Monday, November 23, 2009

Blade bait bass

Yesterday was a rare treat for me. Since I live around the clearest section of Lake of the Ozarks, I rarely get a chance to fish a spinnerbait unless it's cloudy and windy. However the water down by the dam has been murky this fall and we decided to try some blade baits.
I threw a Hole Shot Tackle Company spinnerbait 3/8-ounce chartreuse with a gold willowleaf and Colorado tandem and my partner threw a chartreuse double wilowleaf War Eagle spinnerbait (www.wareaglelures.com). Keying on the front of docks inside of points and also along the black rocks just inside the points, we caught nine keepers. Too bad we weren't in a buddy tournament because our best five fish would have weighed around 21 pounds. My partner caught two fish that we hooked on a Berkley hand-held scale and they each weighed exactly 5 pounds.

Friday, November 13, 2009

There's No Place Like Home

After a week of cold, clouds and spitting snow in Pennsylvania during a writers' trip, it was great to come back home to a week of sunshine and 70-degree weather and some good old down-home Lake of the Ozarks fishing. My Dad and I caught several crappie for a couple of days and when the crappie action was a little slow yesterday, we switched to bass fishing. I started out with a crankbait but had little luck so I decided to try a buzz bait and the bass just blasted a white Cavitron buzzer in the backs of pockets where gizzard shad were hugging the rocks.
Looking forward to trying that again real soon.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Pennsylvania bass fishing

After my second straight soggy writers’ trip, I am contemplating starting a new business entitled Rainmaker, Inc.
Any lake or river area that needs rain or even just a couple of cloudy, windy days can hire me to set up a writers’ trip and when my group of writers arrive, so will the inclement weather.
The latest trip I took to Pennsylvania featured just about every form of foul weather imaginable, including rain, ice pellets, snow, gusting northerly winds and air temperatures ranging from the high 30s to middle 40s. Yet despite these miserable conditions we still managed to catch some quality Conneaut Lake largemouth and smallmouth bass for photos. The weather probably prevented us from seeing Conneaut at its best since this natural lake is noted for its trophy smallmouth. The lake contained several off-shore humps for smallmouth and lots of shallow weeds for largemouth. For more information about Conneaut and the other fishing opportunities in this area, call the Crawford County Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-332-2338) or visit the web site www.visitcrawford.org .
Three of our most productive lures on this trip included the Gene Larew Biffle Bug (www.genelarewlures.com) and the Sebile Lures Magic Swimmer Soft and Flatt Shad.
The Magic Swimmer Soft is a swim bait with a unique weight system that slides up and down the hook to alter the action of the lure. Positioning the weights near the hook tie makes the lure dive nose first and zigzags when twitched while placing the weights near the rear of the hook makes the lure flutter horizontally. I spent most of the first morning running the lure steadily with the weights near the head of the bait but had only one tap, so I switched the weights to the back of the hook and decided to twitch the bait a couple of times and then let it fall. My first cast with this retrieve produced a 13-inch largemouth and I had another fish boil at the lure while I twitched it through lily pads. That was the last action I had on the bait for that day, but others in our group also caught quality largemouth and smallmouth employing the same retrieve with their Magic Swimmer Soft.
This lure will definitely be making an appearance to Lake of the Ozarks bass the next time I get the chance to throw it.
For more tips of fall fishing, visit my website at www.jnoutdoors.com .