Great Lakes Bass Fishing Forum

I took the day off yesterday to get some much needed R&R on the river.  The first 4 hours were terrible.  I had a few pike and a couple of hits on structure on shore.  I couldn't put a pattern together and the shore line hits were not enough to put a limit in the boat.  I ran around a lot and tried a few things.  I finally stopped on a flat and started tossing a lipless crank.  It was getting hung up on the weeds too much to the point I had no control.  I switched to a megabass 110 and landed my first bass with this $27 bait.  A few more casts and a few more fish.  I loaded up on bass for about two hours.  They were not huge fish but solid two pounders.  I probably caught ~15 fish in two hours on that jerk bait.  I switched to another flat and same thing, landed a few more.  Switched to yet another flat and caught one more before I had to leave.  It was a good time on Wixom.  The odd thing was the smallmouth were behaving more like largies and vice versa.  Water temps on the main lake are around 64 and in the cuts it is around 68.

How was water clarity? See any beds?

All of the fish are post spawn.  The blue gills are just starting to bed now.  The bass are on the outskirts filling up with blue gill at this point.  Clarity was 2-3 feet but the wind made it hard to see with the ripples.

Let me rephrase that..  All of the fish I caught were post spawn.

Nice report and good job figuring out the post-spawn bite. I don't own any Megabass. I hope it wasn't just 'respect' how much you paid for the lure they bit out of! ;D

It was costly but it is easy to see how realistic the lure is.  With most of the hits coming at the pause, bass have to look at the bait longer than a spinnerbait or a crank.  I am sure others would work as well, but how realistic the bait it surely can't be bad.  I could have used a shallow crank or a weedless fluke and might have been able to achieve the same results.  That was the first time I had a jerkbait bite going on so I didn't change anything.

It is amazing how many times a bass will look a jerkbait over for awhile before actually grabbing it. Sometimes for quite a while. Realistic jerkbaits may convert more bass into grabbers. I like tail feathers too though I usually make my own with Krystal Flash from fly shops. I think it sparkles like a minnow. There's something to be said about how many times bass might have hit if they had time to look the bait over and think about it so getting confidence on a lure like a jerkbait is important. They sometimes work better than flukes and other soft plastic lures because you can cover more water maybe?

That's a good question.  I have a tournament on Alcona Dam Pond next weekend.  I plan on using the jerk bait as well as a fluke.  No idea what the water temp is there or which phase the fish are in but I am hoping it doesn't take too long to find out.  Last year that river system was brutal in the summer.