I’m pretty sure it was a week ago today when I made a visit to my wall of shame. I mainly go there now when I’m stumped and I’m in need of some help and sometimes my wall of shame puts me on the right track. Such was the case for the past week. My wall of shame has a little bit of everything including new and used options from one season to the next so I usually stare at the baits for a while and think of what has worked in the past or what may work for various reasons. If something jumps out at me I pick it up and take it to the lake and give it a try. I grabbed one bait off the wall a week ago and it has accounted for 99% of my fish this week and I’ve had a blast using it.

This week has been a blast for me in terms of learning a pattern with a bait I’ve never really used before and using it with a very rewarding degree of success after learning it. What makes it even better is the fact that it’s a topwater bait and I get to enjoy the benefit of watching some big fish blow up on it and finally get hooked. I’d been having this problem with the bigger fish missing the stuff I’d been using like the popper and my little 4 inch walking baits. I’d been throwing a steady diet of chug bug, popper, Sammy style baits and the whopper plopper to name a few but my hook-up ratio was way down and the fish were constantly winning the battle. It’s like the bass had the stuff figured out and I wasn’t able to trick them like I had expected to. I don’t know about y’all but it’s pretty disheartening to have big fish barely miss your bait or get barely hook time after time during the course of a day.

By this time you’re probably wondering what I was throwing this week but to be honest, that’s not the point this week. It’s not so much about the bait as it is the pattern. I think that my biggest take away from the past week was that these fish see a lot of baits in the course of a day and giving them something different to look at can be the key. When I was staring at my wall and contemplating my plan I thought about how the fish had reacted to the popper by the popping sound and the splashing it creates. I thought about how the bass reacted to the popper in calm water because of the surface disruption around the popper and I wanted a bait that would create that surface disruption but I also wanted to mimic the blueback skittering across the water for visual effect. I wanted surface disruption, sound as well as visual effects and while staring at the wall one bait jumped out at me. It was sleek, different and I know the fish hadn’t been seeing it a lot lately because most folks are throwing the social media/dock talk specials right now. I just needed to create a pattern with the bait so that’s what I did. I was able to make the bait skitter and stop and I was able to create the surface disruption as well. I then created a combination of skittering and stopping, making some surface disruption and then starting the whole process over again. That was the pattern I wanted to achieve with the bait so late last week I set out to try it on the lake.

It didn’t take long till I had my first victim on a point in the creek and I was able to build on that. I just started running and gunning points and humps on my milk run and I got rewarded at every stop. My pattern was something the fish hadn’t seen lately and my hook-up ratio jumped back up where I like it. I was also able to fool some of the bigger fish with regularity again which really had me fired up. My neighbor and I had been planning a trip out on the lake and yesterday we were able to get out for a while. I had told my neighbor about my new bait and pattern so he procured a few more (all) of the baits at a local tackle shop and off we went on the milk run to chase a few bass. He had to get a little training but it didn’t take long till we were both on track and catching fish. I’m not sure how long our new pattern will last but I’m going to definitely ride this horse till the bitter end or until the summer spybait bite picks up a little more. LOL

Water temps are in the low 80’s and the corps isn’t pulling a whole bunch of water right now, mainly for a few hours in the evening. I fully expect the spybait and drop shot bite to pick up for me very soon.

I caught a lot of fish on one bait this week and I weighed a dozen of them for my “guess the weight” give away. Check my Facebook page later today for a link to a YouTube video for a sneak peek at the fish and guess the weight. You could win one of my emerald poppers and a few other baits from my shop.

Here’s a few pictures of my memorable fish for the week.

It seems like just a couple months ago I was freezing my butt off dragging tiny swimbaits across the bottom of a ditch ledge at the speed of a 3 toed sloth and dreaming about the early summer topwater bite. Well, here we are, it’s early summer and the stop, pop n drop pattern is in full swing.

Last year about this time we were in a great spybait pattern but all in all the topwater was lacking. This year the spybait pattern hasn’t really took off but the topwater pattern is on fire and the popper is really showing out. Yesterday was one of those days that I could get the fish to school at every stop with the popper. A lot of times it’s just the rhythm and deep sounding popping noises that really get these summer bass worked up and yesterday the wind was just about perfect to fish the popper with success. There were a few places that the popper created enough surface disruption in dead calm water to create a strike and as the morning progressed it just got better and better. That’s another thing about these summer bass on a blueback lake; they know that the bluebacks like to come close to the surface on sunny days and once the sun gets up the gauntlet begins between the predator and prey.

Here’s a YouTube video I made yesterday. These were some of the fish I caught on the popper yesterday. I’m using a St Croix 7’1” Bass X spinning rod with a Penn Fierce III loaded with 7lb flouro.

This week was a little different for me and for a few reasons. This time of year I would be doing a lot more spybait and drop shot but this week I wanted to see if I could get a 5+ pounder for a replica wall mount. I want to do it on the popper so that makes it a bit harder. I know there are bigger profile baits out there right now that I could use and more than likely get the job done rather quickly but I want to do it on something I created so that makes it a bit tougher. I’ve mainly been fishing the main lake because of the water clarity and the boat traffic in the creek but I also know my chances of a 5+ go way up out on the main lake right now. My strategy has been to fish the places I could throw the popper where there wasn’t too much wind. A light chop is perfect so I just looked for points and humps that either had no wind or just a little wind on them. When I start throwing the popper around a moderate to larger chop my hookup percentages go way down and it get’s much harder for the fish to pick up on it. This week I’ve had a pretty solid milk run and went up the west side of the main lake to past Vanns, hit the humps on the main lake and worked my way back down the east side of the main lake. I’m mainly fishing places to I have caught big fish in the past and my electronics doesn’t play a real large part of my fishing.

