Your coolest new technique this year?

[WRB]

I picked up a Dual Realis 90 Spybait in morning dawn awhile back and never tied it on until recently to give it a try. The shad have been suspended for a several weeks slowly going deeper with each passing week and I had a good bite going on structure spoons in the afternoon and medium size  crankbaits like a Zoner Hunter early, the mid day bite was mostly drop shot. I just started casting at grebes following Shad schools with the spy bait and counting it down before slowing reeling it back and did very good. Now during a tough bite Spybaits are my go to fall Shad school lure and caught bass all day using it. The down side is the treble hooks can be a problem when aggressive bass engulf the lure, then it's back to structure spoons.

Tom

 

[Burtonxj]

Duo Spinbait 80s. Helped out with my patience too. Toss em out, count it down and crank it slow. 

 

[LCG]

Neko and Ned rig produced well for me. Even caught a good size catfish on a ned rig which I was really surprised with. 

 

Picked up a baitcaster this fall and started pitching jigs. Lots to learn this winter but I will definitely be keeping the jig on my go to technique list.

 

Next year I really want to catch using top water poppers and Frogs, I have had zero luck so far. 

[Way north bass guy]

This year for me was the drop shot. Even though I live in central Ontario, the heart of big northern smallie country, I’ve never used them much in years past. This year I made myself throw them a few times and boy was that ever a good decision. And with an 8 year old for a fishing partner, we tag teamed them this fall when they were schooled up and feeding heavily. Best bait for us was a 4” Berkley gulp minnow in smelt colour, that stuff is like crack for smallies!

[Russ E]

It wasn't a new bait to me, but a new way to use it.

in the past I  fished Chatterbaits fairly fast in shallow water. It would catch active fish ,but not many quality fish.

after reading posts here, I slowed way down and fished them deeper along weed edges.

the average size of fish went up dramatically.

The slow rolled Chatterbait has become one of my go to baits.

[Bluebasser86]

16 hours ago, Burro said:

That little jig looks cool.

Thanks, it's an 1/8oz with a 1" trailer. I caught so many fish with it this year, and about every species of fish too. I jokingly started calling it my "Power Ned" because kind of like a Ned rig, it caught tons of fish and all species, just a little heavier and bulkier than a typical Ned rig. 

[Stalking bass]

This year I focused mainly on jigs which paid of big time for me. But I took two months off jigs and learned the dropshot technique and hollow body frog speed walking. The dropshot rig is really productive. It catches not only bass but huge bluegill and huge perch. The hollow body frog was the most work to figure out. Walking it fast resulted in reaction strikes which really paid off in the early morning. 

[THE_Vue's]

Bent minnow caught me tons of 5-8lbs walleyes

[BassFisher22]

I started frogging this year and absolutely love it. I started when I found a good pond with heavy pads all around the edges. Booyah poppin padcrasher is the way to go.

[MassYak85]

Had some decent success in late summer punching, which I hadn't done much of before. Also picked up an MS Slammer that I am really enjoying. 

[WolfyBrandon]

Not new to me, but I would say the technique I gained a lot more confidence in this year was...

 

 

Deep Diving Crankbaits / Crankbaits.

 

The past few years I've focused mostly on soft baits like Grubs and Tubes. I felt like if I tossed one of those two baits into a spot holding a bass I had a 90% chance I could get the bass to commit to it. Well credit goes to my fishing buddy Jeremy changing it up one day and throwing one of those new Berkley Dredgers. On one of our trips this year the fishing was slow. I was using a variety of baits, but fell back to my confidence baits (soft plastics) to try and make something happen. Jeremy makes a cast with the Dredger and hooks up (We were fishing one of our honey holes). So I make like 10+ casts in the area with a Zoom Mag II worm and nothing... He's all like, "Man I'm telling ya... Cranks!". I had just recently put together my box of Rapala DT's, so I broke out a DT-16 and first cast - the rod loads up! Jeremy makes another cast while I'm working the fish to the boat and hooks up again...

 

After that day we both kept a crankbait tied on for the rest of the year. We caught a lot more fish with them (both bass and pike) and Jeremy even managed to hook into one of his largest bass this year on it.

