Things I Just Don't Understand....

Things I just don't understand....

     This week's blog is going to be slightly less informative, and slightly more of a rant.  You might just get some entertainment out of it, or you might just get offended.  If you enjoy it, good for you.  If you get offended, please understand that these are things that I just don't get.  Maybe I don't know enough about them to understand myself, or maybe they're just plain stupid.  I don't know.  Please let me know in the comments if you think I'm a jerk and let me know why.  But until then, here are seven things I just don't understand about the fishing industry:

People who sell used gear at 90+% the retail price.

     Look man, I don't care if your "like new" Revo STX still has the original box.  You know what it doesn't have that a new one does?  A receipt, a large retail store backing their products, and a guy standing behind the counter that will be there during business hours that I can go and complain to, safely, if something were to go wrong with it.  So no.  I'm not going to give you $180 dollars for your used Revo, original box or not.  Not when for $20 more I can walk in to one of 15 shops in the area that carries them.  

     Oh yeah, and it's got a full spool of year-old fluorocarbon, so let's add $30 for that because we both know you aren't just going to replace it with the line you always use anyway.

Girls who post (and guys who look at) pictures of them in a skanky bikini while fishing.

     Alright, here it is, just take it... (I hand you my man card).

     Seriously though.  This is dumb.  Those girls you see in what ever kinds of pictures they appear in are models, not anglers.  They are selling themselves short by investing their lives in the body that they will only have for a few more years, and you're selling out by looking at them and buying whatever they want you to buy.  I can't believe it's 2016 and we still market crap this way...

VLOGS

     I know that vlogs aren't just a fishing industry thing, but it seems to me that all of the once respected YouTubers that put out quality videos either teaching how to fish, or just showing some great catches on video suddenly feel the need to walk around with their cameras 24/7 showing us their daily lives, washing the car, eating lunch, or just driving around town running errands.

     Remember back in the day when social media was just a means for posting pictures of your tacos on #TacoTuesday?  For a few years, we got away from that.  Social media became a source for news and entertainment.  It's even become a market place boom town for local businesses.  Now it seems we're just reverting back to posting our lunch.  But with video!

     It's not going to be long before one of these YouTubers out there ends up dead at the hands of a crazed fan.  It's sick, but it happens.  Look at John Lennon or Selena.  These YouTubers are not making content for their "fans" anymore, but for their "fanatics" instead.  You know, fanatics... Those people that adore celebrities so much that they want to dig down deep and know all their most personal details.  The kind of people that just want to sit and watch you eat.  Yeah...  Creepy...

Making your fish look bigger in pictures.

     I've talked about this before, and it got a few people upset.  "It's their fish, let them hold it how they want too!"  Fine.  Hold it however you want.  Just know that 1. You're not fooling anybody, and 2. You're only lying to yourself:

     Congratulations, you just caught the fish of a life time!  Now let's take a picture of it.  But let's make it appear bigger than it actually is so that 20 years from now you can look back on this once-in-a-lifetime moment under a false lens.  So that you can remember this moment as it didn't actually happen and eventually erase the real moment from your memory.  So that you can spend the rest of your life trying to top your new personal best only to be constantly disappointed that your next toad doesn't appear to be even close to the monster from your past.  

     But don't worry, we can make excuses.  The fishery had declined since the fish kill, it's over ran with dinks now.  Game and Fish doesn't care about the fisheries anymore.  They just don't make bait like they used to.  But no, it's definitely not due to the fact that you over exaggerated the size of your catch 20 years ago and now you live in a dream land where you believe 38 inch largemouth are actually a possibility based on a 20 year old photo...  Well, that escalated quickly....

Unboxing videos.

     Let me be clear here, I'm not talking about the ones where someone opens their latest LTB or MTB and takes it out on the lake showing how to catch fish with what's in the box.  Those are legit, cough cough Gene Jensen cough.  I'm talking about the ones where teenagers with no chores to do or part time jobs to work open the box on camera and then read aloud the text on the back of the packages.  They then nod approvingly as if their lackluster criticism meant anything to anyone before moving onto the next bait in the box.  They usually end with, "Well, this is the third box of my three month subscription I got for my birthday, so I don't know if I'll be making anymore of these videos, but feel free to keep watching my channel so you can stay updated on where I eat lunch before me and Jimmy go down to the creek..."

     But wait, there's more....

     Another "genre" of Unboxing vids are the ones where someone gets their order in from Tackle Warehouse.  These people know what they ordered, now they feel the need to open it up on camera and explain to the world that they just bought 30 packs of Senkos in 25 different colors.  Because, well, these people don't know how to fish well enough on anything other than a weightless Senko but they sure have the color of the flake down to a dang science.

