in the reports) This is one of those jigs that will work, just have to use these jigs and learn where to use them. I would suggest for fisherman to do some research about the fresh water grass shrimp in our waters and add this knowledge you learn to your quest of catching fish this time of the year feeding on the shrimp. Fisherman from years past didn't have any electronics but they became excellent fisherman from the years they spent on the water, some of use older guys spent years fishing this same way but have become spoiled from all the new gadgets on the market today but, there is no way to replace knowledge and none of these gadgets come with that knowledge.