seeing as how i neglected a lot of other styles in the past few months, i made it a point to dump the swimbait sticks and just go out and fish. didnt realize how hard it would be for me to lay the big stuff down but i managed through it haha. every time the wind blew, the clouds came overhead and the clarity breaks showed up i found myself reaching but told myself "NO!". in preparation for a new business endeavor, the goal was simply to get back on track.
long story short i decided to work on the reaction bite seeing as how its been good in weeks past. needless to say with a little bit of a stalled front the fish were in somewhat of a negative feeding mood. i managed to coax some fish off the frog but the correlation of bites vs amount of water hit made it seem as if the fish were a little reluctant to commit whole heartedly to the surface. since the fish were responding but not destroying the surface bait i opted for the fluke. same erratic retrieve only subsurface. had some fish in the upper class chase but nothing to commit. about the time i ditched the fluke the sun was up and as i went graphing i noticed the a huge chunk of fish had made their way out to 20'.
picked up the drop shot just to cover some water. started picking them up right away on the 4" worm in a green pumpkin base color. with the fish really on the 'gill chew it only fit. started switching colors after a limit or two and found that color didnt make a difference. i rotated margarita, crusher, green pumpkin and they all got bit. yesterday was more or less find them and present the bait on them as delicate as possible. i was using a megabass orochi xx F3.5-70XXS rod, abu garcia revo premier 20 reel, 6# seaguar invizx fluorocarbon. and standard drop shot terminal.
the areas i was fishing were on a downhill slope from 12-30 in a matter of two boat lengths. having a light weight created too much float as i was working downhill, which the fish wanted it presented at that angle, so i had to fish a 3/8oz weight not typical to how i fish. i would count on the weight hanging up on rubble which i then started to shake the worm. no rhyme or reason to the action imparted. all you had to do was find the fish and just twitch the rod.
after a few limits on the drop shot, i wanted to find something new. i picked up the duo realis spinbait 80. i was fishing it on a dobyns 792sf rod, shimano sustain 2500 reel, and 4# seaguar invizx fluorocarbon. as the wind picked up stirring the water up a bit, fish started following that typical reaction bite chew. seeing as how the fish were still in a weird mood and pressed to the bottom for me i started sinking the spy bait down into the 12-15' zone. having the lightline really helps in keeping this bait down after the initial cast as well as on the retrieve. ended up picking up a little over a limit of fish on it working whatever rock i could find. switched up to a shallow running crank thinking the fish would react well to it since they were pretty frequent on the spin bait but that was a no go. fish just didnt want that obnoxious of a bait. i switched back up to the spybait and got back on them.
needless to say my entire day was spent running as many spots as i could find with a couple numbers techniques. it was a pretty productive day and the fish are definitely on the chew. all you gotta do is keep moving until you get on a batch of fish. i found the majority of my fish between the 15-23' mark on both outside structure and main lake points. average fish was a little better than it had been with around the 3 pound mark being the norm. healthy little dudes!