Thread: Light Bite

Any advice on catching fish when it's a light bite? Caught several Sunday, decent fish, but missed a ton of them. Spider rigging in 8' of water about 6' deep. Kept missing the bite. They would grab hold and just let go. Using 16, 14 and 12'. PST's, mix of jigs and minnows using C&C rigs with 3/4 oz weights. I was trying to keep the speed at .2 to .8, tried different speeds, but it didn't make much difference.


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Light bite usually means one of two things, first and foremost its a smaller species of fish like small yellow/white bass/small bass, or even small crappie. When I run into this, I like to make sure they really have the rod buried before i set the hook and give what ever is biting more time to eat the bait. I will only stick to an area with this kind of bite if I am catching a good fish now and then to go along with all the light bitters or I move on. The other thing to consider when getting light bites is size of your bait, try downsizing if you think the light bitters are crappie, but most times it is the aforementioned. Not being so fast to yank or down sizing is how I like to combat light biting fish.

I can't really add anything more to answer your question than CrappiePro already has. However, the light bite isn't just with spider rigging. I've been trolling crankbaits the last two weekends and all I can say is they are barely hitting it. And they are crappie, we just couldn't get them in the boat, or close enough to the net. We lost as many as we caught and really not one decent hook up. Man was it frustrating to lose mainly the bigger fish. I've noticed this in past years too right after the spawn, seems like they are just kind of investigating the bait. But even an investigating bump with a treble hook is likely to snag them somewhere, lip or the side of the head, but not so much that they can't get off in some cases. My experience has been, give them a couple more weeks and they'll be hammering it like they really want to eat it.

Down size and go slower.

The C&C tips will fit your 16'ers. They don't feel the backbone of the rod as fast and seem to hold the bait a bit longer.


BRM

As always, I sure do appreciate the advice. I did catch several really small crappie on a tiny white roadrunner. Those little guys just wouldn't leave it alone.

Hmmmmm I might try the C&C tips. Need to sell these extra tightline specials I have and maybe buy some. BRM, didn't you say that you power troll with 1.5oz with those? I've thought about trying that so I could cover more water.


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Originally Posted by Adcarson79

As always, I sure do appreciate the advice. I did catch several really small crappie on a tiny white roadrunner. Those little guys just wouldn't leave it alone.

Hmmmmm I might try the C&C tips. Need to sell these extra tightline specials I have and maybe buy some. BRM, didn't you say that you power troll with 1.5oz with those? I've thought about trying that so I could cover more water.


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I use a 3oz weight on my Tightline Special 16'ers. The PST handles up to a 2oz easily. I've used up to a 1 1/2oz on my BGJP's, but 1 or less is better. All of my poles are 16'. There isn't much difference between the PST tip and the C&C as far as the way they hold weight. The C&C is a bit softer when the fish hit it and doesn't load up to the poles backbone as fast. For a light bite, I use the BGJP when I have them. This time of year it's good to have options as the bite changes from day to day. One day they Hammer it, the next they barely hit it. One day they want it fast, the next slow. It gets crazy trying to keep up with em sometimes.


BRM

I have been having the same problem, but most of the ones that grab it but don't stick are when I get into a bunch of 8 or 10 inch stripers- which seem to be abundant this year at Dardanelle.