08-08-2004, 07:51 PM
Most of our very best fishing for largemouth bass takes place under the cover of darkness, especially on these lakes.
By Tim Lesmeister
The sun always seems to hang in the sky forever during the day, but when it hits that horizon line, it's gone in a few short minutes.
Such was the case as Paul Neuman, a highly competitive professional angler, and I motored through the narrow channel into Carmens Bay on Lake Minnetonka. While watching the sunset in front of us turn the flat blue surface of the water to a golden hue, Neuman commented, "It's going to get dark tonight without a moon, and that should work in our favor. There won't be many boats on the water tonight."
He was right. Every point where we stopped off, it was just the two of us. Occasionally a big cruiser would motor by, but these boats were going from Point A to Point B and didn't affect Neuman's program. He would control the boat with his bow-mount electric motor to slowly creep up one side of a point and down the other, skillfully casting to every nook and cranny, straining every inch of the rocks those jigs crawled over.
Neuman is a bass-catching machine at night. He would let the 1/2-ounce live-rubber jig that was tipped with a scented-plastic trailer sink all the way to the bottom and then slowly raise the rod tip. When the rod tip reached a point about 60 degrees to the waterline, he would drop the tip, reel in the slack and begin the slow rise again. The big leadhead jig would slowly bump and grind around the cobblestone and rubble on the deep edge of the points until he would feel something that tipped him off to a bass inhaling the jig. When he felt that telltale tap he rapidly dropped the tip, reeled in the slack and would rear back hard to set the hook.
There were some tough battles that night because the big largemouths weren't prone to head shaking on the surface. Instead, those largemouths would bulldog toward deeper water, forcing us to play them all the way to the boat.
"These big bass are obviously feeding on crayfish in the rocks," said Neuman. "The jig with the trailer resembles what they're feeding on, so when you find them, you won't be short of bites."
For the rest of the article, [url http://www.minnesotasportsmanmag.com/mn_...04a/]click here.[/url]
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By Tim Lesmeister
The sun always seems to hang in the sky forever during the day, but when it hits that horizon line, it's gone in a few short minutes.
Such was the case as Paul Neuman, a highly competitive professional angler, and I motored through the narrow channel into Carmens Bay on Lake Minnetonka. While watching the sunset in front of us turn the flat blue surface of the water to a golden hue, Neuman commented, "It's going to get dark tonight without a moon, and that should work in our favor. There won't be many boats on the water tonight."
He was right. Every point where we stopped off, it was just the two of us. Occasionally a big cruiser would motor by, but these boats were going from Point A to Point B and didn't affect Neuman's program. He would control the boat with his bow-mount electric motor to slowly creep up one side of a point and down the other, skillfully casting to every nook and cranny, straining every inch of the rocks those jigs crawled over.
Neuman is a bass-catching machine at night. He would let the 1/2-ounce live-rubber jig that was tipped with a scented-plastic trailer sink all the way to the bottom and then slowly raise the rod tip. When the rod tip reached a point about 60 degrees to the waterline, he would drop the tip, reel in the slack and begin the slow rise again. The big leadhead jig would slowly bump and grind around the cobblestone and rubble on the deep edge of the points until he would feel something that tipped him off to a bass inhaling the jig. When he felt that telltale tap he rapidly dropped the tip, reeled in the slack and would rear back hard to set the hook.
There were some tough battles that night because the big largemouths weren't prone to head shaking on the surface. Instead, those largemouths would bulldog toward deeper water, forcing us to play them all the way to the boat.
"These big bass are obviously feeding on crayfish in the rocks," said Neuman. "The jig with the trailer resembles what they're feeding on, so when you find them, you won't be short of bites."
For the rest of the article, [url http://www.minnesotasportsmanmag.com/mn_...04a/]click here.[/url]
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