Bizarre-O World

OK..take a look at the picture from yesterday. I'll wait here.
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Ahh..what a fine day yesterday was. It was in the mid 80's. I was wearing a cut off shirt and sunglasses and STILL sweated my a## off. Bright skies. Bass in the shallows ( even if i was throwing a bait that...well, go read). A great day, yes siree!

Then, last night happened. Monster storms. Massive amounts of rain. Rivers shot up and filled with muddy water. Ponds rose a solid foot in a couple hours. The temperature dropped down to 40! Wind blowing out of the north at 20 mph all day today with a high of like 58. basically the KISS OF DEATH in fishing. It's the kind of day where shopping for a new shoehorn is a better idea than going fishing.

That is..unless you're me.

So I go out with the prospect of maybe getting one fish to hit. maybe.

I started out with a white buzzbait. I know, I know...TOTALLY the wrong weather for a topwater. I know. Bear with me..it gets WAY weirder!

Ok..so a few minutes into it I get a single fish to go after it half-heartedly and miss. That's ok. I expected it. She's been in one spot for almost a month and takes a swipe at anything that passes by. Lucky for her she's only been hooked once and that was by my brother last week ( see previous posts).

I kept up with the buzzbait for a few more casts. Tried a rapala DT4 for a few casts ( caught one 14" largemoth bass).

Then..... ( here's where we go into Bizarre-O World).... I put on my go-to bait. The best in the box. You know him! You love him!
No...not Wislon. He's topwater, baby. And we already established that wasn't workin'. I aint wastin' his time.
I put on the #1 crankbait in my arsenal.
Fish wanna eat him and lures wanna be him!
The Salmo Bullhead !

Ok..so I spent the next hour having what was probably the best hour of smallie/ largemouth fishing since I left Pipestone last september. The smallies were doing the exact opposite of what they are supposed to be doing according to InFisherman. The massive cold front didn't drive them deep like it's supposed to. They didn't want slow finesse baits like I was supposed to use. They didn't go into some "negative" feeding mode. Nuh-uh baby! These fish were in 1-3' of water and chasing down the bullhead any chance they got. Yeah..go figure, right?

Ya know..sometimes ya just don't know. I was hoping to maybe catch one fish according to everything I have been taught on saturday morning fishing shows. Instead...I walked into a turkey shoot with a machine gun. What a friggin blast!

Check out these picks of some of the fish. Oh...and notice the difference from yesterday to today. I looked like Nanook of the North today! But it was worth it. My total was 13 smallies, 4 largemouth. Missed 3 more and had one ob for a few seconds that was bigger than the fish in the last 2 pictures.....which, by the way is 20". Whooooo hoooo! All in one hour.

Get out and fish, people. Even when inFisherman tells you to stay home.










18.5" !

The biggest bonus largemouth of the hour!


20" aggresive smallie in 2' of water on a massive cold front wind-howlin'-from-the-north almost-dark-outside day.


Notice the Salmo Bullhead I was using. Again, people, I can't tell you what to do, but my color choices are natural. Period. 24/7/365. These fish aren't being caught in Lake Geneva. They are being caught in waters just ike you fish whether it be a pond or the Fox river. We're talking visibilities of a few feet....maybe a few yards. But certainly NOT gin clear which is what we were all told to use natural baits in by saturday morning fishing shows. BULLS**T. Listen if the only thing a fish can see in murky waters is chartruese, they'd all friggin starve. Ya know what chartruese and firetiger hook? Fishermen. I know, i know.. they work at certain times.
But..look up. Think about it...those fish all hit a natural bait at the wrong time in the wrong color water at the wrong depth, blah, blah, blah.
But then again. My name aint Linder.. so what the hell do I know.
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Mike went out on sunday 6-11-06. He writes:

Was going to try the Salmo Bullhead or possibly a Chug Bug up close to the shore but I still had the brown/black/brass Chatterbait tied on.

What the hell, I take a couple casts... First cast:



Could it be a fluke? Yeah but Jamie said...

SIXTEEN BASS LATER... (Largemouth and smallmouth of all sizes by the way) Only missed three fish.

I needed to head back. The sun had come out and the bite had died down. Just one last cast...



JR I think your hook sharpening skills need some sharpening of their own. You either don't know how to fish or have filed your Chatterbait hooks down to a nub.

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** Editor's note ( Jamie being the editor. Bwhahaha!) Ok..ok.. Mike IS the ChatterGod. I'll give him that. BUT..I gotta jump to my own defense here; I have had success with the Chatterbait on the lake where Mike was fishing ( see previous reports there Captain Chatterlips). The other day when I had a dismal failure of an outing using a Chatterbait, I was on a different lake where that bait just doesn't do the trick on the resident largemouth and smallies. So stick THAT in your pipe and Chatter it!