Ya learn something everyday....

[JB]

thought I'd share some info with ya, these last 3 days Denny and me went south to amish country to stay with Ed and his wife at their camper near amish country(you know, the girls have the unibrow and mustaches with bonnets ...
anyways, Ed had been telling us for a few years about the private lake that is there, its about mile long and snake looking, lots of bends and points, and more wood than a 1000 boy scouts with their first playboy mag...
After venturing through many small redneck looking towns we finally get to the hills and start seeing the buggies and huge farms of tomatoes, peppers, sweet corn and so forth..
We stop in to a Amish grocery for some homemade pretzels and goodies,
still laughing about the "woman folk" with their mustaches .hehe..
and eventually head out to the lake..
The point of this thread is a new learning curve for me on huge spinnerbaits
and the hogs they caught this weekend..
Of course, Denny and me take 13 rods and more plugs than you could imagine, plastics etc..while we notice Ed only carry s 1 rod with this f/n huge white spinner bait, with 2 huge willow leafs on it an maybe a 1/2 ounce head.
We head over to the bank, its plum full of wood, a canopy overhang of trees, and banks that are steep, rock bluff walls...you name it the whole nine yards of what holds bass. Plenty of saw weed vegetation abound in the waters in patches that would go 20--30 yards out, to just about anywhere in the lake, here n there.

So, I start out with zookers bandit he turned me onto, its caught more fish this year than all the rest put together, and I've been fishing many dif states this year from ohio/ ind/ fla and its smokin' hot..
well, first thing I realize is the weeds make any crankbait pretty hard to move due to the weeds..
mean while i am watching ed just chuckin away with NO finese at all to these wood cover/weed choked out waters, and pulling in the most consistantly BIG bass, time after time.. I put on Rebs white blade, and start doing my thing, ed looks over and says "yer runnin it to fast, slow down"
Well, for one thing, the water clarity was at least 4 ft if not more, and I'm thinking why let them get a good look at the blade , I want the reaction strike.. while I am thinking about all this I just watch ed throwing it out and either on the wood or half way back in 20 ft of water the bass come out of the weeds and nail it!
These bass are the most healthy 4-5-6 pounders I've ever seen! Pull like crazy when caught, and fun as hell to watch..


pretty much this size all day, not bad eh? ^

So, being the farm boy he is, of course Ed only fishes for food, we come in with me getting couple Dinks Friday nite, ed has tons of biggie size fish, Denny caught some to, but on the first night neither of us have a clue to what we need to do to score big..
ed takes the fish home for a fish fry, we open up the bellies to find cicadas in their stomaches like crazy, some shad, and some craws.
The white spinnerbait obviously looks like the shad going through the weeds.. the next day Denny n me tie on the big blades and ed keeps the boat about 30 yards from the banks, lots of long casts for sure...my first big one comes bites the blade after I started purposely throwing through the sawgrass weeds and triggering a strike...
That slow rolling huge blade, (no wind many times, clear water, mid summer pattern)...I didnt think theres any way this would be what they wanted, but it was perfect~
Ed kept telling me how many hawgs that he used to break off on this lake, I had doubts....Sat night after a rain all 3 of would many times get bite in the same area almost one after another, 4-5 pounders that fought like hell.
I nailed one with brand new line, only to watch this hawg pull and turn his head about 10 feet from me, BROKE me off right at the reel..
I decide the rest of the day to think outside of the box and tied on another big blade to a rod with powerpro, thinking well there is no stretch like mono, gotta be careful and let the rod take the impact.
After I caught on to move the blade as slow as possible, about 1 foot under the surface, dont let it flutter or any of the other tricks I know, just chuck it out and wind..man talk about FUN...it literally wore Denny and my wrists out after 2 full days of fishing.
We have tons of pics on phones that I'll try to get out, I forgot my camera due to being caught in a rainstorm on the chopper before leaving, I was in a rush to catch up with the guys to head for the lake, but ed an denny have pics I can share with ya later.
Moral of story, think out of the box as zooker says, who knew a slow BIG blade in clear water would be the ticket this time of year...we are going back in the fall for some bigger fish!