Productive baits and techniques of 2010

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Parnicky on October 13, 2010 at 1:42am

It was the year of the dropshot for me. In my best tournaments this year, all of the fish I weighed in were caught on dropshots. On the same token though, when I struggled this year, it was due to me relying on the dropshot as a crutch too much and giving up on other techniques way too soon. My primary set up for open water smallmouth fishing was a 6'6" medium/light spinning rod with 4 lb. Pline Original fluoro (not Halo). There were two scenarios where I felt like the dropshot really excelled for me this year.

The first was right around spawn time. There were two baits that probably did most of the damage for me this spring. The first was the new Panic Minnow dropswim in color 100 on 1/16th and 1/8th oz. quickdrops for cruising, prespawn, and bedding fish. The second was a White Trash Smallie Beaver with a 1/8th oz. quickdrop. I used the smallie beaver strictly for bedding fish as I noticed sometimes it took them longer to notice a natural colored bait on the bed. They took notice of the white trash beaver very quickly and wasted no time moving it off the bed.

The second scenario where the dropshot did real well for me was on deep offshore structure later in the year. I did well fishing dropshots on these areas in a variety of ways. Long casts, dragging, throwing at targets, dropping on fish on the graph, deadsticking, it all worked. It is sometimes a chore to find how the fish are using deep structure but sometimes I could find areas on the structure that I felt fish kept pulling up on to feed and those were the real sweet spots. I used 3/16th, 1/4 and 1/2 oz. quickdrops based on different variables (wind, depth, current, fish mood, etc.). There were tons of baits I did well on but if I had to pick two that I felt really did the best, I would say the Hologram Shad Roboworm Alive Shad and the Purple Smoke Jackall Cross Tail Shad.

Permalink Reply by Mark Maderos on October 13, 2010 at 9:18am

This year I worked on using a Neko rig. I had quite a bit of success with it at different times of the year and during some of my tournaments. It worked well for both largemouth and smallies and I was able to fish it shallow and really deep. Also I used a jerkbait a little more this year also. I came across the Yozuri sushimi jerkbait and this thing really rocked the fish this year for me.

Mark

Permalink Reply by Chris J. Spencer on October 13, 2010 at 3:13pm

This was my first year fishing tournments as well. Only got to fish three due to one thing or the other but I placed 8th in two and 4th in one.

I used a variety of things but I caught the majority of my fish on a spinnerbait, senko, and crank baits.

White, white/chartruese, and white/black were the skirt colors that worked best for my spinnerbaits. On the river two blades, one willow and a smaller colorado, worked best. In the lake due to very stained water a single large colorado in silver or gold worked well.

My watermelon green flecked senko absolutely caught most my fish. I caught a lot of fish on this but the majority of these fish were only 1-3lbs. I never hooked up with anything bigger using the senko but I had a good time catching fish all year long with this bait. Green pumpkin seem to work better in the sloughs on the river as well as blue/black lamanent.

My rebel crawdad did awsome for small mouth on the Columbia. But up at Silver lake this fall it's been a gold red eye shad thats caught most my fish. Finding schools of crappie, perch, or blue gill on dead heads in deeper water usually produced several bass with this lipless crank.

Been a year of learning for me and I'm still trying to sort things out.

Permalink Reply by Joel Alinen on October 13, 2010 at 9:03pm

Pj great post I hope we can hear from some of the other guys who did good this year. I had a good year of fishing this year and caught fish on all the regular suspects (Dropshot, swimbaits, cranks, jerks, topwater, mop jigs, grubs, senkos, ect) But most of my good fish came on a 1/2oz 4 inch 176 hula grub and a 1/2 oz custom mop jig with a beaver or chunk trailer...those baits were by far my go to bait this year.

Permalink Reply by Jordan Doucet on October 13, 2010 at 9:22pm

This was one of my top baits last year too, but the Gulp alive baits are freakin' awesome for dropshotting. 5" Leech, 3" leech, 3" minnow, 4" minnow were all good producers and having the new plano box with the o-ring works alot better than the original tub. The other great producer in the spring was the new dropswim panic minnow, color 100 and 21 i believe. This was KEY at Montana for the divisionals.
I also had a great year fishing frogs in all different styles and scenarios. Spros, tru tungsten, river2sea, strike king, regular, poppin' you name it. Finally, i did more punching this year then ever before and had a great time with that rig. I made my own punch skirts coupled with the jackal craw.

