ofus23

[A. dvorscak]

Topwater troubles

recently retires and moved from NY to coastal SC.

purchased a Jitterbug primarily because I remembered my Dad had one in the 50s. 

I have caught a few fish, but interesting phenomenon:  several times the bass will slam the lure from above, often leaping out of the water to do so.  No bite involved, and they swim away. How they miss 6 hooks is beyond me, but never stick around for follow up bite. 

Ive tried leaving bait motionless but fish is gone.  

Am I doing something incorrectly?

[Big Rick]

In most cases the fish is wanting something different. They'll blow up on the Jitterbug, but the action, color, size, or something just isn't sitting right with them. That's when you have to swap to another type of topwater like a buzz bait, popper, walking bait, and the like. If they STILL just blow up on it then they're feeding actively and you need to present something just under the surface, like a fluke, Senko style bait, spinner bait, crank bait. 

 

The fish are talking to you. You just gotta listen and try other things until you dial them in. 

[Fishes in trees]

Years ago, a guy who was a better fisherman than me told me that if there is a top water bite going on, there is probably a better sub surface bite happening at the same place at the same time.   His bait for this situation was a home made one, was making his own swim bait heads and swimming large flukes and other bait fish imitating soft plastics as slow as he could, keeping them a foot and a half or so underneath the surface.

 

A few times I ran into a situation where a top water bite was going on, and trying to practice what he preached, I didn't have any swim baits (not a real common bait in the Ozarks circa 2000 - 2003.   I threw a Minus -1 , and tried to keep it moving so as to get it as deep as possible, and I got slammed with keeper size fish several times.

 

So there are a couple of options.  Swimbaits are much more common now.   I have a set of Sebile Magic Swimmers in the boat currently and I want to see how they work in this stiuation.