Good post. A lot of action is always fun. I like your description of your baits and how you make or modify them. Handy information.
Yesterday we finally had an end to 90 degree days with a severe storm that left 1" of rain. Granted, if you're covered with the proper clothing, 90 degrees with something to drink is bearable and fish can still be caught. I was concerned about the affect a cold front might have on a local lake I reported on a few days ago. The only difference was that of the 76 fish caught, most were 9" crappies, many gills and a few small bass.
I had a feeling fish weren't going to be near shore so I worked deeper water near rises far from shore and parallel to it. 8# test braid with a 6" test fluorocarbon leader on a 6' UL rod did fine along with staying with 1/32 and 1/24 oz jigs. The plastic baits had enough added weight to cast over 30' and at times small schools provided 5 fish or more.
One thing I had to try was modified Sassy Shad Grubs. The original didn't get many strikes so I swapped tails with a thin tail grub I poured that morning using the usual candle flame. I also streamline the Shad body by cutting part of the belly off. Got slammed by 4 species!
A prong tail also worked well:
The boat stayed in 6-7' and I cast mostly towards the deeper water where I found schools suspended; isolated fish were caught shoreward. Again, the boat moved parallel to shore and I even caught a few fish vertical jigging after an arc showed up on the sonar screen.
I can't say that the Sassy Shad didn't catch anything - it did, but that lure needs a steady retrieve which the fish weren't chasing except this one (note the belly was cut off to make the lure more streamline):
Amazing what a cold front feels like in July and though the water temperature was still 84, hot or cold it doesn't matter. Right lure, retrieved slow gets bit!
Good post. A lot of action is always fun. I like your description of your baits and how you make or modify them. Handy information.
I modify baits sometimes myself. Been known to shorten tails and trim down bodies and even shorten bodies as well . Sometimes a little goes a long ways on the bite ...nice read
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