The 1/8oz jig and Erie Darter dropped quietly where the rock and gravel shoreline dropped off abruptly into the dark green contour break…the bright tangerine Sufix line suddenly zipped left and Rich Clarke let out a WHOA as he snapped back on his rod…a long muscular 19 inch post spawn Smallie bored away hard! I saw a big grin from my old football buddy as his light spinning rod bent severely… We were on the Spread Eagle Chain of Lakes in Florence County, WI. The Bass bite is red hot!
The water temps were at 66 degrees and the Smallies were mostly finished spawning… the pattern I found was to target the edges of clean gravel or rock/rubble flats and points, where the lighter gravel edge dropped off into deeper water. The flats were 3-5 feet deep and the break dropped to 9-12 fow. While the fish were hungry they still were in the “finesse’” mode. I had recently been introduced to “Erie Darters” by Poor Boy baits (Indiana). These are really HOT in my area right now! My next cast with a Darter (after CPRing Rich’s bass) was gobbled up by this scrapper!
The bass ripped at our Darters with amazing ferver…we soon lost count of the bass caught and released… I tried other lures just to satisfy my curiosity…the Darters is what they wanted…
Our tackle set up was 6’3" and 6’6" ML ST.Croix rods, 6# HiViz Sufix Elite Mono with 6 foot Floro leaders. We used BFT H20 1/8oz jigs tipped with 3" Erie darters. Colors were Goby and Cucumber Green. Cast out and watch your line! Many times the darters were grabbed on the drop…
We rounded a point and I pitched my Darter alongside a downed tree and something down there really wanted to take it away from me… after a great battle this fat Largemouth came aboard…
The rumbling of an oncoming Thunderstorm sent us scrambling back to the landing…what a super 4 1/2 hours of non stop bass action!
But…as Arnold would say…Veel Be Baak!!!
More pics, including a pic of the Erie Darter plastics we used…
Looks like you got into a good bite Tom, looks like lots of nice fish. Its hard to beat a good solid hit from a smallie.
Went back with (Boga Grip) Al Erickson today…We had some serious boomers go through last night so I wasn’t sure how active the Bass would be.
They just moved a bit deeper but the Erie Darters nabbed several again including a 20.75 incher that pegged my scale right at 5 lbs. We caught the better fish in 7-15 fow…The Boga Grip…BTW…is a very safe and easy way to hold, unhook, and release your catch. I am old fashioned and put a chin lock on them…