What a beautiful day to be on the water! I meet a buddy of mine and spent the day fishing smallies between Stillwater and the Kinni. Sometimes it’s those little changes that make all the difference. We started the day fishing rocky points and rock/gravel shorelines with some success. A fish here and there and most of these fish came on tubes with a 3/8th to ¼ ounce jig. I kept thinking we were close to getting it down but I needed to make some adjustments.
We began focusing on distinct current breaks with obvious current flow and our success picked up. The key was downsizing. Just a simple change to a 8th ounce jig weight changed the fall rate enough to significantly trigger more fish. The next change was in color, when I first started the day I fished a motor oil/ green tube. Changing to a straight motor oil tube definitely made the difference. Our best success came making short casts to overhanging trees and definite rock edges and letting the tube fall naturally The rest of the day we stuck to this color and patterns catching over 40 smallies . Nothing huge in size but definitely much nice quality pound to pound and a half fish.
Today reminded me to always keep two things in mind when fishing. First, be willing to make adjustments no matter how small and secondly always keep in mind the importance of fall rate. Sometimes fast works, sometimes slower is better but anyway you look at it make adjustments, be confident and let the fish tell you what they want.
July 13, 2011 at 1:19 am
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