Lure size and weight I guess DOES depend on the water being fished
One of the local lakes used for drinking water connected to two other waters has been recently reopened after six years. The water has always provided excellent crappie, yellow and white perch and sunfish fishing - size and quantity - but overfishing and keeping fish (over the legal limit) did put a dent on success rates.
Today I decided to give it a go and fish one of two arms after last night's showers and cold front.
Structure:
Depth varies from 15' near the dam to 12' in the old channel, with interesting flats and points cropping up out of no where.
Tree over hangs are many and fortunately drop offs are within 6' or less from shore in many areas. The wide flats drop off from 3' to 5' along a 50yd. stretch, creating opportunities along the drop on either side, shallow and deep.
Lures used:
Only one ALL DAY! : my hand poured minnow creation. At first, 1/16 oz jig heads worked and I immediately connected to some large YP and sunfish. So from those few fish I decided that the average pan fish size was mostly going to be large (as it was 6 years ago) and average aggression level superb! In this case I asked myself : why not increase lure size from 2" and a narrow body to 3" and a wider body.
What's more: increase jig weight and hook size from 1/16 oz with a #4 hook to a 1/8 oz with a #1 hook. This would allow for the wind deflection, which averaged 10mph, and for easier under the over hang casting (some of the many branches were only 9" above the surface. Casting distance is now longer, hook sets more solid with greater hook size and presentation a bit faster horizontally.
Results:
Incredible size and number of all species including a 3lb bass that swam completely around the boat before being played closer. The white perch averaged 11" and the crappie where a chunky 14" - a really decent size in my stretch of the woods! The YP were in the 10" range - nice eating size (if I ate fish).
Many fish struck the minnow grub multiple times on the same retrieve and some after some vertical jigging at the boat in 8' once they followed from shore.
So, from this I've learned that the fishery can make all the difference in the size of soft plastic and jig head weight that fish will bite. Of course I still stayed with 6lb test but will be going with some 8lb test, XL Trilene mono tomorrow as a leader, connected to braid. Casting some 2.75" tubes might be interesting.... but no more curly tails for me!
The other crappie lake I fish has crappie and other pan fish that won't touch 1/8 oz until fall and prefer 2.5" soft plastics on 1/16 oz. Of course the crappie size averages only 11" of less and there are no woods around the lake - only wetlands with pads and some rock walls.
