summer patterns

Decided to hit Waconia this morning, caught 15 in 3 hours. Water temps were 77-78.

Better fish came off of isolated grass/weed clumps outside of the deep weed edge. Was using a 4” pit boss, also caught a decent one on a 3/4 oz jig, had some bites on the Ozark rig with 10” worm but they seemed to like the faster falling baits today.

Then I went and fished shallow shade lines and boat docks. Caught several on a weightless zoom super fluke. Saw a big musky (45-50”) casually swim by, I watched it for quite a while.

Then got off as the lake traffic was starting to pick up.

Friday we went to our deeper lake wife and I got 35 bass mostly 2-3#. All on Ned’s. However we tried using some Z man Jerkshads. Man they loved those on the pop/lift up. All on a 20 foot inside weed edge. Saturday mid morning still a threat of rain went to another lake wife 0 I got 2 smaller pike and one real nice smallmouth bass on scattered weeds 12 FOW. Got hot and I started feeling the heat so we left. Sunday attempted to just fish from piers we didn’t make it long way to hot for this boy. Heatstroke as kid on the farm never got over it. Glad to hear others did quite well.

After a few poor outings, things turned back for the better this last weekend. Had successful outings both Sat. and Sunday. Sat. fishing prior to the storm and while storming we did rather well. Same baits as most of the summer. Neko rig for me and Jigworm for my partner with a few jig and pig fish and dropshot fish mixed in. The fish we found this weekend were all grouped up in rather large schools. Fished 3 spots on Sat. and at each spot, we spotlocked down for a long time each spot. Probably caught 60 + fish from those 3 spots. Storm chased us off the lake by 7:30am. after sitting in the lot in the truck for about 45 minutes we dropped back in and fished for a few more hours in the rain. The bite prior to the storm was great and didn’t seem to let up much during. Here are a few pictures from the day. The double picture is a 18’+ and a 21″ fish that my partner and I doubled up on at the same time. Decided to snap a quick double shot. The other picture was just prior to the storm and was a healthy 19″ fish. The cloud picture was of the approaching storm. It was way worse than the picture looked.

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Nice work!

Anyone on here tried the whole Chick Jig / Minnesota Mullet Jig thing yet? Been thinking about getting a few and giving it a try. Those things are rather pricy. If I got into it I’d probably need to start tying my own to cut cost. Looks like they cost around 15.00 – 17.00 each. I will for sure need to either fish them on a heavier Fluro leader or possibly even a steel leader. Getting 4-5 of them bite off by pike in a day would hurt a little. I hear from some that they are a excellent bait to follow behind others with or to use after a spot seems to turn off on the baits you have been using. Something the fish probably have not seen many of. I also hear they are a excellent big fish bait. For those of you who are using them. Where, when, and How is the best way to fish them? They seem really heavy but I’m told with their design they still fall rather slow. Hard to believe a 3/4 oz jig could have a slow fall rate. Looking forward to hearing what your experiences are with them.

I have not, but one of my fishing buddies always has a huge hair jig tied on. I haven’t seen him hook anything with it this year but I think it will work in the right situation.

Theres a pretty good video on youtube that seth feider shows what he does with them. Never tried it but seems pretty neat.

Youbetcha wrote:

Theres a pretty good video on youtube that seth feider shows what he does with them. Never tried it but seems pretty neat.

I think I just watched that one. An interesting comment Seth made was something like: you could also throw a big swimbait (6+ inches is what I took from it). I’d lean more towards the swimbait but that is purely a confidence thing.

I’ve been throwing the preacher/chicken jigs for several years now. Like any other lure, when they’re working you can load the boat. Had a good example of this at a club tournament last month. This was on a lake just out of the metro that has had several tourneys this year; in fact, there was a 45 boat tourney there the day before that was won with 16 pounds. We have a 24 year old phenom in our club that won the tournament with 21.56 pounds and big bass of 5.81 pounds. He was mostly fishing one of the rock basins in the lake in 14-18 feet of water. Oh, and 2nd place was 13.4 pounds, so he kicked everyone’s backside. His technique is to let it hit the bottom, then pick it up and slowly retrieve it right off the bottom. I went over to talk to him at the weigh-in; he had 6 rods all rigged with chicken jigs in 6 different colors. I have a couple of rods set up for chicken jigs, but not 6. All I use, and all he uses, is the 3/4 ounce version. I check my rate of fall with Livescope, then just count down for all other casts. A clean rock bottom seems to work the best, i.e. no grass or very scattered clumps. I use 17 lb. fluorocarbon with a 5″ long 18 lb. test steel leader. In most cases, you will feel a tick, not a slam like a chatterbait or jig bite, as they tend to grab it and swim off with it. If you wanna get serious about this, go out and get several different colors. I carry 6-8 colors with me in the boat and keep switching up. Northland Tackle, Outkast and Talon Preacher jigs are my favorites. Plan on spending a lot of time learning the technique and don’t be afraid to experiment.

