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I fished one of my favorite smallie ponds yesterday. Action was far from hot but I managed to get a handful of bites and leave catching a mixed bag of smallies and small largemouth.
I caught all the LM's on jerkbaits and each one I caught hit within a few feet from shore. They were only 12-13 inches nothing to write home about but still fun.
The smallies all came on my drop/drag shot set up. Basically it's a drop shot rig with a tube jig replacing the drop shot weight. I prefer using smaller offset worm hooks with this set up and either gulp minnows or power minnows. The offset worm hook does take away a bit of action from the minnow but the minnows last longer this way and I'm not playing around with dinks all day. I'll still hook a few dinks from time to time but not nearly as much when I started using this rig with typical drop shot hooks.
Basically I'll drag the tube a few feet then put a minimal amount of movement in my rod tip to get that minnow to dance. In my opinion less is more... I know some guys shake the hell out of their drop shot rigs, I don't.
The big smallie came dragging this rig past ambush points near structure. The way I try to explain it to guys new to bass fishing is if you were going to hide somewhere to jump out and scare the **** out of a sibling that's an ambush point. With that in mind scan the water and find those ambush points and you'll eventually find fish.
All fish were promptly released after a pic or two.
Tight lines,
Eric
I caught all the LM's on jerkbaits and each one I caught hit within a few feet from shore. They were only 12-13 inches nothing to write home about but still fun.
The smallies all came on my drop/drag shot set up. Basically it's a drop shot rig with a tube jig replacing the drop shot weight. I prefer using smaller offset worm hooks with this set up and either gulp minnows or power minnows. The offset worm hook does take away a bit of action from the minnow but the minnows last longer this way and I'm not playing around with dinks all day. I'll still hook a few dinks from time to time but not nearly as much when I started using this rig with typical drop shot hooks.
Basically I'll drag the tube a few feet then put a minimal amount of movement in my rod tip to get that minnow to dance. In my opinion less is more... I know some guys shake the hell out of their drop shot rigs, I don't.
The big smallie came dragging this rig past ambush points near structure. The way I try to explain it to guys new to bass fishing is if you were going to hide somewhere to jump out and scare the **** out of a sibling that's an ambush point. With that in mind scan the water and find those ambush points and you'll eventually find fish.
All fish were promptly released after a pic or two.
Tight lines,
Eric