     Instead of "Unboxing videos", these should be called "Bragging videos".  That's really all it is.  "Hey guys, JimmyBoob13 here, just got my TW order in and wanted to show off to you all how much of my dad's money I just threw away..."  Later in the video, said kid will indubitably go borrow dads F350 because he needs it to go get Burger King.

The rod in your mouth picture (excluding fly fishermen).

     This is a recent one I've only started to notice since taking on a rod sponsor.  Sponsors sponsor people because they need to show off their product, so of course they REALLY like it when their products are in the picture along with your 8 pound piggy.  Did you know though, there are ways to do  this without looking like some idiot with a fishing rod in his mouth?  Put the rod ANYWHERE ELSE!  You could put it in the background.  Lay it across your lap.  Have it in a rod holder just over your shoulder.  You could even hold it in your hand (But what about selfies?  We're out of hands!). Figure it out!  You're a grown ass man!  Stop putting things in your mouth!

     Fly fishermen, you are excused because you have a lot of stuff to carry, and you are waist deep in flowing water.

Over priced hand painted crank baits.

     I paid $24 for a crankbait once.  On my first two casts I had no bites.  On my third cast, I caught a boulder and broke it off.  Don't spend $24 dollars on a bait that will, sooner rather than later, be broken off 20 feet below the surface.  Besides, a bass isn't going to pass up your bait just because it doesn't have 3D painted holographic gills and the XLT package with heated seats....

     So what are some things that you don't understand about the fishing industry?  Let me know in the comments below or let me know on any of the social media platforms.

And as always, tight lines!

Is this the best night fishing bass lure possible?

     July in Arizona means one thing...  Hot.  Fishing in this kind of heat can be miserable and dangerous.  Next week I'll be writing a post about how to put up with those hot, miserable, and potentially dangerous fishing trips, but for now let's just ignore that heat and head-lamp up!

 

     One of the most asked questions I see come up this time of year is "what lures work best at night?".  For every one person who asks that question, there are three people with different answers.  In lieu of making another "top 5 lures" article, like those that are plastered all across the Internet, or just plugging sponsors by telling you that a 6-inch Cactus Wren Quail Tail, jika-rigged on a Mustad Ultra Point hook, on a Medium Heavy Carrot Stix Wild Wild Green casting rod is the best set up for night fishing, let's break it down so you can understand what makes a lure "good", "better", and "best" for night fishing.  Starting with the fish:

 

     Like us humans, fish have five (actually six) senses.  If a lure does nothing to appeal to one of those senses, it's not a very good lure.  If a lure appeals to several of those senses, it has what some might call "fish catching qualities".  For example, those stinky plastic worms appeal to the sense of smell, but the lively little curly tail spits out vibrations that appeal to the sense of feel (or on a bass, it's lateral line).  Add the clacking of a bead against the weight on a Carolina Rig and you have a light clicking noise that will wake up his ears too.  In general, the more "fish catching qualities" your lure has, the better it is. 

 

     During the day, especially in clear water, one of the main senses our lures appeal to is sight.  Some folks spend $25+ on hand painted crankbaits.  We tie on giant hunks of metal, attach a treble hook, and call it a spoon relying on that flash of light to get the attention of a hungry bass.  Some go to the extremes of buying THIS rediculous piece of garbage to get maximum flash.  All that stuff is just a quarter of the qualities that you should be trying to achieve.  Plus, once the sun goes down you lose the light that makes those things effective in the first place.

 

 

     So, what lure works best at night?  Something with all the other qualities.  You need vibration (feel), scent (smell), and rattles (sound).  We can leave out taste because once they get a taste of it, they're already hooked.

 

     The brains over at Strike King have developed a bait that covers these three night time senses.  Their Midnight Special spinnerbait uses a single, large, Colorado blade that pumps out a ton of vibration whether on a retrieve or helicoptering down on the fall. They have also added a small rattle attached to the hook giving it that ability to call out to the fish like a dinner bell.  Finally, I always add a trailer to my spinnerbaits, for three reasons:  1. It gives the bait a bigger profile to appeal to bigger fish, 2. It gives out extra vibration (depending on the type of trailer you choose), and most importantly 3. I can load the plastic trailer up with scent to appeal to that final sense!

 

      Ok, so this bait appeals to all of the senses that a bass has.  It can't get better than that right?  Well, not quite.  This is fishing, there is no magic formula to making the best possible lure.  If there was, someone would have figured it out by now, and none of us would really enjoy fishing all that much anymore.  Fishing is a game.  Your opponent is a living, breathing, thinking, creature.  A creature that has different moods.  One day Gary the Bass might want to chase down that big, bulky, noisy, smelly, spinner bait.  The next he might just want a small subtle straight tail worm.  The key to the game is to figure out what he wants to eat and then deliver it to him.  We all love a good pizza, it's got all four of the main food groups: carbs, meat, cheese, and pizza.  But if the only food available to you was pizza, sooner or later you're going to stop caring about pizza.  This spinnerbait is just pizza...