 

 

WolfyBrandon

[Sifuedition]

I took an unplanned ~15 year break from fishing. Dad wanted to go for his birthday, so this August I went again and the bug is back as strong as ever. Unfortunately, this year has been odd since then, and nobody I've talked to in Oklahoma has had a lot of luck in late summer/fall.

 

I don't think anything new has become a confidence lure, yet, but, I'm still excited about Senko's, Chatterbaits, Whopper Plopper's, drop shot, soft-body and hard-body swimbaits and flukes. Still looking forward to trying more shaky-head presentations, too.

 

When I fished a lot 15-20 years ago, Slug-go's were popular, but I never caught very many on them. Those were very similar to the fluke's. Obviously, soft-body swimbaits were around then, but I never knew anyone who used them in this region because they didn't seem to catch much. 

 

I have a theory that may be odd...

 

Baits like the Zara Spook were around then, like soft-body swimbaits, but nobody threw them. At least, nobody I knew or saw in this region. Now, it seems like everyone is throwing them. I wonder if fish go through cycles that may be generational, with baits they see too often and the next generation doesn't strike them as well. When the bait stops producing, fishermen stop throwing them. Some generations later, those baits are effective again after being rarely used for some time. Obviously, some will never go "out of style", but it almost seems like what has happened in my hiatus, some baits coming "back into style". Maybe it's just the fishermen, not the fish.

[CroakHunter]

Not a new technique to me but a new bait that won me some money was the magnum rage bug. I used it to flip deep weedlines next to stick ups. 

[Columbia Craw]

Neko rig.  I can think of several scenarios where this technique would have done well last year but I did not put the drop shot down.

[JoePhish]

This is my second full year of fishing in East Tennessee (mostly out of a yak) since moving here from Florida. 

The technique I embraced and succeeded at this year was deep cranking. Caught my biggest Largemouth of the year doing so. I've fine tuned my overall cranking game too. 

I threw shakey heads more this year than I have in the past. Won and placed in some tournaments fishing them.

 

Going forward there's a lot I'd like to work on like Drop Shotting, Ned Rigs, A-rigs and Neko rigs. I'd also like to get back to some jig fishing which was something I excelled at in FL but can't seem to do well with here in TN.

[adam lancia]

I started flipping and pitching this year and caught my PB 4.06# largie, in a tournament no less. Needless to say, I really enjoyed that and will be doing more of it in the future.

[soflabasser]

Swimbaits that I made myself.

[Quarry Man]

Well, I wanted to learn to fish three lures and become confident in them. Only became confident in the spinnerbait, still need to learn the frog and jig. the ned rig came in clutch during the spawn

[Deleted account]

On 12/1/2017 at 3:17 PM, J Francho said:

 I threw a whopper plopper, too.  Just so I could say I did.

Yuck!

Not counting using a live goby as a swim jig trailer, nothing new.

[Smelter96]

This year i really started pitching and flipping into the heaviest junk i could find. Used to be afraid of loosing those tungstens, but since i started fishing em in the real junk ive caught waaay more. Including my PB

[RichF]

Well I gave in and tried the Ned and Neko...nothing on the Ned, only small bass on the Neko.  They won't be used in 2018.

[J Francho]

Nothing on the ned?  You should have used the 1/15 instead of the 1/16 oz. head.

[scaleface]

23 hours ago, reason said:

Yuck!

Not counting using a live goby as a swim jig trailer, nothing new.

Ha !  I rigged up a shad on a Carolina rig and was dragging it along . I caught a fish but it wasnt a bass . A channel cat .

[RichF]

3 hours ago, J Francho said:

Nothing on the ned?  You should have used the 1/15 instead of the 1/16 oz. head.

To be fair, I didn't give it much of a chance haha.  Just not much of a finesse guy.

[Subaqua Adinterim]

5 hours ago, RichF said:

nothing on the Ned

I wouldn't give up on this technique.  I had great success with it this year.  I know fishing 2 rods at once isn't allowed in tournament fishing; but I since I never tournament fish, here is what I do that seems to keep me occupied as I use the ned rig (that is, if I'm not getting much action right away with the ned rig).  I toss out the ned rig along the edge of the weedline in deeper water and then fish another bait, e.g., t rigged senko or jig in shallow water, on a separate rod at the same time as the ned rig is settling.

After I reel in the non ned rig bait, I will start to reel up the ned rig and will sometimes have a fish on.

Best of luck in the new year.