Topwater Bass Report 10-10-2014 w/pic

[Scout'nStripers]

I got out on the creek a little earlier this morning to see if they would bite better with the sun and the moon both in the sky. I fished from 8 till 11. It started out a little slow, kinda like yesterday, but they got going around 10 or so. There wasn't much wind and the creek was like glass except for a few ripples here and there. I caught everything this morning on the surface popper and wound up with around 8 fish with no big guys, just the usual dinks and a couple magnum dinks. It was all site fishing and hitting the areas where I'm seeing surfacing fish. Some were out in open water. I did have a first this morning with the popper. I thought I had a decent fish and it turned out to be the ones below.

 

[StriperrHunterr]

I have yet to double on one lure, and it's on the list.

Congrats.

 

[fish hawk]

Those spots are scrappy........Shoal bass will do the same thing,I've seen 4 or 5 at a time battling over a bait.........Good job Capt!!!

 

[TroyBoy30]

Pretty cool. I've had a ton of doubles on Lanier but only got both to the boat one time

Notice the clear Sammy

 

[Scout'nStripers]

Those spots are scrappy........Shoal bass will do the same thing,I've seen 4 or 5 at a time battling over a bait.........Good job Capt!!!

Thanks Hawk. They are scrappy. I just wish I could of found some bigger scrappy spots.

I have yet to double on one lure, and it's on the list.
Congrats.

Mike, I've tripled up on big stripers on a u-rig here on Lanier and seen a quadruple of 10lb stripers over on Lake Murray during a tournament several years ago before their striper kill. This is the first time in recent memory I've did it with bass on one lure.

Pretty cool. I've had a ton of doubles on Lanier but only got both to the boat one time

Notice the clear Sammy

I noticed the Sammy. I'm convinced that the translucents are elusive to the fish in this clear water. They can't help themselves. Very nice fish Troy.

 

[TroyBoy30]

I feel the same way. It keeps them from getting too good a look at the bait.

 

[Scout'nStripers]

I feel the same way. It keeps them from getting too good a look at the bait.

Yes, when I first made the poppers, we tried 7 different color patterns on the fish. We went to an area that held a lot of surfacing fish. We found that the solid colors would attract the fish but rarely would we get fish to commit to the bait in numbers. Once they saw it, they were done with it. They would swipe at the solid colors but rarely commited. After an initial interest, they would avoid it.

Color mattered in our testing. I have had pretty good luck with blues and greens so I started with blue and green translucents. We caught a few fish, but it was mainly short strikes and smaller fish that were hooked in the trailing hook only.

The emerald color is a color that I've used for stripers in the past. It's just a mixture of blues and greens and the stripers react to it well. When I first tried the color on the popper I noticed right away that the fish were very much more committed to the color. They would keep coming after it. Sometimes they chased it all the way back to the boat and other times they would crush it deep right away. There was a definite difference in using that specific color. We tried mixing colors with one of us throwing the emerald and someone else throwing a blue or chartreuse translucent popper. The emerald always blew everything else out of the water.

There are two reasons it works well in my opinion. The first is that they've never seen it before. Bass see tons of hardware every day. I think they can discern real food from fake food to a certain extent after seeing the same lure pattern over and over in uber clear water.
The second is that in clear water the translucent bait is like a ghost that they just can't seem to catch until it catches them. On my last trip, I had a nice bass that just kept coming out of the water whacking at the bait. Time and time again he kept after it. It was almost like I could feel his frustration. I was so excited I just kept jerking the bait away from him and he just kept jumping at it. That's commitment!