bass not committing at night

[Mr. Aquarium]

last night i was fishing with some topwaters. i fished the jackal pompador and mega bass iloud. slow twiched, had many hits but the seem like that werent committing. id set the hook and come up with nothing. didnt feel the weight or anything.  why?? suggestions?

[riverbasser]

Try a subsurface lure. Or possibly a popper that can be worked in place

[Clinton john]

Don't set the hook until you feel the weight of the fish are feel the fish swimming with the bait, that will keep you from missing fish and if the fish miss's the bait the bait is still there and a few twitches most times will get the second strike that will hook them.

 

You could also try a buzz frog or a buzzbait.

 

Hope this helps you sir.

[Mr. Aquarium]

thought i waited long enough before setting the hook.i had caught a nice bass on a 9 inch  wake bait.,  they may have not been big bass, could of been crappies. 

[Catt]

Speed up your retrieve!

 

You were getting their attention

[Mr. Aquarium]

i did, werent hitting  a faster retrieve 

[WRB]

At night it's good to keep a steady pace retreive with noisy top water lure so the bass can locate the lure and commit to striking. Classic example is the Jitterbug, poor stop and go lure works far better using a boring steady retreive.

Tom

[Bluebasser86]

Catfish love to slap at topwaters at night. Occasionally I'll connect with one, but usually it's just a really loud splash and I'll feel nothing. 

[Catt]

9 hours ago, swamp hawgs said:

i did, werent hitting  a faster retrieve 

 

How much faster?

 

I would vary all the way up to burning it

 

Did ya try various sizes?

[eyedabassman]

6 hours ago, Catt said:

 

How much faster?

 

I would vary all the way up to burning it

 

Did ya try various sizes?

Try different speeds and let the fish tell you witch one is the wright speed. Or try a big black Jitterbug or a black spinnerbait!

[RoLo]

 

It's not only bass that hit after dark.

In some waters, rock bass will smack surface lures all night long.

Some rock bass strike like largemouth, and some largemouth strike like rock bass.

 

Roger

[papajoe222]

The best advise I can give you when fish aren't committing (and this applies to daytime fishing as well), is to change something. Anything from retrieve speed to lure size or type. 

Sometimes a subtle change is all that's necessary and other times changing the type of lure/presentation may be necessary. 

In this case, after trying different retrieves, I would have switched to either a buzz bait, or a wake bait like a Minus 1

[Montanaro]

Bass not commiting is not a hookset issue...it is a presentation/behavior issue

 

Sometimes bass will just ram topwaters.  Happened all day to me with various topwater baits.  Switched to a dropshot and I cleaned up.

[Mr. Aquarium]

On 6/17/2017 at 7:01 AM, Catt said:

 

How much faster?

 

I would vary all the way up to burning it

 

Did ya try various sizes?

i didnt burn it, it was just a regular slow retrieve

On 6/17/2017 at 2:27 PM, RoLo said:

 

It's not only bass that hit after dark.

In some waters, rock bass will smack surface lures all night long.

Some rock bass strike like largemouth, and some largemouth strike like rock bass.

 

Roger

there is big crappies here, ive caught some big crappies fishing swimbaits. big pickerel to. caught a bullhead catfish on swimbait once, waked slow on top 

[Deleted account]

On 6/17/2017 at 2:44 PM, papajoe222 said:

The best advise I can give you when fish aren't committing (and this applies to daytime fishing as well), is to change something. Anything from retrieve speed to lure size or type. 

Sometimes a subtle change is all that's necessary and other times changing the type of lure/presentation may be necessary. 

In this case, after trying different retrieves, I would have switched to either a buzz bait, or a wake bait like a Minus 1

 

This ^.

 

When possible, I try to figure out what they are eating (if anything) and make the lure imitate how that bait would behave when it sees a bass. A lot of times it's slow and steady, and then a sudden acceleration. Barely reeling a wakebait, or gurgling a single colorado often does the trick. On really tough nights I break out the largest crazy crawler I can dig out of the box.

[Mr. Aquarium]

i was fishing a very shallow weedy pond, very healthy fishing tho, lots of food, frogs, birds ,herring and smaller fish.

so fishing a spinner bait or anything not weedless or sinks fast wouldnt be ideal