Holy cow, I’m not sure ya’ll have been smelling what I’ve been smelling in the creeks this week but I’m smelling the strong scent of shad every morning that I’ve been out this week. This week I’ve been able to get out fairly early just about every morning and it’s really been worth it. The creeks are starting to come alive with bait moving around early in the morning and the fish have been responding well. I kinda knew the fishing would get better as we’ve had fairly stable weather all week and the water temps are on the rise. We’re getting closer to the spawn every day and the fish are moving around looking for food after a long winter slumber. I can remember just about 6 weeks ago I was freezing my butt off and dragging a little swimbait on the deeper bottom just hoping the little swimbait would lure a fish into biting. The fish were cold and my fingers were frozen but that little Damiki rig I was using got it done in the later part of the winter for me. I had to work it very slow as you can see in the video below that I made back on Feb. 1st. This video was made in the back of the creek while the bait and fish were stacked in the back. Most every fish was under 2lbs but it provided me with some late winter action for days. I probably caught close to 100 fish just making the same cast in the same place for 3 days straight. The fish were sitting on a ledge and constantly intercepting small bluebacks coming out of shallow water into deeper water via the ledge and I was just hoping the little Damiki down the ledge.

Throughout the month of Feb. I used the little Damiki a lot and I’ve built a trust in the bait. In my opinion the little 2.8 Keitech is a pretty good match for the little threadfin shad that the fish are keying on in the creeks so it was just a matter of figuring out how the fish wanted the Damiki. As the water started to warm the fish started getting more active and I found that it wasn’t necessary to drag the bait anymore and I started getting more and more fish while swimming the bait at different depths Rather than dragging it down ledges and across flats. I also jacked up the size of the swimbait to a 3.3 keitech. If you look at my videos from this time last year I was using the 3.3 Keitech with a lot of success. Here’s a picture of the rig I’m currently using and the rig that’s done the bulk of the damage this week.

The cool part about the Damiki is that it is very versatile and I can use it several different ways. Lately I’ve been making long casts on points, flats, around docks, in ditches, rock bluffs and if I see a fish swimming under the boat I’ll drop it down and dead stick it on the bottom. I will say this, you may not get good numbers on it but if you are patient and throw it in the right places it can be fun. The key is the speed. It really reminds me of the spybait technique sometimes because it can be like watching paint dry. Earlier this week I was coming out of the marina and saw some birds diving on some bait so I cruised over to make a cast or two in the general vicinity of the bird action. I had my video camera with so I decided to make a little Damiki video while I was out. You can see the technique and speed I’m using now with the Damiki vice what I was doing 6 weeks ago with the same bait in the back of the creek.

Don’t get me wrong here, there are plenty of other baits besides the Damiki rig pattern that work well right now, there is also a crankbait bite, a chatterbait bite, a jerkbait bite, jigs and a few other things that are working well right now some I wouldn’t exactly hang my hat on a Damiki rig bite from one day to the next but it has been a lot of fun this week and every once in a while I’d bust a good one. Right now I have a ton of confidence in the little Damiki and I’m probably using it just about 80% of the time. As far as the color choice for the Keitech goes, it varies. My advice is to choose whatever catches your eye because the fish are pretty forgiving when it comes to color choices. Just try until you find one that works well.

When I got out this morning the water temps were in the mid to upper 50’s and the lake is down a couple feet right now. Here’s some fish pictures from the week including the last 5 which were from offshore fishing the main lake today. That’s another thing I wanted to mention, this pattern works well on main lake humps and points and that’s where I found them today.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•