[Paul C]

Afternoon Gents


Two part question

I was wondering does anybody have a fav top water lure that seems to catch earlier for them than others ?

When do people start using TW.? and expecting results !!

The reason that I ask is that I have a mark that seems to hold fish fairly early in the year, had my first TW take there on 'bobs yellow patchinko' in mid april last year.Dont know if it was a bass though as i lost it, and it was a fair way away.

part 2
the mark in question is made up of big boulders which go out on a point. loads of current on the point and a drop off of about 30ft. To the left of the point is a large eddy, the point acts as a skern. and there is a area about the half the size of a football picth which seems absent of current, at least on the top. bottom made up of boulders about the size of pool tables, Have tried sp in there but to know avail, Any suggestions ? I know the fish are down there !! but hard to get down without getting snagged: lost lots of plugs here evil:

thanks

 

[Mick Ward]

Its a good question, I wonder the same myself in the early season. A few years ago we had a great season from march to xmas and we started in march on the sammy and gunfish. Those were the only top waters we were using at the time really, well those and super spooks, aile magnets and skitter pops. We have alot more choice these days and it is hard to work out what to use, too many sweets to chose from so to speak. I will be trying the baby patchinko, the patchinko, z-claw and hopefully the feed popper (new small version). I am sure any surface lure under 150mm will be fine though, you just have to match the conditions to the lure.

The terrain you are fishing sounds ideal, in that kind of currant I would be temped to use your lures very slowly, almost dead sticking.

 

[Paul C]

Cheers Mick

what exactly do you mean by dead sticking ?

 

[Mick Ward]

Let the lure act dead, let the currant move it and just make the lure move to a minimum. Think about how fish act in currant, they usually go with the flow and use very little energy, so let your lure do the rest. Of course sometimes you just have to thrash your lure over a strong currant area to get a rise, there seems no perfect answer, so be willing to be diverse. Its a weird one to explain, and I havnt sussed it out (I dont think anyone has) but there are times in the tide when the bass are all wired, spikes up, senses alert and they will attack anything that moves. In that time you can walk the dog, pop and wind to your hearts content and fish will play. But sometimes they are not in that wired state of feeding, and thats when you need to trick them into an easy meal, so dead sticking, slow retrieves are irresistable to a big lazy bass. Hope this helps and you get what I mean.

 

[Dave Irving]

Paul,
In shallow water I see no reason why not to fish topwaters early in the year-I would. But fish them SLOWLY and quitely, save the faster splasher stuff untill the water heats up.

As for mark, I fish somewhere similar, a line of rocks that stick out into the current, that creates a slack water area behind the point. I have found the the edge between the cureent and slack water is the best area. I cast out into the current and allow the current to fish the lure around into the slack water, the retrieve slowly. Personally I like the Feed Shallow to do this with, as it has plenty of action, even when held in very little current. Watch out for the takes, as at my mark they tend to be smashes. Same trick works as Mick said with topwaters.