Went out and had a pretty slow day. Still caught quite a few but seems its getting more and more the young ones.
I will say the first hookup I had on the Netbait Paca Toad Sr. was a decent one maybe 3 or 4 lbs guessing from the blow up and end result. Anyone that has fished these baits can verify they are pretty big. I was actually not so sure how they would work as they are quite wide with the big flapping arms that look more like craw pinchers. But about the 3rd cast it was engulfed and I set the hook. My mistake was I just had a regular standard wire weighted swimbait hook with a 735 Dobyns Savvy. My hook set flexed and opened the hook. He kept the entire bait other than what was in the screw lock. ~xyz I put a heavy wire Trokar in it after that and caught several but nothing to brag about.
Date: 11/15/17
Time of day: 10AM - 5PM
Weather conditions: Cloudy overcast with 5 to 10 mph winds S
Air temps: Air temp low of 52° high 68°
Water Clarity: Turbid
Lures and techniques used:
- Netbait Paca Toad Sr. color White Pepper - Fished through and over the semi sparse dying lily pad fields. Again a slow retrieve sometimes popped off the bottom several times then allowed to fall.
- Big Bite Baits 4.5" BB Kicker color Blue Back Herring - Just fished slow and easy as best we could near cover and edges.
- Stanley Top Toad, color White - Long casts in semi sparse dying lily pad fields. Retrieved steady and slow but just fast enough that the feet would kick.
- Stanley Bull Ribbit, color White - Long casts in semi sparse dying lily pad fields. Retrieved steady and slow but just fast enough that the feet would kick.
- Gene Larew Rattlin' Crawler, color Glacier and Blackberry/Sapphire with a 4/0 1/8 oz swimbait hook - Fished through and over the semi sparse dying lily pad fields. Again a slow retrieve but still fast enough to get the appendages to have action.
- 1/2 oz Siebert Outdoors Dredge Brush Jig, color Black Blue with Havoc Rocket craw in Black Blue fleck and Zoom Ultravibe Speed Craw in Sapphire Blue- Pitched in and around Cattail and swam.
Sad but this was the best I could muster for the day. It was the second fish that hit my Dredge Brush Jig as I was reeling it back from a fairly long pitch. So I started swimming the jig but it was a freak deal as no more strikes came. The fortunate part was I never "hooked" the fish. When I got it out of the net the hook point was just inside the upper lip against that hard part. I let tension off and it just swung away from the fish. Had it ever got an ounce of slack it would have been gone. Found out that hook tip had got rolled. So tonight I'm going through about 50 jigs and checking and tossing or sharpening every one.
(https://i.imgur.com/wmNbgeQ.jpg?1)
(https://i.imgur.com/pqY5X9U.jpg?1)
Hook I bent out on the Paca Toad. In the pic it doesn't look so bad but I'm telling you its opened some from the way it came. that point should be pointing at the eye actually these point slightly down from the top of the eye. I've never been real happy with this big of hook 6/0 not in a heavy gauge wire. Just too much flex. But I used it with to stout of a rod and just what I figured would happen did. ~b~ Notice the plastic filled keeper. lo
(https://i.imgur.com/invACvF.jpg?2)
Thanks for the good report Steve and you caught some fish and had a good time so all is not lost. ~c~ ~c~
Great detailed report, thank you.
A solid 18 incher is nothing to complain about ~c~