Blades has been a bait/technique that myself and my fishing buddy Ryan have been wanting to learn for a long time. Well that time came this last weekend down at Everts resort; knowing the MTT was in full swing during the day we stayed around the camp ground talking techniques and presentation on these crazy things called “blades.”
After talking to many people and learning various techniques and tricks, we ventured out on the river about 9pm Saturday night with a handful of blades and a determination to fish them until sunup.
A couple things to think about when pitching blades.
Size – Do I have a heavy enough blade on to hit the bottom? Or I am in the strike zone for a limited time and my blade is getting swept downstream?
Color – I would normally say that color isn’t a huge determination when fishing a reaction bite, but color did matter for us; keep changing until you find the right color to trigger a bite.
Snaps – We used a snap with every blade we pitched, we also tried to tie straight to the blade, but it created less vibration during the retrieval so we switched back.
100 Different Holes on the blades, which one do I snap to? – The question we never asked before going out – well – here is what we found: We had our best success hooking the blade with the snap so the front of the blade pointed down, which was usually the middle hole.
Presentation – Most everyone we talked to down at Everts instructed us to work these blades slow, almost as if you were pitching plastics to the shore line, just a quick raise until you can feel a slight vibration, and slow back down to the bottom. Rinse and repeat.
Now back to the fishing – 9PM Saturday night, little to no wind, 2 other boats on the river, and we venture up to a spot we had success in last April with plastics and start pitching blades.
I can tell you the first hour was the most frustrating thing of my life. Blades in trees, blades on the shore, blades hooked to branches, blades that didn’t vibrate, and blades that caught every dang thing underwater possible.
HOW THE HECK DO I FISH THESE??
Frustrated, Ryan sees me taking off my blade and reminds me that we are fishing these until sunup; I reluctantly put it back on.
Finally I am getting the hang of these things (don’t cast them onto shore first of all). Cast as close to shore as possible, slow lift from the start, reel, slow lift, reel, etc. Don’t let this dang blade pick up all the grass on the way in – then it happens as I lift the blade up, it flutters down and BAM fish on. It was like a light switch turning on in my head, “That’s how you fish them!”
I am proud to say that my first ever fish on a blade was a 28.5 walleye that ran roughly 11 pounds and put up an amazing fight!
The next 8 hours we fished blades with ease and put a ton of fish in the boat. Purple with a white belly was our blade of choice until we ran out. Then I changed over to a chartreuse blade and got slammed on my first cast. Ryan was able to save his purple and use it most of the night with success.
Now the crazy thing about blades is they have 2 treble hooks and you would think that any fish that hit a blade would be hooked up, this is untrue. We missed at least 10 other walleye that would smash the blade and somehow come unhooked. I know many of you are thinking these could have been carp, which some of them were, but we had a, well what we believe to be, a 12 pound plus walleye come unbuttoned when he surfaced, rolled, and popped the hook, what a heart breaker!
Enough with the walleyes – lets talk about this amazing mirror carp pictured to the left. This mirror carp hit a purple blade right around midnight (not snagged, blade was in its mouth) and was an awesome site to see come top side.
The name “Mirror Carp” originates from their scales’ resemblance to mirrors. Most commonly found in the United Kingdom and Europe, the mirror carp can grow in excess of 60 pounds.
The current world record mirror carp weighs in at a hefty 92lbs!
Supposedly, their lack of scales is widely believed to be bred in by monks in order to make the fish easier to prepare for the table.