I may have to snag a couple and give it a try. I have found a ton of weed/rock edges in that depth range. Cranks seem to not be working well for me.

Ford Guy 1 wrote:

I’ve been throwing the preacher/chicken jigs for several years now. Like any other lure, when they’re working you can load the boat. Had a good example of this at a club tournament last month. This was on a lake just out of the metro that has had several tourneys this year; in fact, there was a 45 boat tourney there the day before that was won with 16 pounds. We have a 24 year old phenom in our club that won the tournament with 21.56 pounds and big <em class=”ido-tag-em”>bass of 5.81 pounds. He was mostly fishing one of the rock basins in the lake in 14-18 feet of water. Oh, and 2nd place was 13.4 pounds, so he kicked everyone’s backside. His technique is to let it hit the bottom, then pick it up and slowly retrieve it right off the bottom. I went over to talk to him at the weigh-in; he had 6 rods all rigged with chicken jigs in 6 different colors. I have a couple of rods set up for chicken jigs, but not 6. All I use, and all he uses, is the 3/4 ounce version. I check my rate of fall with Livescope, then just count down for all other casts. A clean rock bottom seems to work the best, i.e. no grass or very scattered clumps. I use 17 lb. fluorocarbon with a 5″ long 18 lb. test steel leader. In most cases, you will feel a tick, not a slam like a chatterbait or jig bite, as they tend to grab it and swim off with it. If you wanna get serious about this, go out and get several different colors. I carry 6-8 colors with me in the boat and keep switching up. Northland Tackle, Outkast and Talon Preacher jigs are my favorites. Plan on spending a lot of time learning the technique and don’t be afraid to experiment.

Ford Guy. If you were going to pick 2 colors to start with what would you go with. I was thinking white and something in a bluegill pattern. Someone said the outkast version has changed lately. Have you noticed that? I knew the original owner rather well. He was a member of our Bass Club and I fished a fair amount of tourneys with him. What would you say the average fall rate of these jigs are? For Example, how long would it take to hit the bottom in 20 Ft of water?

This one is not that long but dang, so fat

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tim hurley wrote:

This one is not that long but dang, so fat

That one has not been missing many meals. We have been catching some real chunks lately as well. They really seem to be feeding well lately.

I’ve been throwing chicken jigs for a couple years now and tie my own, too. I’ve caught some nice fish with them but nothing too crazy. Like everything else though, it has a time and a place. My average size tends to be a little better on a chicken, but I still catch plenty of small fish. There are some guys that do really well with them, but a lot of that comes down to them refusing to throw anything else.

In my experience color really doesn’t matter. There will be days where you catch a couple more on one vs another, but it’s really just a confidence thing. My favorite is personally a green pumpkin over white color, which (to my knowledge) no major retailer carries. If you were going to start with any color, though, go with white. Works in every color of water and condition.

It seems to be getting a lot of hype nowadays, but like everything else will die down in a few years. Northland is pushing their version hard and they sponsor a lot of bass guys in the state, so I’ve seen that mullet just about everywhere.

Thumper, you’re spot on regarding the color choices. I’ve attached a photo (hopefully) that shows some of the colors I use. Contrary to a previous post, color does matter at times. The guy that won our tourney was cycling through 6 colors and caught the most fish on a white/chartreuse. And that was after spending a lot of time throwing DT-16 and DT-20 cranks and Carolina rigs on the same spot.

Regarding the change in Outkast chicken jigs, the only difference I can see is in the head design. Some of the manufacturers found out their version would roll over on its side after hitting the bottom, so they switched to a style that would stand up.

For actual fall rates in feet per second, I can’t say with certainty. My countdown times would be different than everyone else’s, but a guesstimate would be about 2 feet per second with a 3/4 ounce head. But, I use a lot of Talon jigs which have a thinner body. I’ll be out fishing it tomorrow morning, so I’ll put my engineering hat back on and see if I can narrow it down for you.

In regards to this being a fad, I don’t think that’s the case at all. I used to fish a lot of tournaments on Kentucky Lake in the mid to late 90’s when we still lived in Memphis. It’s taken a long time to make its way up here, but has been around since the 80’s.

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Sorry, Thumper, I forgot about the colors and manufacturers in the picture.