       So sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting me to tell you what the best possible night fishing lure was.  The truth is, it doesn't exist.  But the next time you're wondering what to tie on in the darkness, remember what makes that spinnerbait pizza, and maybe roll it up in taco form?

     And as always, tight lines!

Feelin' Lucky: June 2016

Feelin' Lucky: June 2016

     "Feelin' Lucky" is a series of blogs posted on a monthly basis with the help of the folks at Lucky Tackle Box.  The point of these posts are two-fold; I'll be discussing a bit about Lucky Tackle Box, a great company that sends out subscription boxes filled with tackle each month from established tackle makers, along with some up and coming small businesses making their way into the fishing industry.  Secondly these posts act as in-depth fishing reports for the particular lake I go to each month.  Hopefully you and I will each learn something new along this endeavor.

Lake Havasu:  I was extra excited for June's Feelin' Lucky project.  This month I met up with a great group of U.S. Veterans for a kayak fishing event put on by Heroes on the Water Arizona Chapter.  HOW is a fantastic non-profit who's mission is to relax, rehabilitate, and reintegrate veterans through kayak fishing and the outdoors.  Last week, the HOW Arizona Chapter, based in the Phoenix area, made its way west to Lake Havasu City to fish with a group of veterans interested in starting a new chapter in western Arizona. 

     June's Lucky Tackle Box was packed with topwater baits making for a potentially exciting month of top water blowups.  The Bass XL box contained three walking baits of all different sizes, meaning you'll be covered for all your top water shad imitations from this year's spawn throughout fall and into winter when the bigger shad begin to die off.

     In addition to the topwater baits, June's box had three baits to cover deep water as well.  With this one box you'll be able to chase the early morning topwater bite, then back off to the cool deep water and chase those big lethargic bass with a spoon and creature baits.

Throwback Lure's Walkin' Paycheck:

      The Walkin' Paycheck is the smallest of the three walking baits in this month's box.  Ideally, I would rig this up on a 6' 6" medium spinning rod.  The lure is just too small to cast with much accuracy or distance on a bait caster, and with water as crystal clear as Havasu, that long cast is the most important key to catching fish.  The reason I would choose such a short rod is because I fish from a kayak and am so close to the water.  With a longer rod it's difficult to get the downward popping motion to walk this bait across the surface without splashing the rod tip into the water.  You'll see later on that whenever I'm fishing topwater, or other presentations with a downward popping motion of the rod (jerkbaits) I always opt for something shorter than 7 feet.  (It also doesn't help that I'm only 5' 6".) 

     Havasu is filled with these chunky little Redear Sunfish.  The quagga mussels in Havasu (a rapidly spreading invasive species) mean two things for the lake: water clarity up to 30 feet, and crazy big sunfish!  This time of year the Redear and Bluegill are spawning.  Walking this lure overtop a field of spawners resulted in a catch every time.  The Redears specifically are one of the most aggressive and hardest fighting fish per pound I've yet to run across.

     Unfortunately this paycheck came to a sudden end when an absolute monster, possibly three pounds worth of sunfish, grabbed the lure and took off for the weeds.  My eight pound line snapped as soon as it hit the weed edge.  Although the lure floats (as most topwaters do), snagged in the thick weeds, he was a goner.

Castaic BD Series Walking Bait: 

     This bait is really more of a hybrid lure.  The long skinny body is reminiscent of a standard walking bait, but the flat nose of this bait gives it the splashing action of a popper.  The rear treble is dressed with one of the most life-like "tails" I've seen in a topwater lure.

     Because of the flat nose, this bait makes a lot of noise in the water to draw fish in from a long way away.  This is the perfect bait to use when you find shallow active fish in low light conditions, or when the wind is moving and putting a chop on the water.  While it's fairly difficult to walk back and fourth compared to other walking baits, the Castaic BD Series lure doesn't need that side to side action to be effective.  Tossing it out and giving it a few random jerks and pops like a floating minnow was enough to draw vicious strikes from the schooling stripers we found in Havasu.

     Like other topwater presentations I throw this on a 6' 6" medium-fast rod.  As I said before, the shorter rod length is easier to work with in the low profile situation of kayak fishing.  A medium power rod is mandatory anytime you're fighting a fish on small treble hooks.  Too much backbone will rip those hooks right out of any bass's mouth.  Finally, the fast tip is needed to impart the right action on topwater lures.  When you pop that rod tip down, you need to rebound immediately, as if you're striking a drum.  As you rebound, that fast tip will kick slack back into the line quickly which allows that bait to glide freely side to side.

