Summer Patterns

FryDog62 wrote:

We’re you metro area or up North?

About 45 mins north near Princeton. It’s possible the incoming weather change turned them on too.

Nice fish gimruis. What kind of chatter baits are good, brand and weight? I’m just starting to fish more for bass when the walleyes get slow.

G-what if you had thrown a spinner where you had thrown the chatterbait? I have c. baits but I always fall back on the spinner. BTW nice catch

Netguy wrote:

Nice fish gimruis. What kind of chatter baits are good, brand and weight? I’m just starting to fish more for bass when the walleyes get slow.

I like Zman models. The elite version and the jack hammer. The elite is about half the cost but just as effective. The strike king thunder cricket is also a good one. 3/8 or 1/2 ounce. The 1/2 ounce runs a little deeper.

tim hurley wrote:

G-what if you had thrown a spinner where you had thrown the chatterbait? I have c. baits but I always fall back on the spinner. BTW nice catch

I use spinner baits too. The nice thing about a chatter is that you can fish it slower and deeper. I don’t usually put a plastic trailer on a spinner bait but I always have a trailer on a chatter. There are some pressured waters where fish have seen too many chatter baits now. So in that case going to a spinner bait often works better.

Thanks G

Thanks gimruis

Experiment with plastic trailers on them too. Virtually any plastic with some kind of tail will work as long as it doesn’t inhibit the action of the chatter bait itself.

Pike like them too…so watch out for bite offs or shredding of the plastic trailer and skirt.

Rough weekend for me yesterday one good outing 10 bass all deep and on ned rigs yet. Another lake got zero the smoke smell was so bad I had to leave today wife and I missed 3 bass nothing on sonar on deep weed edges so tried the shallows very weedy but still came home with zero. Oh well makes you appreciate the good days.

Tough and Strange weekend of fishing here for me in our area. It seems like the switch to the fall pattern is happening a little earlier than normal this year. On some lakes anyway. Got out Sat. knowing the wind was going to make things difficult. Kind of rigged and planed on fishing more moving baits and much shallower than we do for the summer patterns. Started out checking some of the normal deeper weed edge areas with Jigworms and dropshots while the wind was not a issue. Started catching fish right away. fished this pattern for a 1.5 hrs or so before the wind made it difficult to keep fishing this way. Switched to the moving baits and tried more of the traditional fall shallower water areas and got almost nothing. Tried to move back out to deeper water and fish Crankbaits and slow rolled spinnerbaits. Got almost nothing. The wind did not help I’m sure. On Sunday it looked like were were going to have a short morning window where the wind was going to be really light. We went out to what has been our best lake this summer thinking maybe the deeper water bite may still be going out there. We checked all the best spots and caught almost nothing on Jigworms and dropshots. Decided to switch up and move shallow and throw moving baits ( Rattletraps, shallow crankbaits, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, and chatterbaits ) Sure enough that was where the fish were. They really seemed to prefer the chatterbait over everything else. Sadly the pike where there with them and chomping like crazy. The chatterbait supply took a massive hit. The strange thing about this lake is all summer we catch a good amount of bigger fish ( 18-21″ ) but in the spring and Fall we catch very few. Long story short it looks like on some lakes the pattern has switch and on other it has not. As always I think a lot of it depends on the weeds. If there are still good healthy green looking weeds out deeper, the summer pattern will last a little longer. If not they are moving towards more of their normal fall patterns. I’m not sure how much more I will get out prior to our Canadian Pike trip ( Sept. 3rd -11th ) By the time we get back from that I’m sure it will be all Fall pattern fishing.

Good luck out there everyone and keep chasing them !!!

fishthumper wrote:

Sadly the pike where there with them and chomping like crazy. The chatterbait supply took a massive hit.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens!

gimruis wrote:

Don’t you just hate it when that happens!

I normally just consider it a cost of having fun. But yesterday was by far worst day of lure loss to toothy critters in a long time. Of course my fishing partner has never purchased a chatterbait in his life and ended up getting bite off 3-4 times in addition to mine. A few $.50 jigheads is one thing. A handful + of $4.00-5.00 chatterbaits is a whole different matter. The real painful part is locating a supply of replacement chatterbaits locally this time of the year.

fishthumper wrote:

I normally just consider it a cost of having fun. But yesterday was by far worst day of lure loss to toothy critters in a long time. Of course my fishing partner has never purchased a chatterbait in his life and ended up getting bite off 3-4 times in addition to mine. A few $.50 jigheads is one thing. A handful + of $4.00-5.00 chatterbaits is a whole different matter. The real painful part is locating a supply of replacement chatterbaits locally this time of the year.

Lol its not funny when it happens to you but its kinda funny when it happens to the other guy in your boat…unless he’s using your lures!

The wind this past weekend forced me to cast moving baits as well, but I do like using them anyway. Crankabits running 7-10ft on the weed edges or over shorter weeds was better than chatterbaits for me. I know earlier in the year you guys had mentioned bass being schooled up, then they dispersed. This past few days most of the fish I caught were in small schools.

