Northwest Fishing Reports

As one who is guilty of thinking too much, I would like to pose some questions.

Are your favorite lures, say your top three lures you like to use more than the others also the most productive?

This has always been something I have been thinking about since I started fishing about five seasons ago and I think I have enough data to make a fair assessment of it.

In my case, it seems that for the most part, my favorite baits, the ones I like to use the most appear to account for fewer bass.

My top three favorite baits to “work”, i.e., impart life to are:

1) Hard Jerk Baits (e.g., Husky Jerk, X-rap): – I love working these lures; jerk-pause, jerk-jerk-pause – Gosh, they’re a lot of fun to work. However, with this lure type, I can only think of one fish I have hooked up. It was a pig however.

2) Poppers (e.g., Skitter pop, homemade poppers): – Man, oh man, do I have to work these topwater baits. While I have caught some, I have come to learn that certain times have given me higher percentages of catching bass. Also, many of the bass caught were greater than 3 lbs., which is decent in my neck of the woods. Many of the biggest ones caught were with poppers. On the other side of the coin, after learning that there are better times than others on my waters, in its defense, I pull it out when I think its chances are best.

3) Walk-The-Dog Lures (e.g., spooks, skitter walks, sammies): – Now who doesn’t like to zig-zag these bad boys? I can work them all day and just enjoy them. To date, unfortunately, only two bass in my entire bass fishing history was caught on one.

What is the relationship/correlation between your three favorite lures to “work” and their productivity for you?

Also, state what region of the country you are from and general water clarity of the typical lakes you fish or your “home” lake.

The lakes I usually fish have are green in color with a usual clarity of about 5-10’ in the South King County area.

I think this is good information to share here that could possibly lead to see if there might be trends in what some bass in different areas of the country prefer to munch on.

-ib

I might have ADD,but I enjoy tossing crainkbaits with twitches and pauses. I can't say that crankbaits are the most effective for me. When it comes down to it,spinnerbaits I have more success with. This probably doesn't help to much because I don't use plastics or jigs. I don't have anything against them but my knowledge about them is lacking and so is the presentation.

Dude use what ever works for you.For me its the plastic worm I catch fish rain or shine morning mid day late after noon and night.But I have confidence in the baits and that makes all the difference.As for the lakes I fish clear,murkey,stained,muddy.The lakes I favor the most are the lakes I can't see the fish they seem to be more productive.Why I use them is hanging on my wall.And I have a tackle box full of every thing you can think of.I've caught many fish on crank baits dead sticking jerk baits jigs spinners top water ect.Use what works for you!! FISH ON!!!

Chartreuse spinnerbait: Love using them. Can work em fast or slow, high or low, and they are my go-to lure. Probably because I started off bass fishing with these and they are relatively easy to fish in my opinion. Chartreuse with either silver/gold blades does the trick for me.

Zoom Lizard 6" Watermelon/black flake: Just something I am confident in. Again, it was on of the first baits I started off with and I've given them a lot of water time and managed to stay confident with them. I'm not a huge fan of plastics, but I hope to put more time into learning the D-shot and the Senko more this year. I'm just not patient enough with these baits. But the few times I have been, I've done well, and I needa keep trying to get real confident with plastics.

Rapala Shad Rap: Love them for smallies. Work em fast, twitch em real slow, whatever, tossing these up against rocky banks is real productive for me. Blue Shad I think is the color I like best. I don't use em much for largemouth, not because I don't like em, I just have yet to use them. I'll put more effort into fishing these this summer...

Buzzbait: Something about seeing that bait the whole time as your retrieve it is something special. I really enjoy throwing them, even if conditions aren't perfect or dictating topwater action. For me, they are a thrill to fish with and I really enjoy seeing the bite and I wanna get a picture of a bass hitting one this year...

My favorite lures to catch them on are: walk the dog style topwaters (I love to see the explosions), chartreuse and white spinnerbaits (the feel of a fish jumping on a spinnerbait is awesome), jerkbaits, football heads on deep rock, and the dropshot (good for catching numbers and big fish year round).