keep trying with little success

[aspiringangler]

Ok, Here is my situation, i will try to include as much info as i can but am sure i will forget something. Live in northern michigan, so average outside temp is about 60 degrees, fishin on Fife Lake, water temp about 60 degrees also, there is a small milfoil problem. I've cought a few three to five pound bass while trolling around and have recently started targeting bass specifically. I have had a little luck, but am in need of help. The waters pretty medium in clarity. I am using a mediuim rod and have a spinnig rod rigged with 10lb braided line. I've tried many different lures with little success. Please help as i am losing confidence.

[Rebbasser]

Welcome to the forum!

If you are fishing milfoil that is the ideal place for a weightless soft plastic like a Zoom Super Fluke or a soft Senko-type bait like a Tiki Stick or Yum Dinger. Rig them like a Texas rig but without any weight, cast them out and work them with soft twitches of the rod tip.

If you are not familiar with these post back and I'll give you some more info on them.

[aspiringangler]

I am not familiar with the Zoom Super Fluke or a Senko-type bait. I have tried the texis rig but have a hard time feeling the fish bite, when i do i nearly always miss it. The rigs i try are with berkley power bait worms, about 5 or 6 inches long(Thats what is in my box). I got tuns of worms that size. I have got tuns of cranks and spinnerbaits, a few rattle traps. This lake is about 2000 acres i think, and there are spots with out the milfoil, but i just know thats were the good fish are. Are these Zoom super fluke ans senko-type baits common? Hope my additional info helps?

And i should have typed this first but thank you so much. I will certainly give anything you suggest a try.

[Rebbasser]

Yep, pretty common.

A Zoom Fluke:



A Senko-type bait:



You can get these anyplace that sells tackle-even WalMart. Your power worms will work-just use no weight. When you fish them weightless your line will often start to tighten up-you will know when it does. It also might feel heavy, like you have a bunch of weeds on it. Either way set the hook. Around weeds these are my favorite baits.

Since the water is cooling down a spinnerbait or trap will be a good choice-the fish will be feeding for winter and may get real active. Be sure to try both those baits, too.

[WTL]

Milfoil is a tricky subject. I didn't realize thats what you were fishing when I replied to your line thread (btw I use braid around milfoil), but here is my take on it.

The best milfoil is that which has some other type of cover in the area as well. You want something to concentrate those fish a bit, at minimum current - or a dropoff, rocks, intersperced stumps or stickups, but you need something else that is gonna attract those bass in addition to the milfoil. Bass will hang around just milfoil with nothing else, but they arent concentrated, so its a low percentage opportunity. If all you have is random milfoil, fish fast and cover water. Learn to anticpate where the bass are holding, especially pay attention to potholes in the grass and the angles.

I've lived on spinnerbaits around milfoil/hydrilla this year. Fish em fast, cover that water, pick up the active bass. 2nd option is a fluke for me, just do as Reb suggested. 3rd is a worm, flipping and pitching - but it may not be a prime situation right now for you to start learning that if you already don't know how to pitch. Bass should be feeding on shad/baitfish getting ready for the winter, so they should in theory be chasing fast lures like the flukes and spinnerbaits.

[aspiringangler]

Thanks again, i will try these. I am surprised though that the little twisty tail helps so little. For medium clarity do you have a color preference for the senko type baits. It looks like there are just as many color types as there are for the powerbait worms. Also, I have tried both spinnerbaits and rattle traps galore, to little or no effect. Is there perhaps a hint on the retrieve on these on what i am doing wrong. I know i am throwing the questions out at you, sorry about that. I am just getting so frustrated.

[aspiringangler]

How do you rig a fluke, just like a worm? also, what is flipping and pitching, i read about it all the time in the magazines but they never have an explanation as well.

[WTL]

No, its cool. Spinnerbaits are a confidence lure. Mine right now is a 3/8 oz, tandem blade colorado/indiana with white painted blades. I also use gold blades a lot. I always keep them up moving and up in the strike zone. Spinnerbaits are a reaction lure, they get most of their strikes cause a fish sees it and has to decide in an instance; hit it or let it go. A lot of times the split second decision will engender a response that the fish otherwise would not have given, so keep it moving. I also like to keep the bait above where the fish are holding, say assume they are about 2 feet deep give or take, don't let the spinnerbait drop below 2 feet, and keep it more at 1.5-1 foot moving it fast so the fish have to come up to strike. I think they rather strike coming up and away than going deeper. I liken it all the time to a high fastball near the eyes, think pitching and baseball.