Regarding the topic of getting bit off, which another guy started a thread on; for those of you who are losing lures, what kind of line are you using? I use 40lb braid for chatter and spinnerbaits and I can’t remember the last time I got bit off. I use 12lb mono for crankbaits and I don’t think that I’ve got bit off yet this year (knock on wood). I always check the line after a pike, and after catching a handful of bass. But come to think of it, I haven’t caught all that many pike this year which has been unusual.

blank wrote:

I use 40lb braid for chatter and spinnerbaits and I can’t remember the last time I got bit off.

I’ve been bit off using 40 pound braid before. Happened several weeks ago, in fact. I was using 30 before, and upped it to 40. Still didn’t prevent a bite off. Now I use seaguar blue label leader material and haven’t been snipped off since.

Been there!

I did find a new favorite chatterbait trailer. The Blade Minnow by Strike King. Great shape for the chatterbait and it has some awesome natural action on it.

https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/strike-king-kvd-perfect-plastics-blade-minnow?searchTerm=strike%20king%20blade%20minnow

I’ve recently started using 15Lb seaguar gold label fluro leaders and until yesterday can say I’ve had vary few biteoffs. Not sure if it was just how aggressive the Pike were or what. I’ve tried fishing chatterbaits tied directly to Braided line, The # of bites went way down. Like almost 2-1. I’m sure you can get away with it in real stained water but in clear water it will really cost you bites. I do think I’m going to play around and make some leaders just for fishing baits this fall. I know there is a old post here when some discussed tying leaders with a real thin steel material. I’m going to have to go back and find it and purchase what’s needed to get some tied up.

As far as Trailers go on Chatterbaits my all time favorite is the Yamamoto Zako. Not sure if they still make them and if so they are not cheap. Lately I’ve been fishing various different paddletails. I’ve also had good luck with larger twistertail grubs.

fishthumper wrote:

As far as Trailers go on Chatterbaits my all time favorite is the Yamamoto Zako. Not sure if they still make them and if so they are not cheap. Lately I’ve been fishing various different paddletails. I’ve also had good luck with larger twistertail grubs.

They still make Zackos

fishthumper wrote:

I’ve tried fishing chatterbaits tied directly to Braided line, The # of bites went way down. Like almost 2-1. I’m sure you can get away with it in real stained water but in clear water it will really cost you bites.

I agree. I used straight braid in very stained water. I know better in clear water. Always use fluoro.

Lotta people like the Zako or the Zman razor shad. The razor shad is far more durable but being made of elaztech it is buoyant and will cause the lure to rise up some in the water.

mahtofire14 wrote:

Been there!

Weren’t you going to do a chatterbait video comparison?!

The frog bite will be picking up soon,too. Had better luck after a slow couple of weeks. Deeper weed lines for me—- Tx Rigged craws and DT-10’s. Drop shot bite has slowed for me. I have yet to find anything a pike can’t through except the steel leader. Good fishing months to come!

Got out just before the rain this morning. 73 degree water temps, on a new West metro lake for me. Got 360 imaging working again and found rock piles in 8-10 fow. Nerd-rig strikes again on lite BFS. Good thing I had 7 lb Sniper though, 6 lb may not have cut it as this was biggest of the year for me at 5.88

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I’m embarrassed, ashamed, and don’t even want to admit it, but I tied on a ned rig today and forced myself to use it. Fighting through the dry heaves I managed to catch five solid bass in about an hour and a half……

As much as I hate it, it catches them when the bite sucks……

mahtofire14 wrote:

I’m embarrassed, ashamed, and don’t even want to admit it, but I tied on a ned rig today and forced myself to use it. Fighting through the dry heaves I managed to catch five solid bass in about an hour and a half……

There may be 12 steps to beating addiction, “admitting” you used the Nerd is only the first one. Don’t feel bad, I only got through 3 steps and fell overboard at “surrender..”

Great fish Fryer.

gimruis wrote:

Great fish Fryer.

Thx, It’s been a dry spell in many ways…

Pudgy gal Fry, must be a beer drinker

I have gone to the NED too lately, used a 10″ Green, Googan curly tail worm on the Ned rig – 5 nice LG”s in about 2 hours on south metro lake wednesday. All hit it while hopping it back. 8-10 FOW off the weedline.
2 strikes on my top water Heddon and 2 catches on 4.5″red/green fleck tube in front of the docks in about 5 FOW. Biggest was in shallow by the docks. Hit the docks from 6:15 am to 8:30 then the deeper weed edge and docks again from 10-10:30
70-73 degree water temp

Hit the north Mississippi on Sunday after the rain. Smallies were good and active. Wanted to try out the big Choppo I picked up, and it was a great purchase. Big smallies were slamming it all day. Buddy was fishing a plastic swim bait and probably should have up-sized. He was getting plenty of fish but mostly dinks. Good day on the river. Rain brought it up a little but still extremely shallow in parts.

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Got out again once this weekend and had another solid day using the ned rig. However the most interesting part was this bass completely destroying a bluegill and then spitting it out again mid air. 20 sec video below and pic.

https://youtube.com/shorts/noP4lfjuTSQ?feature=share

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That’s an awesome “catch” Mahto!