Creek Bugs and Turtle Jigs

With the Strawberry Super Moon on Tuesday night, I thought why not go look for a few Cricket crunchers around known bedding areas and see if they are hungry. Well to my surprise and slight dismay my depth finders water temperature gauge for-told what I was expecting, hot water. 88.7 at the surface in the main channel, the shallows even warmer. Air temps were 94 when I launched and the feels like was over 100. Not too smart on my part once I started fishing, these afternoon plans were made earlier in the cool air conditioning at work. Anyway, First two spots were vacant….or were they. The water was super clear and has fell due to the gajillion megawatt power needs in this heat, TVA does not care about spawning fish as related to lake levels, they pull the water to gain free electricity and sell it all over the South. In this hot shallow water I found a couple of beds using my polarized sunglasses and saw 3 nice males circling the wagons around fanned gravel areas. After 5 casts and just a few half hearted glancing strikes I realized it was going to be one of those days Alphahawk and others have spoke about. The fish were present just not cooperating..the heat?….clear water?…..moon phase? I don’t know but I started searching the tackle boxes for the most realistic buggy looking offerings I could find.
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A 1/32oz Turtle Jig tipped with a Berkeley Power leech looked and smelled like success. I think it was Eagle 1 on the Panfish Board that introduced us to these jigs, but of course most lures are designed to catch fishermen not fish, and I bit.
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Yep, that is what they wanted, or at least the dumb ones as I caught two nice specimens almost back to back .
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This is a super nice jig just a little on the light side of 1/32, so deeper beds and spots were harder to reach with this bait. No worries, on another rod I tied my new favorite plastic bait, the Creek Bug.
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I used an 1.2g ODZ jig head instead of the Diawa Gekajibin, those jig heads are becoming extinct in my boxes at an alarming rate.
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Best fish of the evening came on this combination, a bruiser male that was every bit 9.25in and fought like he was twice that size. As the evening wore on the bites became less frequent at each new spot, and with 19 on the clicker I waved the white flag and pointed the boat towards the ramp.
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Super Moon….well it came at a super hot time for us here in East Tennessee. Get out there if you can, just be safe and stay hydrated.


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You did good! The heat yesterday was stifling! Kudos on getting out there! My last fishing trip was deep in the Smokies. Cooler air, old water, and a few stupid browns that were fooled by my nymph.

Really good fish. Some of the Berkeley baits do make nice trailers on various lures.

Those look awesome.

Nice looking fish! Glad you had time for an afternoon trip! I bet that big male sure was fun!

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. :ThumbsUp

Some pretty ones .
Glad you figured out what they wanted .
Consistently catching gills on artificial baits is not as easy as some folks think .
They have picky moods .

Very nice. I am hiding in the house from this heat!

Nice bugs and bream.

Nice fish and some fine looking baits there! Glad you got on to them.
Bob

I’m liking the report. You had a good trip despite the heat. Please be careful. I work for a garbage company and the young tough guys on the back of the residential trucks have to be very careful and watch each other too. The heat don’t play! Thanks for taking us along.

K A B O O O O M !