Livingston Lure's Pro Sizzle: 

     This is the big boy.  When you've put a limit in the boat and you're looking for that big kicker fish, look no further than the Pro Sizzle by Livingston Lures.  The large size of this lure may spook small timid fish, but it makes a big easy meal for a big spawned out female looking to feed up and gain strength after a tiring spawn.

     Like other Livingston Lures, the Pro Sizzle is tricked out with EBS, which stands for "electronic baitfish sounds".  EBS is basically like having a small HydroWave built right into the lure calling out to the fish like a dinner bell.  In addition to the baitfish sounds, there is a small light in the tail of this bait that subtlety flashes on and off in the water that calls out for just a little extra attention.  Now, I know there are anglers out there that may call this a gimmick, saying things like it's made to catch the fisherman, not the fish.  But the Pro Sizzle is rooted in deep fish catching history from the Livingston Lure company.  These lures catch fish just as well as they catch the fisherman!

Johnson Slama Spoon: 

     Despite the piece of garbage that resembles a treble hook, this is a great little spoon.  The wide, ribbed body gives it a much wider wobble when retrieved slow and steady, and a slower flutter when jigged vertically.  This is going to be a killer lure in November after the lakes turn over and shad begin to die off.  I'm a bit puzzled as to why LTB would put this in a post-spawn box, but I'm sure there's anglers out there that fish spoons all year long, just not me.

     You may have noticed I have this spoon rigged up on hi-vis braid and a fluorocarbon leader.  When fishing a spoon, I typically vertically jig it.  I position my boat over deep structure, usually a point or hump in about 30 feet of water (or wherever the baitfish are).  I drop it straight down to the bottom.  When it stops falling, I'll crank the handle once to bring the lure about a foot off the bottom.  As I slowly drift, all I do is raise the rod tip up about five feet and let it flutter back down on slack line.  Most of the bites will one on the fall, which is where the hi-vis line comes into play.  As it's falling, any kind of jump in the line means a fish has taken it.  With slack line, you'll see it, but you won't feel it.  If you wait until that line is tight to feel the bite, it will be too late.  A fish isn't going to bite and hold onto a chunk of metal like he will a soft plastic, so you've got to be quick in setting the hook.

Bruiser Bait's and Buddha Bait's Creatures:

     I was excited to try out these Bruiser Baits.  I had heard good things from the YouTube guys and others on various forums across the Internet but hadn't got my hands on them yet.  Being purple was an extra plus!  I can't explain it, but for whatever reason I have a lot of confidence in purple soft plastics.  I don't put much thought into my color selection anymore, if I have purple available, I'm throwing it at least to start off. 

     I rigged both of these baits up on the Mustad wide gap hooks that came in the box.  I started off Texas rigging them but quickly changed my approach as the baits kept sliding down the hook.  There's no bend in the hook or barb of any kind to hold the bait in place.  I usually use smaller versions (1/0 or smaller) of this hook for dropshot, but the 3/0 and 5/0 this box came with are just too large for that approach.

     The long, slim body of the Buddha Bait's creature bait is ideal for pitching into heavy cover.  As the water warms up this summer, bass are going to go to where there is cool, oxygenated water; either deep, or into the thick matted grass.  The sale of this bait is perfect when rigged up on a punching set up to get through that matted grass and into the Forrest of shallow grass where many bass will take up residency this summer.  Later this summer I'll be posting another blog all about flipping, pitching, and punching into that nasty stuff! 

     Eventually I rigged up a Jika Rig using a couple of split rings and a dropshot weight.  You can learn more about that HERE.  It paid off!  Within the first few cast, I had finally hooked up my first Havasu Largemouth!  Not very big, but after two days I was pumped to finally boat one of those green beauties.

     Two day's on Havasu didn't yield many fish, but it was still a great trip.  We had eight veterans come out for the Heroes on the Water event and all had a good time.  One of the vets caught two five pound largemouth on day one when everyone else was skunking it up!  For more info on the HOW organization, check them out HERE.  There are chapters nation wide and the organization continues to grow, in fact we may soon have one in Havasu!  For more pictures from the event, and information on future events, follow the HOW Arizona Chapter on Facebook, HERE.

     As of today, you still have a few more days to order your Lucky Tackle Box to receive July's box, but if you're late don't worry, because August is right around the corner.  Remember to use coupon code SAVE10 to get your first box for just five bucks!

     And as always, tight lines!

The Pareto Principle

     The Pareto Principle:   In 1906 an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, famously noted that 80% of all land in Italy was owned by only 20% of the Italian population... and this has everything to do with bass fishing.  No, really, it does.  We're about to get philosophical up in here!

