150 fish caught on two consecutive days (40 + 110) on light jigs

I'm sure many of you have had banner days when right place/right time allowed some record catches and we've all dreamt of being that lucky. And so it went Tues. and Wed.


In the northeast, we had a record amount of rain in a short time that raised water levels like crazy in all lakes and rivers. In the lake I fished yesterday, the lake was up 2.5 feet affecting the spawn locations of yellow perch - one of the first fish to spawn in spring. Where perch spawn, most fish follow to eat their eggs. I'm talking about four to five other fish species that are in dense, mixed-species schools in water no more than 3' deep. I'm talk'n crappie with perch and sunfish; white perch with crappie, yellow perch with crappy and a few bass in the same school.
wetland channel I had to row to get to schools of fish:
https://i.imgur.com/OHCwhZG.jpg


Granted, a child could catch fish-after-fish in that scenario, but one thing it allowed me to do is to discover and rediscover more things about lures - particularly about soft plastics on light ball head jigs. When fishing a wetlands shallow water pattern, it pays to work lures slowly, mid-depth. To do that 1/32, 1/64 and 1/24 oz jigs are a must along with hook sizes to match. A lure can be 3" on a 1/32 oz jig but the hook size/gap must be at least a #2 hook, like this example of a 5" plastic worm that caught all kinds of fish yesterday - many on the same lures:


perch, sunfish and bass caught on the same 4" plastic worm:
https://i.imgur.com/LwYhGB2.jpg https://i.imgur.com/D9SbiG1.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/WqNRFXb.jpg


Float fishing isn't my forte and especially not in 3' of water, but when you find dense schools of very irritable fish, anything is possible. When I tried a small cigar float it opened doors as far as ultra-slow fishing using a rod pull & pause presentation!! Cool was seeing crappie attack the float once it plopped down, at times jumping out of the water! Many lures worked under the float and one that excelled over all others was the Mojo grub made from using clear plastic:
https://i.imgur.com/sg9O4Ii.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/vEAUILT.jpg
Used under a cigar float:
https://i.imgur.com/FQn9oxD.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/FQpjVVp.jpg
I've poured clear plastic shapes before, but the clear plastic Mojo - even in murky water - did as well as any color! The thin, straight tail flutters with the least motion imparted.
White perch on a clear plastic Mojo grub:
https://i.imgur.com/TCS9McH.jpg


Another find was the Chubby Grub made from cutting 2" off the front of a plastic worm (like the one shown above), blunting the end with a lighter: Nothing says, come & eat me like the wagging of a Chubby Grub rigged on a 1/32 oz jig!
https://i.imgur.com/UcvwixU.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/nYnUFl7.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/Zh7sDa2.jpg


Having been a bass angler for years, I can understand staying with heavier lures. But light tackle fishing has a lot to be said for it - regardless of freshwater species.

I must learn new things (or try to) on every outing to make it a success. Lure craft and tackle, in general, allow me to correct the misinformation I believed for years reading or watching shows spouting such, plus discovering new ways to improve my fishing experience. Tues and Wed. of last week taught me:

1. the potential of clear plastic lures (as if I didn't know that from years og catching bass on clear plastic surface lures like the Zara Spook and PopR.)
Clear soft plastic lures are like chameleons constantly changing color depending on light and background in the water, plus light is reflected from the upper surface and within the body's internal bottom surface for easy visualization by fish in moderately clear/colored water. Note the differences in the photos. It is a subtle color that goes beautifully with the small-float slow & subtle presentation.
2. small cigar floats with pegs top and bottom to fix the line length beneath the float, has zero line tangles above the float like experienced using light jig heads.
3. float fishing is a valuable presentation when used with jigs and certain lure designs such as the thin-tail Mojo. I used it to catch 40+ fish in 3.5' and will be able to do the same in deeper water when fish are found deeper.
4. the Chubby short stick had a great action: body quiver and wobble that caught fish after fish.
5. Thin 3" worms - of the tapered design shown - had a unique whip action that caught 5 fish species. In fact all lures used that day caught at least 5 species of fish.
Key was using a light jig - 1/32 oz, and #4 hook that enhanced the action. Any heavier jig and/or shorter or longer hook would not have allowed that lure action or the slow mid-depth presentation.

Everything indicated above was discovered by trial & error. The lessons learned will be added to my knowledge base and I encourage others to consider applying them in the waters you fish.

Update:
The weather in my area had returned to what I would expect in early March: nights in the upper 20's, cold days in the 40's and low 50's, wind day after day gusting to 30 mph and bouts of rain - sometimes 1" in 24 hours. We even had SNOW night before last with 4" in the mountains.

It's a reminder that nice weather in spring can be enjoyed (and fished) while it lasts becaues fickle is as fickle does.

