Yesterday if you would have told me I would have won today using topwater I would have said you were crazy. I prefished yesterday and caught some fish on a drop-shot fishing very slow around lily pads. We are following a massive cold front that won't go away and it was very windy all weekend. Not your ideal fishing conditions for January in Florida. After yesterday I was prepared to fish slow all day with my spinning rod and hope to catch a few fish. But today I followed the clues the fish were giving me and made a change.
It started this morning when we were moving quickly across the cove and we saw fish busting everywhere. I wasn't sure if they were bass or not, but cast anyways and caught one on my drop-shot as soon as it hit the water. After that I picked up my Lucky Craft Gunfish, a bait I have never caught a fish on, and started catching a few fish. They stopped busting the shad, but I still caught them all day in the choppy water. I also caught a few on a jerkbait, but the topwater was the key. It went against everything people say about topwater fishing: it has to be warm, it has to be calm and it's best in the morning.
I ended the day with 11.27 pounds and had the big bass at 2.97 pounds. It turned out to be a very tough day for the rest of the club as 2nd place was 9 pounds and after that it dropped all the way down to 2 pounds. Everyone was shocked to find out I caught my fish on topwater on a day like today. I went against common thinking and followed what the fish gave me and it worked.
4 comments:
Good Job!!!
Who ever told you it must be calm for there to be a topwater bite needs to get a clue. A topwater bite is often best early and late in the day, but I think that is more of a summer thing and even then it doesn't always hold true. Generally cold and cooling water is bad for topwater, but was that really your situation. What have the water temps been the last 4 days? I thought it was warm to hot in FL the past couple of days.
The water temps have been in the 50's all week, which is very cold for Florida. The air temps are finally getting back into the 70's and the water should start warming soon.
I see from BassFan that Chris Lane got some of his final day fish on topwater at the Big O Open.
I saw that too. My experience here in FL has been that they will eat a topwater frog like the Cane Toad or Horny Toad in almost any conditions. He won the Open 4 years ago doing the same thing.
Post a Comment