150 fish caught on two consecutive days (40 + 110) on light jigs and at times under a

[SenkoSam]

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.

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:


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:

Used under a cigar float:

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.


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!


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.

[wiperhunter2]

Wow, that is a killer amount of fish caught in a couple of days. You are blessed to live in an area where there is such huge number of panfish and bass. In comparison we have few lakes here where we could find fish in those numbers, except for maybe white bass in one local lake. I think the reason is the amount of water plants you have there, few lakes here have that amount of water plants, most are fairly baren of plant growth. I would guess with those numbers of fish, most are fairly stunted , do you get many over 12"?

[SenkoSam]

What I learned Tues and Wed. of last:
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 halike 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 vs the floats with spring clips.

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 has 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. Any heavier jig and/or shorter or longer hook would not have allowed that lure action or the slow mid-depth

Key was using a light jig - 1/32 oz, and #4 hook that enhanced the action of all slow moving lures mid-depth. presentation.

I value the above more than the numbers caught - which any lure cast by anyone could have accomplished.

Let me make something very clear: the incrdible catch is far from possible most days of the year. Very high water from buckets of spring rain positioned fish schools super shallow near and in wetlands and I have no idea why they were mixed with perch, bass and crappie swimming side-by-side. All I know was that I was in fisherman heaven catching so many per hour, with the boat anchored in 4 fOW for 2-3 hours! before moving 10 yds. I could hear splashes in brushy areas as fish attacked other fish, so feeding was going on. Fish in the schools weren't feeding - they were just there to gooble my soft plastic creations.

[wiperhunter2]

This new site does not like copy and paste post but to fix it all you need to do is go in and hit the edit button, then select quick edit. Once you get to the quick edit, just edit out the script and hit save changes, that is just below the box.

[Allen Leech]

Wow, splendid! Jealous... What is the water pollution situation there? I had problems with some of the fish I caught in Florida's coastal waters due to pollution. And I had to throw away fresh fish because they were inedible.

[SenkoSam]

Figured it out already, thanks.

---

Water pollution is never a problem where I fish - even the Hudson River. Within 1 hour of where I live there are 30 or so lakes to fish - none polluted, most that have a decent variety of species to test my ideas. A friend discovered how the same type of retrieve results in different lure actions because of differences in lure design. Amazing in that the first year we fished, he would only cast a chartreuse / red Crappie Magnet grub. He did well when fish were schooled, not so when not.