Fluke colors- I like white, white chartruse, or arkansas shiner. You want them to be lighter colors in most situations so I almost never use the same color flukes as I do worms. The only exception to that is when I use flukes ahead of a split shot, then I use watermelonseed and sometimes junebug - dark colors.

Rig the fluke sorta like a worm, but with no weight. Also come through the nose, then through the pocket and out the back - not the other way around.

Flippin and pitchin are done with a large rod, and basically you are swinging a worm or jig into holes, jigging it up and down a bit, and then lifting it up and moving on to the next hole. I'll see if I can find an article that explains it better, but thats the jist of it.

http://www.gameandfishmag.com/fishin.../gf_aa066602a/

[Rebbasser]

How do you rig a fluke, just like a worm?

Yep-I rig every soft plastic the same way:



Except for a wacky rig:



And yes, that goofy looking rig catches a LOT of fish-cast it out, let it sink, and work it with gentle twitches of the rod tip.

[K-Driz]

Try a frog imitation lure like lunker city scum frogs, zoom hornytoads, or stanley ribbits over top of the milfoil. Just be sure to work the bait super slow across the weeds and use at least 30 pound test braid.

[Rebbasser]

For medium clarity do you have a color preference for the senko type baits.

With any soft plastic in medium clarity I use natural colors-watermelon seed, watermelon red, green pumpkin. I may add some chartreuse, either a bait with a chartreuse tail or dip it in chhartreuse worm dye. Just depends on the situation.

[keithdog]

One thing to keep in mind when fishing any softbait. Often times you won't feel the fish strike. You need to really pay attention to the line and watch for any unusual movements. Like a twitch, or the line moving off to the side or suddenly becomming limp if the bass is moving towards you with the bait in it's mouth. If I see my line suddenly tighten up or moving one way or the other I give it a few seconds while quickly reeling in the slack line, if there is any. When I feel the weight of the bass I cross his eyes. A trick with a soft plastic jerk bait like the fluke is to rig the hook Texas style so that the nose of the bait has a slight upturn in the nose portion. You can do this by inserting the point of the hook a bit further into the back of the bait after you have threaded it through the nose. This causes the nose of the bait to push forward a bit on your hook giving the head a slight upward turn. Rigged this way, the fluke will ride higher in the water and a slight jerk on the line will cause it to skip out of the water like a fleeing baitfish will do. I've nailed em good using this little trick. I prefer to use white or shiner colors with my fluke type baits. As for spinnerbaits. I prefer to retrieve them just fast enough to tickle the tops of the weedbeds. Also, I usually start out with a slower retrieve parallel to the deeper edges of the weedline before going inside. I often take bass waitting at the deeper edges of the weedbeds this way. I use a white tandom spinner such as the Terminator model T-1 with two Oklahoma blades with a blade combo of silver and gold, with gold being the larger of the two blades. I have had great luck with them. I also use a chartruese twister grub trailer about 3 inches threaded onto the spinners hook to give it a bit more bouyancy and also gives the lure a fuller looking body, something I think bass look for especially this time of year. The contrasting colors of white and chartruese is just my perosnal preference as I seem to have better luck with that than white with white. If your lake has any lilly pads, a spinner bait worked through them this time of year is a killer method. Good luck and happy fishin.

[91W]

Welcome northern niehbor, I was just up your way last weekend on St. Clair. We are getting into the time of year here in northern Indiana and Michigan that you have to fish real slow. Drop Shot with a floating lizard, 4"-5" Senko, Jig with a trimmed trailer. Texas rigged works good but you have to learn want the fish want. Alot of times they will take a power worm by the tail and you miss the hook set, they will eat but are slowing down. You will have to fish very slow this time of the year and sucess has as much to do with luck as anything else. We had a tournament yesterday, the final one of the year the top two from every club in northern Indiana, about half the field was shut out. Alot of shorts caught. Good luck. just go out and find what works for you.

[JB]

make sure you use a big enough hook for the fluke, I'd prefer a 4/0 or 5/0 for better hooksets.
As far as the senko goes, I prefer a 3/0 and have better success whacky rigging it than texas rigged, and almost all the time weightless