Headwaters 2024

[TOXIC]

Well, we couldn’t have picked a tougher week to go to Headwaters in Florida than the week we were there. 40 degree nights, 60 degree days (one day did hit the 70’s) and 15-30mph winds most every day.  We even managed to get rained on one day.  With that being said and since we are as hard core as they come, we still had a good time and caught a lot of fish.  The wind really messed up both the ramps and even the canals you use to navigate the lake.  There were literally islands floating across the lake.  Some were shallow vegetation but others had sapling trees and bushes growing out of them.  That was the difference between plowing through or finding another route.  The ramp was another story.  It was common for one side to get slammed so thick you could not launch.  It was problematic both launching and retrieving. If we got lucky, there were some duck hunters with mud motors who launched before us and they would blow out some of the vegetation making it easier to launch.  FWC came out and cleared the ramps one day but they were slammed again the next day.  The one good thing is that the traffic on the lake was down considerably most days because the locals know what cold and wind do to Florida strain bass.  I’ll admit, I stocked up heavily on a host of Yamamoto baits to throw and so did my partner but in a weeks worth of fishing a grand total of 3 fish were caught on a bait other than a Senko…..3…….2 on a spinnerbait and a bowfin on a chatterbait.  There were 3 boats and 4 anglers for most of the week and there were some fish in the other boats caught on a jig and flukes but they too leaned heavily on the Senko.  Now that I think about it, I did catch a few on a 7 inch Yamamoto Kut Tail with a 1/4 oz bullet weight punching or fishing a flooded orange orchard.  For some reason that setup came through the branches really nice on a 4.0 gamakatsu ewg hook, Texas rigged.  We went through at least 25 bags of Senkos in various styles and presentations.  Because of the wind, I was throwing the 6 inch Senko weightless or if I was throwing the regular 5 inch or Fat Senko, I would use as little of weight as possible with a screw in bullet weight.  My partner was also adding a spinner with a hitchhiker screw in the tail of his Senkos.  For me, 97% of my fish came on some sort of Senko setup.  I did learn a valuable lesson.  I normally use 6lb mono for my DShad (Yamamoto fluke) but since I wasn’t getting bit, I tried rigging it for my weightless 5 inch Senko and it was too light of line.  I was snapping it on hooksets.  Truck did fine, boat did fine but we found out quickly that the Mercury 4 stroke 250 doesn’t like to go through heavy vegetation and overheated a couple of times.  One of the other boats was a new 21 foot Ranger with the same motor and they would both overheat at the same time.  I attached a few pictures.  If anybody has any questions feel free to ask.  There’s another post I’m going to make that could be considered controversial but not in this part of the forum.  

[roadwarrior]

Those are some fine fish!

 

 

 

                                                             

[TnRiver46]

Nice ones 

[bowhunter63]

Good ones there 

[Bankbeater]

That's how it's done!

[Swamp Girl]

Looks like a blast!

[TOXIC]

@ol'cricketysometimes the harder it is, the more rewarding it is.  😉

[txchaser]

On 2/13/2024 at 4:16 PM, TOXIC said:

Fat Senko

When are you chosing that over the regular 5" or a 6"? I bought some because yamamoto gets the benefit of the doubt on soft plastics from me, but I haven't really seen the time/place where get the urge to throw it. 

 

[TOXIC]

@txchaser I threw the fat Senko weightless on 8lb mono when the wind was not blowing hard but was still blowing.  If it was gusting I would throw the regular 5” Senko with a screw in nose weight (fast fall, thin profile).  The Fat Senko gives more bulk and a faster fall than a regular 5” weightless, without the bulk of a 6” weightless.  Kind of what I call the Goldilocks process…too big, too small, just right.  I did throw all three at times.  All of them were thrown on spinning gear so excessive “line bow” was a major problem.