     In the 100+ years since Pareto's observation, this 80/20 split has been observed time after time in many different situations and on many different levels.  Pareto's original economic observation remains true today not only in Italy, but everywhere else in the world!  Today, 20% of the world's population controls 82.7% of the world-wide wealth.  Hang in there... I promise this has to do with fishing.

     Below are some facts I found on the Internet, and if they're on the Internet they must be true, right?  For real though, the pages I took them from cite various sources and studies that look as legitimate as any other study, so let's just go with it. I'll post some sources at the end of this post (or maybe not), but I've already got enough to bore you with for now:

In Marketing/Sales: 

-80% of a company's profit comes from only 20% of a company's products. 

-80% of sales are made by 20% of the company's sales team.   

 In Technology: 

-80% of software crashes are cause by 20% of bugs. 

-80% of software users only use 20% of a software's features.   

In Literature/Art: 

-80% of words in written record consist of the same 20% of all words (in every language). 

-80% of all music is derived from 20% of possible chord progressions.   

     The above examples can be researched by looking at years and years of data.  Here are some examples that you can observe in your own life, if you think I'm wrong, I'd love to see your own personal research over the next three years:   

-20% of the carpet in your home receives 80% of the wear and tear.

-20% of the tools in your tool box will complete 80% of your home improvement tasks. 

-20% of the clothes in your wardrobe are worn 80% of the time.   

     I would hypothesize (that's a fancy sciencey word for "guess") that the inverse of each of those statements hold true as well, for example:  80% of the carpet in your home receives only 20% of all the wear and tear.   We're almost getting to the fishing part....

 

     The Pareto Principle comes down to a simple cause and effect ratio:  80% of effects come from 20% of the causes while 20% of the causes, cause 80% of the effects.  

     All of the above examples are derived from mankind.  Man created the economy, man created business practices, man created technology, language, and art.  You might say that the Pareto Principle is human nature.  But, is it human?  Or nature?   

     After Vilfredo Pareto made his economical observation of Italy, he decided to take a stroll through his pea garden.  Why?  Maybe to contemplate how awesome his name is, maybe he just wanted to contemplate life, the universe, and everything, or maybe he just needed to take a pea.  Regardless, it was there, peeing in his garden, that he made an even more incredible observation: 80% of his peas came from 20% of his plants.  The 80/20 rule stayed consistent even through nature, not just human creation.   (Bravo to you if you're still reading and didn't just skip ahead to the fishing part.  We've still got just a little bit to go, hang in there.)   

     Try this nifty little experiment:  Do a google search for "Pareto Principle in...".  Google will give you a short list of common searches based on key words used across the Internet.  Everything I mentioned above is included (business, technology, language, music), with the exception of "nature".  Now, maybe it's simply a matter of not enough people searching for "Pareto Principle in Nature".  Maybe the problem is that we can only observe instances in nature, we can't set up human-created experiments to observe nature in it's natural state.  But we can, however, think about it from a philosophical stand point, yeah?   

- Approximately how much of an iceberg is underwater? 

- Approximately how much of the Earth's surface is covered in dry land? 

- Approximately how much of the Earth's atmosphere is breathable? 

 And here it is, the fishing part....  Approximately how much of the water we can fish, actually holds fish?   

     The old saying goes 90% of the fish are in 10% of the water.  If we look at how it relates to all these other patterns we observe, we see that it's entirely possible that the saying might be exaggerated.  Even if those truly are the exact statistics, we can claim that the 80/20 rule is just an average of all the examples we can observe.  For example, we all know that the Earth's surface is about 71% water, not 80%.  But hey, it's close enough, right?   

     The Pareto Principle may not be an exact science, in fact it's not even technically a theory.  It may even be complete BS.  However, patterns this consistent are hard to ignore.  So, as an angler, here's my hypothesis:   20% of the lures in your tackle box are responsible for 80% of your catches.

This is my terminal tackle box. The stuff circled in blue is is responsible for the vast majority of my fish. 80/20? Possibly so....

  

     What do you think, am I right?   If so, how can you use this perspective to your advantage?  Corporations, politicians, artists, and many others take advantage of this knowledge all the time.  What else could it mean for us anglers?   I know what it means for me, but I'm curious about your thoughts!  Comment below or let me know on social media @davejakesfishin #paretoprinciple.       

Tight Lines!

 

Structure VS. Cover

Structure vs. Cover:

       Words.  I like them.  You can do a lot with words, and words can do a lot for you; if you understand them.  Today we have a vocabulary lesson.

