Stormed yesterday - bite was very aggressive but late in the day today
It poured and thundered yesterday and into the night. You'd think that would be a good thing after 3 days of over 90 degree weather and lack of rain. Not this morning. I barely caught a dozen fish- mostly sunfish, small bass and a few crappie. But when the sky started to clear, the bite changed to one I couldn't believe was happening starting at after 2 pm!
This morning I searched different depths - shallow areas with lures, deeper areas with sonar. If an area didn't hold fish, I moved on after casting all over the place to make sure. For some strange reason I couldn't find the usual fish schools, neither bait fish nor larger fish. Finally, changing shorelines did the trick and I at least started catching sunnies. After that shoreline petered out I went back to the flat on the other side and stayed in 6 or more feet of water way out from shore, parallel to it. Dang if I didn't start finding fish in groups on sonar!
After passing over a group, I cast a light jig and soft plastic lure behind the boat and would get a few crappie. Seeing as how the general area might hold fish, I cast toward shore and caught a few more fish - mostly crappie and sunfish. But one thing blew me away: the strikes were the strongest I've experienced all year !! On one cast I saw a crappie slam my jig from 4' away just after it entered the water! Other strikes were just as amazing from sunfish. What started out as a dozen fish before 2 pm turned into 32 fish by 4:30 pm.
To improve strike potential I downsized my plastics by 1/8" (cutting them) and went to a 1/24 oz jig from 1/16 oz. Tail designs that did the trick: spike, thin & flat, rounded tip and Crappie Magnet split tail. Note: bright colors seemed to do better for the Magnets:
https://i.imgur.com/HLZXcyU.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/7zNxg3s.jpg?3
https://i.imgur.com/9A4hkBa.jpg?1https://i.imgur.com/iZosCry.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/SRhuKJx.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/BWmFcUF.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/MH2fyGc.jpg