Sounds like a very exciting 2 days of fishing. Thanks for taking us along

Wow, spoon, two days of magical fishing. Thanks for the insights and knowledge learned. I am an avid float fisherman, but my home water dictates that or lose incredible amounts of jigs. I am becoming much better at presentation and technique with them.
Bob

Presentation is EVERYTHING and sloowww at that! Slow presentations allow the unique action of each lure to do its thing and that means light jig heads and minimal angler-imparted action at that. The body/tail does it all! Plus, slow moving, subtle action lures get under their scales. (i.e.skin)

Again, dense schools are a no brainer because fish are super-hyper and irritable. I could have closed my eyes and caught fish after fish. But one good thing when catching fish in general when testing lures: fish will be fish and if just a few smack a lure, solitary, inactive fish will also.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spoonminnow

Presentation is EVERYTHING and sloowww at that! Slow presentations allow the unique action of each lure to do its thing and that means light jig heads and minimal angler-imparted action at that. The body/tail does it all! Plus, slow moving, subtle action lures get under their scales. (i.e.skin)

Again, dense schools are a no brainer because fish are super-hyper and irritable. I could have closed my eyes and caught fish after fish. But one good thing when catching fish in general when testing lures: fish will be fish and if just a few smack a lure, solitary, inactive fish will also.

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This is true. When I hook a nice pan I’ll let it fight some if it is the first fish out of an area. Many, many times that fish will light up that spot and it is game on for a good while before time to move on. Somehow that fight really fires up the others. It’s magic when you get all the pieces together.
Bob

Wow, that’s a successful couple of days., thanks for sharing

Couldn't have said it better Bob!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BobC

This is true. When I hook a nice pan I’ll let it fight some if it is the first fish out of an area. Many, many times that fish will light up that spot and it is game on for a good while before time to move on. Somehow that fight really fires up the others. It’s magic when you get all the pieces together.
Bob

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Very true

Yeppers a slow float in shallow water is deadly , we use lots of floats in our travels .
Congratulations on putting it on them :highfive

Went to a different water and tried the float with Mojo grub:
Attachment 425253

The float caught help catch 6 fish of the 69 caught, but the wind and waves made it tough detecting strikes soon enough to get a hook set.

The Mojo made with clear plastic also caught as many fish as the one made with green plastic:
Attachment 425258 Attachment 425262Attachment 425260

Note: for this lake, 11" crappie is respectible.

Clear plastic tail added to a French Fry stick body also did well same as at the other lake:
Attachment 425261 Attachment 425264

I had a spinning reel loaded with fluorocarbon line and it did well casting light lures and hook sets at a distance, though I still prefer braid.

fine tuning the art of the float presentation will help with bite detection , now in a sea of waves it is not all that easy , but to be sure the wind blows right hard down here most of the time . we rarely use weighted floats and one point connections to the line are critical most of the time . pegged floats like whats his name uses in his videos are for the less than good at float ketchn folks . 2 points of contact will cause you to miss the subtle bites and also trigger hooksets on the not real bites the double line connection often creates .

Some good points there, Ketchn. The EZ Floats are peg style, but I can see the sense of a single point attachment.
Bob

Line going through the float and pegged at both ends seems to have done better than sping-loaded wire clip-ons top and bottom. I've been cutting the wire that holds the clips and enlarging the hole a bit with a drill for easier line passage. I have to use a wire loop to pull line through - especially soft braid or 6# test f/c. Worked good yesteray except for when the waves came up.

I'm only using 1/32 oz and 1/64 oz jigs head beneath the float with my 1"- 2.5" plastics. Kind of a pain when the wind gusts to 15 mph or more, but at least now line doesn't get tangled at the top of the float when cast into the wind. The above modified float is an example. I'm also leaning more toward bottom-weighted floats for a more neutral buoyancy and an upright position.

Love it! Multi-species madness. Nice catches.

I went with a partner to the same lake yesterday and from 9:30 am - 2:30 pm we caught a total of 126 fish with three more species added to the above - including a 1 3/4 lb smallmouth bass - that the lake wasn't supposed to have, pickerel and roach. (I did put smallmouth from a local river into the lake over 20 years ago. Could some have spawned?) More but larger LM bass were caught and the coloration of the pumpkinseeds was amazing - far more so than last time!

The lake changed since my last visit and so did fish concentration locations. The same cove in the corner still produced over 30 fish in 3' but one straight shoreline held over 40 fish along a 30 yd. stretch adjacent to the wetlands, still in 3'. The lake dropped 3/4' so I guess the shallow wetland activity is coming to a close.

I went to a lighter jig (1/32 oz) and smaller soft plastics to be able to slow down the retrieve just a bit. It seemed to increase the number of consecutive catches - again, of all species. A Crappie Magnet caught over 30 fish - including the smallmouth in 7' near a building chimney (It usually holds LM bass).

A perfect weather day with some clouds and little wind. The pads are growing and at mid-depth soon to surface. Different structure will hold more fish other than yesterday's spawn-related locations. Guess the lake is finally coming back after the damage done by 3700 grass carp that were introduced over 12 years ago. Guess the state dept. DEC didn't check the lake's average depth and fish habitat.