"Chris Rennert" wrote in message
.. .
First, I want to mention that I am not a rookie to catching smallies,
and have a pretty good grasp on presenting a bait to fish in different
moods. But here is the situation I have run into all year so far on
Winnebago.

The fish are on a crayfish bite. I can catch them on tubes like there
is no tomorrow. On Saturday during our tourney it was no different.
The fish were all over tubes, and we caught every single fish on tubes.
But it wasn't for the lack of trying other baits. I threw
spinnerbaits, rocket shad, zara spook, buzzbait, norman deep tiny N
crankbait, twister tails (1/8,1/4 3" & 4"), Tubes (2.5", 3", 4" , 1/8,
1/4 (all worked), 3" lizards, 3" senkos. My partner and I would come
through a spot, hammer em on tubes, then come through the spot again
with other baits and get nothing. Even baby brush hogs, & spider grubs.
We would then fish these baits through a new area and get nothing,
come through with tubes and hammer em again, through the area we just
came through with other baits. I tried flukes, x-raps, husky jerks. I
couldn't buy a fish on any other baits. I usually won't throw that many
baits at these fish, but nothing else would hit. The thing that threw
me off was , I figured they were feed on crayfish because of the type of
area we were in, but in the livewell were what looked to be 3" shiners.
Plus a few fish puked them up on the way in.

So I would like to get your thoughts on why these fish were not hitting
any kind of shad imitation bait. Granted the water was crystal clear
(for Winnebago), you could see 6' down. I was fishing over chunk rock
that changed to pea gravel and then just spaced out rock and sand. The
fish were mostly coming on the sand/rock to chunk rock transition,
including walleyes. We landed nearly 60 fish, but every single fish
came on a tube. My partner would continue throwing a tube while I
experimented with other baits, and vice versa.

I know if it ain't broken, why fix it, but it blows my mind they
wouldn't even touch anything else. Another killer was, color of the
tubes didn't seem to matter either. I switch between a black/multi
flake and a pumpkinseed, and my buddy threw a purple/red flake from
berkley. Like I said, we went through 2 size heads 1/8 & 1/4, and 1/4
seemed to produce more fish. I know switching between a lot of
different baits didn't give me the time to work them as effectively and
thouroughly as I should have, but with as many fish as were in the area,
I couldn't believe I couldn't catch them on anything else.

I would just like to get your opinions on what may have influenced these
fish, or maybe you have had similar experiences? I will tell you this,
it wasn't an isolated incident, I have been running into it all year.
So much that, whenever I am throwing a different bait (not a tube) off
the front of my boat, and I am by myself , I am dragging a tube behind
me, and I cannot tell you how many fish I have caught this year (I could
actually tell you, but it is not important).

Thanks guys.. sorry for the long dragged out post.

Chris

Could have just been the size and way a tube spirals down. I have had the
same thing happen on senkos. Couldn't buy a bite on another bait eve if I
rigged two identical rods with identical line and carefully weighted the
second bite side by side to get exactly the same fall rate. It happens that
way sometimes. The other thing is confidence. I basically have confidence
in three baits, and as a result hat is all I seem to be able to catch fish
on.

There are a few others that I have confidence in certain circumstances. For
instance fishing a wind blown bank I like to throw a crank bait or a spinner
bait.

In one recent tournament we were fishing a wind blown tulie line. I new a s
pinner bait was the thing to throw. Moderately fast with a stop and go
retrieve (almost like fast jigging) worked for me. My partner thought I was
nuts. He was dead sticking flukes and catching fish. We had several
doubles. I spent twenty minutes trying to dead stick a fluke and caught
nothing. I had confidence in that spinner bait. Dead sticking isn't even
an off technique for me. I dead stick senkos all the time with great
success.

Anyway, it was probably a combination of confidence and presentation. IMHO.

I have very little confidence in tubes myself. I don't think I have ever
caught a fish on them in open water, but I have caught some using them as a
flipping bait t-rigged. For me its just another creature bait for flippin'.

--
Bob La Londe
www.YumaBassMan.com