        The words "structure" and "cover" come up quite a bit when discussing bass fishing.  Seasonal migration routes, the spawn, and daily feeding habits revolve around these things.  But what are they?  Are they the same?  Do they relate?  Yes and no.  If you don't know the difference, don't worry.  There's a lot of confusion on the subject and even many pros disagree with other pro's definitions.  Hopefully by the end of this you'll have a better understanding and can even come up with your own definitions to argue.  I think the 2003 Bassmaster Classic winner Mike Iaconelli explains it best:  

         I like words.  But maybe you don't.  As an elementary school teacher on my fishing off-days, I know that people learn in different ways.  So for the rest of this blog, I'll part ways with the words and focus on the more visual-spatial learners:  

 

     I hope this has cleared things up for you.      

     Tight lines!

The 8th Way To Wren

The Jika Rig:

     About this time last year I wrote my first blog (HERE) sparked by the inspiration of my first pro-staff position with Cactus Wren Outdoors.  The topic was on all the various ways to rig Cactus Wren baits from deep to shallow, and power to finesse presentations.  If you read through that post, you may have noticed I left off two rather popular rigs: Texas, and Carolina.

      I did not simply forget about these bass fishing staples, I left them off for two reasons.  First of all, there's already so much information out there about these, I do not see the point in saying it all again.  Never in my wildest dreams will a Google search of "how to Texas rig" ever lead you to the dark and meaningless corner of the internet where my lightly treaded blog resides, so what's the point?

      Secondly, I just don't use those presentations very often.  Arizona isn't known for it's vast acreage of quality bass fishing waters.  The few areas that are productive are so over pressured that the bass have learned that these common presentations bite back (this of course comes from years of scientific studies from the University of My Ass, or UMA as it will from this point forward always be referred to).  To be successful in this bleak world of Arizona Bass Fishing, you've got to push the envelope, think outside of the box, [insert other ironic cliché here], and be progressive.  Since writing that first blog, I've been experimenting.  Now I'm ready to introduce the 8th way to Wren:  The Jika Rig.

 

1/4 oz left, 1/2 oz right

     

     The Jika Rig may not be news to you.  In doing a bit of Google research I've found articles and videos dating back four or five years.  Still, however, it's talked about very little compared to other soft plastic presentations.

     As you can see in the picture above, the Jika Rig is comparable to a dropshot in that the weight is below the hook.  Instead of being connected by several inches of line, it's connected by two small split rings.  This allows for the natural horizontal position that the dropshot is known for, but very near the bottom.  It is a similar presentation as a Texas Rig, but with some minor, but important, differences:

 

     The image above illustrates how the Texas Rig tends to pendulum forward as it falls.  I'm no physysist, but I do have a Bachelors of Science Degree from UMA.  From my intense research there, I have determined that the water resistance against the line pulls the weight forward at an angle which causes the bait to glide forward through the water.  With the Jika Rig, the weight leads pulling the worm and line behind it at a steeper angle.

      You can buy these rigs pre-made at any of the major retailers, but they are simple enough to make on your own with just a couple of split rings, a hook, and a dropshot weight.  This lets you further customize the rig with your preferred style of hook and weight, and costs much, much less of that hard earned money!  I just saw a pack in one of those big box stores today, seven bucks for a pack of two!  Let's break down this new and improved Texas rig with some suggestions for gear, baits, and locations:

      Just like a Texas Rig, the Jika can be thrown on just about any rod ranging from a light spinning rod to a heavy flippin' stick.  It all depends on the size of your bait, hook, weight, line, and of course location.

 

     For a finesse approach you could drop all the way down to a 1/16 ounce weight with a size 1 hook and a small two inch grub.  This presentation is going to be tough to cast on baitcasting gear, so a light spinning rod is the best option.  I like this finesse approach in the dog days of summer when the fish are deep and relating to underwater structure like points and humps.  As the size of your presentation grows, so does the need for heavier gear.

      I prefer two different set ups depending on a variety of factors.  For open water, or deep water presentations I will use a quarter ounce weight with a 2/0 EWG hook and a four to five inch strait or curly tail worm like the Cactus Wren Talking Stick or Quail Tail.  I'll throw this on a 7 foot medium spinning rod lined with 20 pound test braid and a few feet of 8 pound test fluorocarbon leader.  Bouncing this rig over rocky points during transition times like pre-spawn or late fall can be deadly for those big females looking to feed up before spawning or slowing down for the winter.

