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.