Spring madness

I’ve read a lot lately on the boards about frustration. Fish popping, swirling, breaking water, slurping…but not hitting.

If you have fished for few years you learn to accept this. If you don’t, you’ll be frustrated as hell.

I remember a night behind the old OBI few years ago when weakfish run was good. The bass and weaks were running between my legs on the sandbar, slurping the bait all night long. I thought I found heaven only to throw every plug in the bag and get exactly one hit on a jelly worm. To ad to the misery, I dropped that fish too.

Silver Fox and I were fortunate this week to get on a consistent bass bite. But it was frustrating as hell. One night I had a 16 and a 17 pounders on consecutive casts then I sucked wind for the next hour while the fish were rolling around me. Then a quick three schoolies, then lull again. Fish are there, sometimes breaking water so close that they startled me. But they refuse to hit the lure. And it wasn’t for lack of trying…

We went trough just about every plug in our bags but the only consistent producers were small to medium plastic swimmers. Again, nothing unusual about that either.

And how about foul hooking? You expect to foul hook a bass in the blitz but not in the spring when they are feeding leisurely and there is an hour between hits sometimes, right?

Wrong

Some nights I managed to foul hook more fish than I hooked into the mouth and almost all of them were hooked behind the head. Which tells me that bass rushed (what he perceives) bait then turns around at last moment and tries to stun it with a tail? I have no other reasonable explanation. But spring can be maddening

Then again, that is the lure of this sport, as the season goes along, the bait changes, the productive spots change, your lure section and their feeding habit. They all change.

Which is kind of neat if you like to be challenged…but which sucked with a capital S when I was just starting up and could not for the life of me understand what I am doing wrong and why these fish, which are obviously on the feed, are not hitting your lure.

Seriously, its not you…for once J

Btw

I get a lot of offers to try out lures. And I politely decline most of them. In fact, I prefer contacting a maker of particular lure and ask for one to test. I mean, how many dudes are out there making metal lip swimmers? Way too many if you ask me.

Then there is Frank C, the dude that makes Guide Choice plugs. He is a boat guy. You tell him he has to walk twenty yard and he is looking for a Loran and GPS.

Lmao

But I like Frank. He is a strapping Italian dude with a mustache that would make Ron Jeremy proud. He does a lot of work with Fisherman Conservation Association and is actively involved in education of our youngest anglers. And for whatever reason, for a guy who runs a charter boat, he makes some great plugs. That is the only way I can put it. So far, his Old School Swimmer is my favorite, it cast well, it holds up and it produced personal best at Cutty for our Chef Andrew few years ago. This spring I switched mainly between two plugs, and the reason was that these two were the most effective ones. First is a standard cant-miss-school-buss Bomber. No brainer there. But some night they were ignoring that too but hitting Guides Choice Mucho minnow

My first impression of this plug? Cast well for its size. In fact, just about everything Frank makes casts well in comparison to other lures of same type. But even in comparison to Bomber, this is smaller lure at 4 3/8 and weighing in a 3/4 ounce.

Yet I felt it casted as well as Bomber. And caught fish pretty good.

As many of you know, I am not a small plug guy. The smallest plug for 99% of the time d

uring the season is either a 7-inch redfin or 1 3/4 Super strike needlefish. Everything else is 2 ounces and up.

But right now, when fish are often ignoring big plugs and feeding on small bait I found

that switching between Mucho Minnow and a School Buss bomber works for me.

In case you are wondering what color is the Mucho minnow. I will give you one guess. Because that is all you need.

Yup, its yellow, as it’s the Mag Darter, Choopy Darter, SS needle, some small metal lips swimmer and most of other plugs in my bag77.

Hi, I am Z and I have a yellow problem…Wait..There is Chrome Redfin in there. How can you go out without chrome Redfin?