 

     As I move to shallow cover, I think along the lines of flipping and pitching.  My favorite area to flip and pitch this bait into, especially on hot summer days, is vast submerged grass flats.  Bass will hide in the thick oxygen filled cover in the heat of the day waiting for any food to stop by.  Flipping the Jika Rig along the grass lines, or in the pockets of grass triggers hard strikes from any bass that may be in the neighborhood.  I'll use a bigger bait like the 6 inch Quail Tail or a creature bait like the Canyon Craw.  Since I up the size of the bait, I up the size of everything else as well.  A half ounce weight pairs well with a 4/0 EWG hook and 12 to 15 pound test flurocarbon or monofilament.  If you're not comfortable with baitcasting gear, you can throw this on a medium heavy or heavy spinning rod, but I prefer a medium heavy baitcaster because I can flip and pitch the bait into multiple targets for more presentations faster than I can with a spinning reel.

      This is the same reason I like a fast 7:1 gear ratio reel.  When I'm working the shallows, I'm often picking apart individual pieces of cover.  If a bass is hanging out near a specific piece of cover, the strike zone is going to be relatively small.  He's there to ambush the prey, not chase it down.  After you've worked that bait for a moment near the cover, you can just bring the bait right back and cast out again.  There's very little chance of getting hit in the abyss between the cover and your boat, so a high speed reel will get that bait in quicker so you can get on with your next cast.

 

     Another benefit to the high speed reel is to pick up slack line before the hook set, and to keep tension on the line while fighting the fish if he makes a run towards the boat.  It may seem contrary to logic, but any time I'm slowly working a bait along the bottom, I want a fast reel for the reasons mentioned above.  There simply aren't any advantages a slow reel will give you with any bottom bouncing technique.

      With all that said, this is a very versatile technique.  Any rod and reel set up you have will get the job done in at least one situation or another.  Just remember to choose a size of presentation based on the gear you have available and you can catch fish!

 

    So go hit up Cactus Wren Outdoors and get all the soft plastics you need for the Jika Rig.  And as always, let me know in the comments or on social media if you stick a hog on this thing!

     Tight lines!

Feelin' Lucky: May 2016

Feelin' Lucky: May 2016

 

     "Feelin' Lucky" is a series of blogs posted on a monthly basis with the help of the folks at Lucky Tackle Box.  The point of these posts are two-fold; I'll be discussing a bit about Lucky Tackle Box, a great company that sends out subscription boxes filled with tackle each month from established tackle makers, along with some up and coming small businesses making their way into the fishing industry.  Secondly these posts act as in-depth fishing reports for the particular lake I go to each month.  Hopefully you and I will each learn something new along this endeavor.

 

Saguaro Lake: At 1,264 acres, Saguaro Lake is the fourth, and final, reservoir formed along the Salt River just east of Phoenix, Arizona.  Saguaro's steep canyon walls and average depth of 90 feet offer many challenges to bass fishermen searching for a big bite.  However, in the Spring bass move up to the shallow channel swings and coves to spawn where they can be caught easily on reaction baits of all shapes and sizes before returning to the deep cool water of their summer residencies.

 

 

     May's Lucky Tackle Box is jammed full of awesome spring reaction baits.  Yo-Zuri's 3DB Lipless Crankbait and the BD Series Spinner Bait can be worked quickly while covering lots of water fast to locate areas of active fish.  Once you find some fish you can slow down and zero in on the larger females with the Olympic Jointed Swimbait, or Biwaa's 3-inch Ultra Hog.  Toss the Fishing Physics #Geniusbait out to spawning fish on beds and you can have a hayday pulling in the males guarding beds (If that's your thing, of course).  My surprise bait in this box is the Rick Clunn Squarebill, another great shallow water search bait. 

 

     As great as this box is, I knew from the second I opened it that I was going to have a real tough time catching fish with it.  While across the country bass are spawning and feeding shallow in May, that's not the case here in the desert reservoirs of Arizona.  Here in our hot and dry climate, the bass move up to spawn starting in February.  By late April, most of the fish have already made their way to the cooler deeper water.  When I arrived to the lake at sunrise, the water temperature was 77 degrees and the bluegill had taken over any abandoned bass bed.  The bass were well on their way out of the shallows heading to their summer homes.

 

     I have seen rumors on social media and forums around the net that LTB is going to begin shipping boxes out based on region.  I sure hope this is true, as it cannot come soon enough!  Spawn just finished and this box already has me looking forward to next spring when I'll get more use out of these baits.

 

     Well, let's dive into the baits and see how I managed to do...

 

Yo-Zuri 3DB Lipless Crankbait:

 

     A red lipless crank is one of my favorite baits during the prespawn.  Paralleling the bank, keeping that bait running right along with the first drop off to deep water will catch you some big prespawn mommas all day long.  However, there are a few issues you run into during the summer transition:

 

1. The cray fish that it imitates changes to a green, or sometimes blue later in the spring.

2. The bass aren't in the mood to chase down their meal after spawning, they want it slow and right in their face.

3. As temperatures warm up, the coves begin to fill with thick weeds which are no fun for the treble hooks.  Ripping a lipless through the grass is one thing, but thick matted weeds is a different story.

