UTBASS was kind enough to take me up to Deer Creek on Friday morning to see if I could land my first bass. He gave me some great instruction and I came away with 3 10-12'' small mouth off of top water lures from the shore. UTBASS took 4 or 5 himself all in about 2 hours of fishing. After that I was hooked and decided to go back the next day with my foat tube. I was able to get 5 more on Sat, 1 was about 14''. I then decided to go early morning again on Sunday morning. We tried top water baits from about 6 am to 7:30 with no results so we switched to senkos and started nailing them. I left the day at 11 am with 5 more bass. The big fish of the day was 15" small mouth caught by my brother who was tossing a 5 in double curly tailed grub. All in all it was a great weekend and I look forward to the bass seminar this weekend to learn more tips and techniques. Thanks UTBASS, I think you've got me hooked on bass! Now we just need to go to UT Lake and hone my skills a little bit.
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What colors were working for you using top water? That is by far one of my favorite types of bass fishing.
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I was using a top water pop bait on Friday. I'm not sure what color it was as UTBASS loaned it to me to fish and I can't remember. On Saturday I used a Rapala Baby Bass Skitter Walk and nailed 2 smallies on that and missed 2 other hits. On Sunday we couldn't get them to hit the topwater at all and switched to plastics and landed 7 in 3hrs. One thing I didn't mention is that I worked the same shoreline of about 500 yards. and pulled out fish all three days. If we would have had a boat our success may have been much higher as we would have had access to some nice looking floaded inlets with lots of submerged brush. A funny thing On Sat. happened while I was in the tube. When I was done rigging a green spinner bait I flipped the lure into the water about 2 feet from the tube and let it dangle about a foot below the water while I zipped up some pockets. Just as I picked up my pole a nice smallie took a strike at the pinner but missed not 2 ft in front of me. I never did get a hit with it, but at least I know they like it.
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thats called trolling kirklan!!!!!!! one time at jordanelle my bro in law and i were kickin to the south shore at rock cliff in our tubes and he had his pole hooked across his lap in the velcro straps with his curly tail jig dagling about 8" above the water and a smallie jumped out and nailed it. scared the crap outta my bro. but it was a nice fish.
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Ya, he came out of the water right in front of me, but missed the strike because I was picking up my pole. I'm new to this whole bass fishing thing, but it's a lot more fun than sinking a worm at the bottom of a lake. I would say that out of the whole weekend I missed about 20 strikes do to inexperience and had at least 10 get off after hooking them.
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setting the hook and knowing when to set the hook is the hardest thing to get used to when making the transition from trout fishin to bass fishin, for me anyway. i gave up on troutskis bout and concentrate mostly on smallies at jordanelle and largies now that i live down south and i still miss a lot. but they sure are more fun than trout. for all you miss the ones you do hook make it worthwhile!!! good luck man. you'll be addicted in no time!!!!!
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I fished around the island on Saturday afternoon and caught one smallie and had two other fish on, that was it. Where were you fishing, if you don't mind me asking.[blush] I used a small tubejig in crawdad colors but maybe I should try something else. What color of senkos would be good, and how do I rig them. I have never used senkos but they sound like a good choice for smallies!
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i fished the island over memorial day in my tube in a hurricane windstorm using watermelon/charteuse senkos texas and wacky rigged and caught 1 nice one had another bigger one on but lost him. i had tons of hits but the wind was blowing me so much i usually had too much slack in my line to set the hook.[
] i had more hits on the texas rig just casting parrallell to shore about 30 feet out and bouncing it slowly on the bottom. this is pretty mush all i use at deer creek and jordanelle and more often than not it works well enough that i dont try anything else[
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hope that helps.
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Thanks for the info.[
] I'll have to go buy some senkos. What type of hooks are good to use?
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Hey kirk .. your welcome my brother! It was awesome seeing your face when that first smallie EXPLODED on your topwater bait that morning! I can forsee many a mornings with you slaying them fish! He he he. We did have a blast! I am looking forward to saturday's instruction and fishing! I hope to see you there and if anyone else would like to come ... I would be more than happy to help!
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I was fishing the first large inlet after you cross the dam right where all the construction was going on. I caught most of my fish with senkos wacky rigged and my brother caught his 2 on Sun. with a texas rigged 4'' senko and a 5" double curly tailed grub. The grub is the one he caught the big one on. I wasn't using it because I thought it was to large for the smallies we were catching. We were using watermelon and white senkos. Total fish for the weekend was 15, 5 topwater, 8 with senkos, 1 crankbait and 1 with a grub. I would be willing to bet a person like UTBASS would have caught twice that many, but I'm still learning presentation of my baits and how to work them.
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i use the eagle claw laser sharp worm hooks with the little crook nec thingy at the eye(dont know the official name of the crook neck thingy[mad]) so i can texas rig em perfectly srtaight.
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Heres a picture of the kind of hook hes talking about
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I use the same style hook for my texas and wacky rigs. I just use the Gamakatsu hooks.
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I'm no expert by any means, but I have just used plain old worm baithooks in sizes 1/0 or 2/0. They worked just fine for me wacky rigging senkos, and I caught quite a few smallies and largemouths at Deer Creek last year doing it.
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i use regular worm hooks to wacky rig too and they work great but if i need to switch to texas i want one of the ones with the crook neck thingy that was so finely illustrated in flying fish's pic. you brought my words to life. lately i've used them to wacky rig to since they work just as well as a regular worm hook but i like to have it on for easy changing between rigs without tying on a new hook every time.
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Thanks for the info guys.[
] I just got back from Sportsmans, I got some Watermelon Senkos and some hooks, now I just need to hit the lake. Thanks again for the info, one other thing, you guys ever catch trout on Senkos, I'm thinking about trying it.[blush]
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I have caught some nice Rainbows and Cutt's over 20" on them.
Tincanfsh
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