Shaky Head Bass Fishing Report

I headed down to Burchard Lake early Saturday morning for a local club tournament. We started early to beat the heat and most anglers reported good fishing.

First let me apologize for my photos this time. I’m alone most of the time and use a tripod. For whatever reason this outing my photos didn’t turn out as good as I had hoped.

We hit the water about 5:15. I headed to my hot spot and started with a buzz bait. I was throwing this in about 3 to 12 feet of water above some submerged cedars. After about 20 minutes with no hits I dropped the buzzbait and pick up a shallow crankbait. I was throwing Lucky Craft SKT Mini in the chartreuse w/black back. I made sure to bump these cedars the best I could each retrieve. After a few casts I hooked up with a 19.5" bass around 6:05am. About 15 minutes later I hooked up with a 18.25" bass. I had also been alternating between the crank and a Venom Hollow Hog on a Carolina Rig. Around 6:40 I hooked up with a 16.5" bass on the Carolina rig. Then it seemed the bite kind of shut off for me.

Next I headed to the dam. A week earlier I came across a sweet spot on the dam that was holding a school of bass ranging from 12" to 21". I continued to toss the crankbait along the dam with no bites. After I fished the entire length of the dam I turned the boat into the wind and headed to the sweet spot mentioned earlier. I pulled out a spinning combo with a Venom Hot Rod rigged on a Venom Shakee Head jig. It wasn’t long before my first bite. Around 8:05 I caught this 17.5" bass. The breeze had picked up between 5 to 10 mph. Therefore I fished straight into the wind just to be able to keep the light jig on the bottom. Detecting the bite was also tough at times. About 5 minutes later I missed a nice bite. The next cast I got another bite and set the hook. I brought the fish about 3/4 of the way to the boat when it cam off. It appeared to be about 16". About 10 minutes later I caught another bass about 16.5". Then the next cast a had another bass on the came off. It to appeared to be about the same size. All of those fish were on my Shaky head variation with the Venom Hot Rod. After about half an hour of solid action things kind of slowed down for me.

I finished the day in 3rd place with my best 5 bass weighing 16.3lbs. 1st was 17.4lbs and 2nd was about 16.5lbs. Most anglers had a pretty good morning. We fish until noon and the heat was already up to 95 degree with high humidity. I know the 1st place angler said he couldn’t fish shallow enough. He reported the majority of his bass on a spinner bait or chatterbait in less than 3 feet of water. 2nd place caught his biggest bass on a buzzbait shallow early then switched to a spinnerbait for the rest of his bass. Big bass of the tournament was 19.75".

To add to my report I took out our local outdoor writer a week ago. The sweet spot mentioned earlier on the dam is where most of our action took place. It goes on to explain a little more in-depth what I was doing with my shaky head variation. The feature ran in the Sunday paper. Here is a link to the online version of that article.

Shaky Head Article in the Journal Star