Guided BassTrip on 8/2

[GuidedBassTrips]

On Monday Aug 2nd I had Tim Lindke and his two daughters Rachel and Elizabeth for a guided bass trip on Black Lake. Tim was staying at Eel Weir state park at the north end and had done some fishing up there prior. In fact he managed to catch one of those big muskies that are up there a day earlier! He showed me pictures of it. It was huge!

We began the morning fishing topwaters on the main lake with no success. It seemed like a good morning for it but some mornings they just don't come up for it. This also gave me an indication that the artificial bite might be off a little. So I ran south and set up on two different points where I had them fishing with both crayfish and shiners. They proceeded to catch both smallmouth and largemouth. The fish were mostly around two pounds but finally a solid 4lb largemouth ate Rachel's shiner. The crayfish only worked on one of the points and not at all on the other.

We came in for a lunch break and went back out about about 1 pm. I showed them how to fish the senko on a wacky rig. Tim caught a nice 3lb smallmouth and Elizabeth managed to catch a couple of smaller ones on it. The senko bite does appear to have slowed some although it may just have been the day. Later that afternoon I set up on a point back on the main lake with the crayfish and literally burned what crayfish were left in about an hour. I think they landed eight, nothing really big, but enjoyed the fight on light tackle. All bass were released.

Good luck to all fishing the lake.

[Niagara-eyes]

Captain Yeager, I have noticed you like to fish live bait quite a bit for bass. I use live bait for bass, walleye, pike and other fish quite frequently. Usually I use some variation of a Lindy Rig depending on species and conditions. I like the new Mustad double gap light wire hooks and have been using them almost without exception. However, when bass fishing I am getting too many deep hooked fish, maybe some days up to 5% especially when fishing smaller shiners or nightcrawlers. Do you know anyone who makes a light wire circle hook? All I can find are the heavier versions. These hurt the baits natural movements, unless your using big baits. I would appreciate your help. Thanks!

[GuidedBassTrips]

I've been using the Mustad light wire demon circle hooks ranging from #1 and 1/0 for small shiners and crayfish up to 5/0 with large shiners in Florida. I also use some Gamakatsu and Owner versions. Unfortunately some of my customers' bass are also hooked deep depending how and when they had set the hook. In that case you want to leave the hook in the fish. Overall circle hooks are still a much lower percentage of deeply hooked fish. It is also important not to set the hook to hard. If you are only hooking 5% deeply that is actually good compared to a conventional hook. Those fish do survive and get caught again.