Thread: Too Much Bait
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Old 12-03-2017, 10:05 AM
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Alphahawk Alphahawk is offline
Master Trout Magnet
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Columbia, TN
Age: 72
Posts: 5,490
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Quote:
Originally Posted by agelesssone View Post
Most guys want to throw too big of a bait. When your graph is full of bait so thick the graph can't read bottom, the bait is usually very small.

I'm catching most of my fish (LM, whites, and hybrids) on two inch swim baits.

I troll A-rigs and put 2 inch Powerbait swimbaits on them.

My three, four, and five inch swimmers weren't getting hit, so I threw a cast net one day to see what the bait was like. My 3/8 mesh net kept coming in empty even though my graph was full of bait. So one day I took my creek cast net (1/4 inch mesh, multifilament) and threw it at the mess on the graph. I had so many 1-2 inch shad in it, I could hardly pick it up. I didn't bring the shad into the boat, just shook most of the bait out. I pulled in a few just to get a good look. That is what made.me downsize my baits and really upped.my catch ratio.


Merv is spot on here. I fish a lot different than most people. I don’t usually target strippers or hybrid...but I do white bass. If I am catching whites off of a big bait ball down at Pickwick on the Trout Magnet, and stripers move in on it, I quit throwing the Trout Magnet.....don’t want to get spooled by a 10 pound striper using 2# test line. They will hit it in a situation like that every time. Same with any other specie I know of when they are feeding on a bait ball. Back in 2002 an event happened below dam at Pickwick that I have only seen once. There were literally thousands of stripers that covered acres below the dam at Pickwick. This feeding frenzy went on for hours in bright sunlight. There were about 10 boats out there that day and the striper were busting so much I thought they were literally going to jump in the boat.....schoolies as the term I learned from TK. None of us were catching a thing. All of us were casting but no catching. Finally got one fish to hit out of all of that. Didn’t know then what I know now....we were all casting baits too big. That was back before I downsized tackle and lures.


Regards


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