Open wide

You ever wondered why the fish are so finicky when feeding on tiny white bait? After all, they are FEEDING! Why wouldn’t they be hitting your lure?

Ahhhh, if life was that simple. The prevailing thought is that they just open their mouth, swallowed as many little suckers they can and not pay attention to one lure. Quantity over quality ? Something like that.

 

Is it true? I think so

 

Last weekend we did something many of you consider probably stupid. We tied a loop onto our Go Pro camera and attached to a  Tactical Angler clip and cast the camera into a blitz…and because there was no tension on the line, the camera slipped off the clip…poof, there goes $300 in ten seconds…

We caught a break, because Silver Fox found it few minutes later in two feet of water. He is  a Fox, after all, great eyesight, cataracts and all…lol. Of course he yelled “no, please, no” when I cut the loop, tied the GoPro direct to a leader and tossed it into the blitz again. You would too. Nothing good can come out of this he said.

And then I did it again, and again, and again, about 5 times till I got bored with bouncing the camera off their backs. Have we accomplished anything ? Not really. But I did get to see a striper feed. I will get to working on that video at the latter time but for now, here is the shot of one frame of the video of a bass, with fulll mouth open, going through the school of white bait. Mike Laptew, I am not. And that is cool, I never realy wanted to be anyone other then me anyway…its hard enough…lol

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here is another shot

35 comments on “Open wide

  1. Jeremy

    Man those bass look like vacuum cleaners. Very cool pics Z. and a real testament to Go Pro’s durability.
    Ok so how do you rig one of those……tie directly to the leader you say…

    Reply
  2. cory nguyen

    man that is freagin awesome. The group i go with ran into that this year, at a spot. bass were everywhere, i caught the fewest, couldn’t get into double digits like everyone else. after a while i started pondering what was going on. the next night was the same pretty much. so it got me to thinking. i kept hearing the guys says “I got a bump” and i was thinking that’s just a fish running into your line(i know technically still a bump, but not a bite bump) after looking into there mouths we saw nothing but eels. Then i figure they must just swim through the water with mouth open and take in as much as they can, probably chomp a couple times, and do it all over. next time you should hang it off something that will float. great job cant wait to see what you have. i will probably take some crap from this as soon as one of the guys reads this.

    Reply
  3. sioca

    Suspense, Suspense!!
    Can’t wait for the complete 1/2 hour interview with Paulie of October 4th.
    And now this!!!
    Can’t wait for this video either…

    Reply
  4. beret

    Z……..when you use the term “white bait”,what are you referring to……..I assume you mean any live bait fish….just curious…..thanks

    Reply
  5. bunufish

    That is awesome… You should connect a teaser and fight the fish coming in… =)

    Keep up the good work and the crazy ideas… =)

    Reply
  6. bunufish

    lol. I was wondering, my wife caught and had many swipes at her popper all away from the blitz area. She says, she saw a few fish even follow her lure all the way in before crashing it. So would it be safe to say that fish will actually chase when away from the main feeding pod?

    Reply
  7. Pingback: FromTheSurf.com - » Daily Roundup: October 13, 2011

  8. woodwker99

    Very cool pics and story. you are a man ahead of his time. I like the idea of suspending the camera next time you try. might I suggest a casting egg.(maybe you have to make it a larger one I don’t know how much the camera weighs). very cool shots indeed.cant wait for the full movie.

    Reply
  9. chuckg

    Kinda debunks the theory that big fish will hit big bait to save their energy but when fish are on small bait in the Canal, you witness the same phenomenon…??? Great pic.

    Reply
  10. firstlight

    Last week I was in the middle of one of the best bass blitzes I’ve experienced. The fish were mostly keepers in the 32 to 40″ range with a few real heavyweights in the mix feeding on small 1 1/2 to 2″ bay anchovies. I could actually see the bass, mouths agape, swirling through the bait. And the only way to catch with any consistency was to go small; this was not the time to toss 3 oz. swimmers.

    Reply
  11. woodwker99

    In blitz on white bait I throw a 1/2 oz lead headed fluke in white or green. the power bait minnow works good and it does get caught up in the gulping and chomp bite they are doing.it is about the same size as what they are eating.

    Reply
  12. Steve S

    bunufish – you beat me to it. Was thinking the same thing as I was reading the comments. Very cool shots Z! Looking forward to the video.

    Reply
  13. Matt

    well my interest is peaked, do the swim an eat everything or focus on there prey …. don’t keep us in the dark too long.

    Reply
  14. Leatherface

    Hey Z – We were out there last Sat. the 8th. OK.. We were on a boat, but had no problem catching bass on the fly. I had a light spinning outfit and just tied the fly/teaser to a little weight. Fish on every cast. Small bait, small fly! Great stuff. Last year I was out Columbus weekend and couldn’t hook up for nothing. We were throwing big diamond jigs when they were on the same small bait. This year we adjusted and not only hooked up with a ton of bass up to 20 pounds, but got into some great albie action and of course blues (which led to me losing about a dozen of those teasers). Next year I am making a pole for my camera so I can dip it right into the blitz from the boat.. Can’t wait!

    Reply

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