Sometime you can close your eyes and catch fish

[SenkoSam]

Yesterday my partner and I heard that using a float and small tube could catch panfish in a wetlands cove. It did to the tune of 20 fish for the two of us.  Before that my buddy called me at home asking if we could take out my flat bottom and find similar spots on a private lake I've fished for over 40 years. My fishing logs don't show a whole lot of activity in April but I figured it was a nice day to be out and why not.

After casting all over a flat in 5' we finally got 5 decent yellow perch. The fishing as expected was not worth staying out considering the weed growth absent this time of year and the 54-degree water temperature. (The day before I hit a lake and only caught 10 fish in 7 hours.) But at the last minute I suggested going to this wetland cove accessible by a shallow channel. A good amount of rain this year allowed for the 2.5' of water into an hourglass-shaped cove surround by woody brush separated from the main lake.

I still can't remember having done well there after so many decades, but I must have considering the difficulty of rowing and pushing us into the cove which immediately came alive with hundreds of spooked fish. What kinds of fish we soon found out!

My partner cast a Crappie Magnet and hooked up with fish after fish, the same for me using different soft plastics and light jigs. The first cove produced over 30 fish between us; the second cove over 60 fish. Now when have you ever heard of a mixed school of fish sitting in the same shallow water? We caught mostly crappie and sunfish (3 species) but also 12-11" bass and a few of the following: yellow perch, a gold shiner and a 12" white perch. 

I needed fish for my pond and put some of what we caught in a wire basket - about 18. I knew that if I went too fast, I could suffocate fish while towing the basket behind the boat and still wasn't sure if any would make it. Must have been the water in the mid 50's that allowed all fish to survive the 14-minute trip back home, but they swam off into their new home like they never left it.

My partner will want to go back soon, but in my mind why ruin a good thing? April 10, 2021 will go down as one of the most prolific days of fishing I've ever experienced, unique in the small area and very shallow depth where close to 100 fish slammed our lures! Last year we ht another lake and caught close to 200 fish in one day in early May but in deeper and warmer water. 

As usual, I am in complete support of fishing with a partner to help find fish and what fish will bite. We caught fish on 15 different shapes of soft plastics rigged on ball head jigs 1/64 oz - 1/24 oz. 8 lb. test Braid was all we used to cast the light lures over 40' and felt the strikes immediately! Hook sets were a bit tricky at first for my partner because of the small hook gaps so I suggested he not set the hook like for bass meaning: raise the rod tip to the side allowing the fish to begin the hook set from panic and then one more rod tip tug. He immediately caught 6 crappies on six consecutive casts! Always glad to help a partner.

Frank

[wiperhunter2]

Great report Frank, thanks for sharing it with us. Sounds like your water temps are about the same there in NY as they are here in Utah. Hope we get a wet Spring here, otherwise it is going to be a poor water year for us. Here in Utah we can't transport live fish but it sounds like it really helps add to your pond, when the stock is getting low. I guess all those different fish were there for the same reason, rising water levels, flooding new areas, likely a lot of food there.

[SenkoSam]

At first I thought why go back to a sure thing using the same lure tupes, but then thought - Hey, why not try floating minnows (Rapalas, Rebel) and small poppers for some explosive surface action! How cool would that be?! It's been a long time since I've done some topwater fishing which was always reserved for bass.

But one thing blew my partner away after catching those 6 crappie on 6 consecutive casts : what I call the Claw. It's nothing more than the claw taken from a crawfish lure and added to the head of the craw or other body:


Color was not important though I prefer darker tones like those shown (black, watermelon and pumpkin). Must be the pointed flat tips that vibrate up & down ever so slightly. As you can see, they caught all species.
Frank

[wiperhunter2]

Pretty cool how you added those different plastics together to create a new lure. I know we have talked about this before but would you mind explaining to our members here how you do it, so they can lean from your example, thanks.

[SenkoSam]

Happy to Curt.
There is an infinite number of soft plastic lure parts that can be fused together to form unique shapes with unique actions. The easiest way is to use a candle flame to slightly melt the ends of each part and then a battery-powered soldering iron to smooth and strengthen the seam. You need a steady hand and a good eye to make sure the parts are in a straight line once melted together.

Fish respond to lures primarily due to lure motion and speed whether off the bottom, near the surface or mid-depth. What that lure does determines how the fish reacts to it. 
Note: lure characteristics are rarely natural nor need be. I'm sure many of you have watched YouTube videos of lures in action that are no way natural yet they catch fish. The latest video I just watched was the tiny child rig for plastic sticks as it was worked straight up and straight and down on the bottom. It had the most unnatural motion I've ever seen yet still a proven rig for bass!

When you catch fish on different designs, it dawns on you that particular designs excel - all due to lure action. 
The Claw shown above is one you can make yourself and know that it catches different fish species (as shown in the photos).

Another simple but effective design is the bonding together of the bodies of two grubs:

Every one of these caught fish - maybe due to the bobble of the fat body when rod twitches are applied. Note the variations of the shapes and colors fused together.  I then found out the lure can be wacky rigged  with a jig head and it caught all kinds of fish:


One of my best discoveries was the fusion of a Gary Y. Kut Tail worm to a Kalin grub body:

The action is amazing!
Here is a similar fusion of parts resulting in the same tail-whip action. When worked on a light jig mid-depth, it has that phenomenal action that makes fish go nuts!


So, as you can see, action speaks louder when getting fish to attack. The fluttering tips of the Claw, the body bobble of the joined grub bodies and whiptail action of the GY KutTail Worm all catch different species of freshwater fish. Anyone want more ideas, just ask or show me what you got that can be used to fuse shapes into fish catchers. 
 Frank