On the left is the crappie color from Northland, top center is the perch color from Northland, center middle is the green bluegill from Northland, bottom center is the bluegill from Outkast and on the right is the white/chartreuse from Outkast that won the tournament.

Thanks for the info. Ford guy. I had heard that OutKast had changed the material and cut back on the amount of actual feathers used due to a sourcing issue and it changed the fall rate of the jig a fair amount. Not sure if that is true or not.if a jig falls that slow with that heavy of weight then the material really does slow the fall rate a lot. I would think a 3/4 oz football jig would fall at 5 ft per second rate if not possibly faster. I was having a hard time thinking how a jig that size could be fished higher in the water column, like possibly over some higher weeds. I’d think you would need to hold the rod tip high and rather fast to keep it above and out of the weeds. I’m now thinking this would need to mostly fished in open water rock or hard bottom areas a fair distance away from weed edges. Or if close to weeds fished rather fast.

Ford guy. Why the 3/4 oz over the 1/2 oz? I’d think the slower fall rate of the 1/2 would be the better option. But I seem to hear most fish the 3/4 oz side. Just curious of the thought / reason why.

For me and several other guys that fish it, it’s to be able to keep the jig on or near the bottom. You can vary the retrieve speed more and still be in the strike zone. I do actually have lighter models, I think one is even 3/8th Oz. Another great thing about Livescope is watching what your lure is doing during the retrieve. That will really show you how much running depth is affected by speeding up or slowing down how fast you’re cranking. Where I used to think my lure was still close to the bottom, I can now see it may be 4-5 feet higher. You’ve seen it plenty of times, when the adrenaline is pumping you’ll tend to crank like there’s no tomorrow! But definitely try other weights, that’s the fun part of using a new technique.

Ford Guy – Once again thanks for all of the Info. I’ve got a supply of Minnesota Mullets on the way. Got a buddy who’s on their pro-staff and he’s got some headed my way today. Hope to give them a try this weekend.

Ah yes Chicken Jig,

They also work great with Walleys on Gull.

I haven’t much success with either of them, I know they have there time or place but I need to throw it around a bit more.

Was not sure if my buddies shipment of Mullet Jigs would get here prior to this weekend, so stopped at Scheels here in Saint Clout and picked up a few to be sure to have some to try on this weekends outings. Looking forward giving them a try.

Thorne has the chicken jigs on sale 25% off. I grabbed three of the 3/4 oz to give it a go

Got my shipment from my buddy. He really hooked me up. I now have 12 of the Minnesota Mullets in various sizes. Looking forward to giving them a try this weekend. I will report back on how it goes and what my thoughts are on them. Dry, they sure are a monster looking jig. now I know why its so easy to spot people fishing them from a far distance away.

Ran into this guy musky fishing last night. Little bigger than one of those jigs too.

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Youbetcha wrote:

Ran into this guy musky fishing last night. Little bigger than one of those jigs too.

Ya some of the biggest bass I’ve caught are from when I use to Musky fish. Almost no bait is to big for a hungry Bass. I have to pick up a few of those Beaver baits to try this Fall in Canada for the big pike. They sure are a ugly/Odd looking bait.

Had good outing on Sat. The main school of fish were right where they were last weekend. After both my buddy and I had each caught 2 fish rather quickly I decided it was an ideal place to try out the chicken hair jig. 1st cast with it I caught a 18.5” fat fish. I only managed to catch 3 fish on it for the morning but all 3 of them were over 18”. So it does indeed catch mostly bigger fish. The other thing I noticed was how aggressive the hit is on it. The 3 I caught all hammered it. It is a situation and location bait for sure. It would really work great out on open water rocks. It also will work when the fish seem to be roaming a fair distance off the weedline. It does struggle in and around much weeds as I have expected it would. For sure a bait I will have tied on fairly often in the summer months into the fall.still catching most my fish on a Neko rig. It seems to have become my #1 summer time bait these days.

Fishthumper,
what is your preferred plastic for a Neko rig?
It has been my presentation of choice this summer as well. For plastic I have been using yum dingers. For weight I have been using a 3/4” tech screw. Been wondering if I should drop down in weight. Not sure how much they weight.

Michael Best wrote:

Fishthumper,
what is your preferred plastic for a Neko rig?
It has been my presentation of choice this summer as well. For plastic I have been using yum dingers. For weight I have been using a 3/4” tech screw. Been wondering if I should drop down in weight. Not sure how much they weight.

Go as light as you can while still being able to get to bottom fast enough. Yum dingers are great due to how cheap they are.

I think the yum ones are generally a little more durable too. Yamamoto has an ideal fall rate if you fish them weightless but they lack durability.

I also use the BPS stick-o and kalin’s wacko stick baits.