I’m kinda old school and I fish a lot by memory but I do use my electronics as a reference. Let’s face it, a lot of these bass are cruising around in wolf packs right now and just throwing a loud topwater bait near brush piles could induce some schooling action on your bait. I’m using my electronics as a reference to pinpoint the brush but I’m actually working my bait all around the brush and I only move in on the brush when I feel like the topwater chances are over and it’s time to pick up the drop shot. Since it’s getting hot out, this whole scenario of pulling up and fishing and area, plus drop shotting, may only last 10-15 minutes and then I’m moving on. A lot of times the bite heats up the best in the hottest part of the day and if you can stand the heat the rewards can be worth it. Running and gunning with plenty of cold water in the boat and body coverings are the norm from now till Sept.

I also have 2 different tactics I use for the topwater pattern; first is my “Bull in the China Closet” approach where I come into an area doing a lot of splashing and popping, creating as much disruption as possible. A lot of times this will trigger the fish to start feeding and if you watch some of my popper videos you’ll see that the popper actually triggers topwater schooling around the boat. That’s the bull in the china closet approach and it’s been working well lately. My other approach is my stealth approach which also works well. I use my little 4 inch walking bait for the stealth approach and it’s more about just creating a wake and letting the bass track the wake back to the source. Waking a bait is just about as effective as popping a bait right now but sometimes one approach may work better than the other so you just need to see what works. I know a lot of folks don’t have an Emerald Popper so a good replacement is the small chug bug. It is a great choice and you can generally get the same effect as the popper. To be honest, I’d probably be using the small chug bug a lot more if I wasn’t trying to get a magnum on the popper right now.

For me the spybait bite hasn’t really taken off and I’m pretty sure it’s because we don’t have a solid thermocline yet. The stratification process is still ongoing and there is still very good oxygen near the surface, hence good topwater. Once we have a more defined line at the top end of the thermocline at 20-25 feet the fish will be more inclined to feed deeper and that’s when the spybait will really take off. It’s just around the corner and I would definitely throw it every day I’m out right now under normal circumstances. I like the Duo Realis G-fix 80 in a few different patterns. You just have to play with the colors to see what works on any given day. Just remember to count it down and fish it slow and steady around brush and out on points.

Lastly is the drop shot. It’s starting to get heated up as these fish start to pile up around their summer homes. I’m seeing more and more fish in and around the brush out on the main lake and in the creek. Right now I’ve got Lanier Baits Blue Lily worm tied on and if I see fish underneath me, I’m dropping the blue lily right on their heads. More specifically, I’m easing my boat over the brush and dropping my bait right down into the middle of the brush and dead sticking the bait. Generally there will be a bigger fish deep in the brush so don’t be scared to drop right into the thick of it. That’s where the big girls hang out.

Here’s a few pictures from my week. I did catch a lot of smaller fish that didn’t make the highlights this week but out of the 3 morning I fished this week I probably caught 30-40 fish.

Years and years ago I worked with a guy that acquired the nickname “Stuck-on” due to the fact that he had a hard time learning from his mistakes so they claimed he was stuck on stupid. Sometimes I feel like ole Stuck-on because this week I really got stuck on throwing the popper. In terms of percentages, this week the popper probably took up about 50% of my time on the water. I’d say the little white pearl walking bait came in a close second to the popper with the fluke and spybait coming in third and the anchor was the drop shot with Blue Lily worms. The fish pictured above was caught earlier this week on the drop shot with Blue Lily.

The problem with the popper was that it wasn’t very effective this week in terms of hook-up percentages. I have to say that I only caught maybe 30% of the fish that actually schooled or blew up on the popper this week. I just couldn’t believe the amount of big fish near misses or big fish coming unbuttoned on the popper. These big fish really made it frustrating to use the popper. Another thing that really bothered me was the amount of fish following the bait without reacting to it. I literally had to quit watching my retrieve at times because it was frustrating to have fish swimming around the popper without striking at it. I think they get interested in the holographic tensile on the trailing hook swaying back and forth on the retrieve and they just follow it. At any rate, it was frustrating to watch but I just kept after it and every once in a while I could get a fish to commit to the popper so I just kept throwing it over and over and over….

This week the creek was pretty crowded so I mainly focused on the main lake and the offshore stuff. Main lake points and humps held some good fish this week and I focused on topwater being my primary pattern but I did catch some good fish on a little holographic swimbait and the G-fix 80 spybait. When I was fishing brush I caught some very nice fish throwing the weightless fluke over the brush and then when I moved in over the brush I was dropping the Blue Lily drop shot right down into the brushpile and dead sticking the worm. The bite was so subtle sometimes the fish would be on the hook when I lifted the rod without any hint of a fish eating the worm. I will say this about the drop shot bite. When I caught one deep in the brush it was a good one.

Another bait I gotta brag on this week is the little pearl white walking bait. It was a great choice early in the morning or when it was cloudy. Every once in a while a good fish would come out of nowhere and just hammer the walking bait and usually they didn’t miss so the hook up rate was pretty good. The spybait bite hasn’t really kicked off good yet but I feel like it’s coming around very soon so I keep throwing it around suspended fish that aren’t coming up or after I’ve caught a topwater fish or two and the topwater bite dies off. I think the main lake offshore bite is a little better than the creek and far less crowded so if you haven’t checked out some of the points and humps on the main lake give it a try sometime. There’s a lot less pressure out there and there are some quality fish cruising around. Lake temps are around 80 degrees right now and the lake is down about 1.5 feet. Here’s a video of my top 5-6 baits this week and some pictures from the week.