Got out early to see if the hot crappie bite was still on. Shortly after setting up in my spot, after my 3rd crappie, the skies blackened & began to dump heavy rain. Picked up the TM, & ran about 2 miles to get under the nearest bridge. Spent the next 2 hours tied up underneath it, catching a handful of small eyes & a few smallmouth as I waited out the rain.
After the bulk of the weather seemed to have moved on, I decided today was the day I would finally spend a couple hours targetting smallies on this lake (Nokomis). A few days back, I had tied on a black/blue swim jig & spent about 30 minutes throwing it with posiive feedback until a tiny pike cut it off. While in Wasau on saturday, made a stop at fleet farm & bought a couple more jigs. Tied 1 on, put on the trailer & began working the nearest shoreline.
Results were pretty instant. Had a (mis-shapened) beauty crush it in the 1st 10 casts.
Spent about 2 hours burning the swim jig/ugly otter trailer. Think I only caught 5 or 6 fish, but, every 1 was good sized. It seemed that boat docks on steep rocky banks were the ticket. Im confident my best 5 fish went over 15lbs.
Was a ton of fun, #'s werent great, but most of these were nice-sized. Nothing complicated, throw it out & burn it back to the boat. Tail-thump was the key. At a certain speed, that flat paddle really starts thumping like a chatterbait. Ripping off the side appendages on the ugly otter seem to allow it to fish faster & generate more thump from the tail. Most smallies I catch come on light & medium light spinning gear, or medium casting gear. Its a little different catching them on heavy gear with a buried drag on 50lbbraid/25leader.
I look forward to throwing this presentation a little more!
After the bulk of the weather seemed to have moved on, I decided today was the day I would finally spend a couple hours targetting smallies on this lake (Nokomis). A few days back, I had tied on a black/blue swim jig & spent about 30 minutes throwing it with posiive feedback until a tiny pike cut it off. While in Wasau on saturday, made a stop at fleet farm & bought a couple more jigs. Tied 1 on, put on the trailer & began working the nearest shoreline.
Results were pretty instant. Had a (mis-shapened) beauty crush it in the 1st 10 casts.
Spent about 2 hours burning the swim jig/ugly otter trailer. Think I only caught 5 or 6 fish, but, every 1 was good sized. It seemed that boat docks on steep rocky banks were the ticket. Im confident my best 5 fish went over 15lbs.
Was a ton of fun, #'s werent great, but most of these were nice-sized. Nothing complicated, throw it out & burn it back to the boat. Tail-thump was the key. At a certain speed, that flat paddle really starts thumping like a chatterbait. Ripping off the side appendages on the ugly otter seem to allow it to fish faster & generate more thump from the tail. Most smallies I catch come on light & medium light spinning gear, or medium casting gear. Its a little different catching them on heavy gear with a buried drag on 50lbbraid/25leader.
I look forward to throwing this presentation a little more!