Permalink Reply by rzone on October 13, 2010 at 10:24pm

Koppers Live Target Perch:

http://www.livetargetlures.com/YellowPerch.html

That perch was so productive and I tried a lot of crankbaits this year. On one day I had several big smallies, a 20 inch walleye and a 20 inch trout on the same bait. Lake Roosevelt + Koppers Live Target = Carpal Tunnel Syndrome for me.

Drop shot tubes from MadBass, I have so many tubes on my boat its a good 4MPH slower from the weight of them :), but those MadBass tubes were a cut above.

http://madbassbaits.com/Mad_Bass_Custom_Baits/Tube_Colors.html

Green Pumpkin / Orange Flake, and Natural Craw.

Panic Minnow drop swimmers on a drop shot rig, like David I would target fish on the graph, drop in 30-35FT of water and get a fish on almost every try.

Permalink Reply by Tag Watson on October 13, 2010 at 10:28pm

Joel Alinen said:

Pj great post I hope we can hear from some of the other guys who did good this year. I had a good year of fishing this year and caught fish on all the regular suspects (Dropshot, swimbaits, cranks, jerks, topwater, mop jigs, grubs, senkos, ect) But most of my good fish came on a 1/2oz 4 inch 176 hula grub and a 1/2 oz custom mop jig with a beaver or chunk trailer...those baits were by far my go to bait this year.

4" hula grub? Are you crappie fishing?

Permalink Reply by Marc Marcantonio on October 13, 2010 at 10:30pm

I used too many different rigs to single out any one over the others, however, the ol' SnagProof Bobby's Perfect frog in Bullfrog color absolutely crushed the big largemouths for me this year (from Potholes to the Susquehanna Flats). Luv that frog fishin'. Definitely the most bass and my biggest smallmouths all came dropswimming on all sizes QuickDrops. This year I relied upon the 3/4 oz size in heavy wind conditions and really rocked the smallies.

ciao,
Marc Marcantonio

Permalink Reply by cody hampton on October 14, 2010 at 12:08am

The top producer for me was a carolina rig, from spring till my last tournament, the Scholarship, for smallies and largemouth, usually throwing a lizard and Brush Hogs. I got a lot more confidence in throwing a plain ol' grub, MadBass Baits has some really amazing colors and are a lot more soft than Yamamotos are and stay on the jig head better and last longer as well. Spinnerbaits and Rattle Traps were my other top producers, MadBass Baits custom 1/2 oz white spinnerbait with tandem blades, and a gold Red Eye Shad from Strike King.

Permalink Reply by Chad Simon on October 14, 2010 at 9:10am

Jigs-Cottonmouth Custom Jigs in both brown and green pumpkin tones with beaver trailers
Frogs- River2sea and tru tungsten
Tubes-we got on some pretty dandy tube bites, and I used to never fish them.

Permalink Reply by BigBass Dez on October 14, 2010 at 11:15am

Like others have mentioned the panic Minnow was a major player in the bass game this season , I am 100% sold on that bait period , The best producing colors IMO seem to be 100 & 34 ..
As for the techniques this year , I was forchanate enough to get a lesson/demonstration on the value of the robo worm rebarb hook . When rigged properly this dropshot rig becomes weedless which allows the angler to fish a drop shot in the thick of weed beds , It does take a little practice in developing your timing on the hook set but once you get dailed in, HOLD ON !!

Now that the cat is out the bag (thanks mark)...lol Last but not least is a creation i call "Cut Bait" ..This simply a RI beaver 4.20 The trick is to lay the bait on a flat surface and take a razor right down the middle slicing it into two pieces , i then take a pair of nail clippers and carefully remove the pinchers above the tail , Now you the the finished product 2 Dropshot baits in you favoite RI color ...

Dez "The Rookie"

Permalink Reply by Says L. on October 14, 2010 at 7:10pm

This is boring, but I fished the senko a lot this year and had pretty good success for both smallies and largies. Next year my goal is to catch a fish on a frog.

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