 

     I did my best slowly yo-yo-ing this bait along the submerged weed lines and burning it across the top of the grass trying to tempt those post spawners out of the grass to eat, but to no avail.  I think a shad or bluegill color may have stood a better chance of getting hit.  Although this bait is ready to fish right out of the package, I wanted to use everything in the box so I put the Mustad Ultra Point treble hooks on it.  The short shank on these hooks made it a bit easier to pull through the heavy grass and weeds.

 

 

Boyd Duckett BD Spinner Bait:

 

     I didn't open this bait yet, I'm saving it for something special.  Hopefully I'll have good things to report on it next month when I return from a week long trip in Colorado.

 

 

Rick Clunn Squarebill:

 

     Another one still in the package.  The weeds were simply too far along in their plot to take over the world, and the window for any potential reaction bite is just too narrow this time of year.  I chose the Yo-Zuri bait because I knew that, despite the color, it would stand a better chance in the submerged weeds.  This guy will probably stay in it's package until October or November as the weeds die off revealing the rocky bottoms and standing timber that's currently hidden away.

 

Olympic Jointed Swimbait:

 

     Oh how lucky this particular Lucky Tackle Box was, I got a second one thrown in by mistake!  Although I'm not entirely sure what fish this bait is supposed to imitate, it's a cool bait!  It's a sort of hybrid bait between the panfish bait in last month's box, and a squarebill.  I didn't throw it a lot for two reasons: 1.  The weeds, again, those dang weeds...  2. There's nothing in Saguaro Lake that looks like this; maybe a green sunfish, or possibly a yellow bass, but not quite enough to give me much confidence in it.

 

     I'm curious if any of my Arizona readers have had luck at Lake Pleasant with something like this.  It sort of resembles a small striper.  Tossed around the shallows in the spring or fall you may have some luck at a big largemouth or non-schooling striper.  If you have, let us know in the comments!

 

Fishing Physics's #Geniusbait:

 

     A picture is worth a thousand words, so in lieu of my thousand word criticism, I'll just leave you with that picture above.

 

     I do, however, want to point out one positive about this bait; the scent!  Despite the lack of many fish catching qualities of this bait, it still attracted the attention of the few fish I could still see up shallow and I think that had to do with the scent.  My package was the "earth worm" scent, and it was a smell that I've yet to come across in any other soft... or not so soft... plastic.

 

   

     I experimented quite a bit with this bait trying to get bit on this worm.  It's designed as a wacky worm like the ever so popular Senko, but when that failed I had to get creative.  I tried it deep on a Carolina rig, on a mojo rig in the submerged grass, on a shakey head, and even cutting it in half for a drop shot, and Ned rig presentation.  With this color, LTB had bed fishing on their minds, and I'm positive that if there had been any bass up on beds, this would have gotten the job done.  Especially with that earth worm scent!

 

Biwaa Ultra Hog:

 

     I don't know why this is called an "Ultra Hog".  That sounds like a big beefy bait.  At 3 inches, this is more of a "micro-finesse piglet".  That's my only criticism of this bait though!  I saved this bait for last because even at high noon I knew I could find a bite with it as the only bait in the box I have confidence in during this summer transition.  A small, compact, creature bait like this can be used in a variety of ways from flipping into dense cover, to dropped onto deep underwater structure.

 

     To start, I rigged the Ultra Hog on a dropshot set up to fish the submerged grass lines in about 12 feet of water.  Ultimately, that would be the only rig I would need, because after six hours of frustration with the other baits, I hooked into this solid Saguaro Lake bass on the second cast.

 

     Before we wrap up, I want to take a moment and talk about dropshot and the length from the hook to the weight.  As you can see in the picture above, I started with a length of about 12 inches.  That length will vary quite a bit depending on location, bait type, and season.  It should also change often as you are zoning in on where the fish are in the same way that you would change out crankbaits every few casts until you find the one the fish want.  Way too often I see guys throwing the same presentation for hours on end without any bites.  Doing the same thing over and over again while hoping to expect different results.  No.  Change something.  Change the size of the worm, change the lengths of the leader, don't re-elect incumbents who have a history of not getting anything done in Washington, change the color of the bait, slow down, speed up.  Just as we demand our congress men and women should have term limits, our failing bass presentations should have limits as well.  So change something, anything!

 

 

     For more on all the baits in this month's box check out Lucky Tackle Box HERE, and for in depth how-to videos subscribe to the LTB YouTube channel HERE!  You have about a week left to sign up for LTB in time to receive June's box, so get over there now to sign up and start feelin' lucky this summer!

 

Tight Lines!