Bass Lures

Funny thing I wrote an article about old bass fishing shows the other day, I turned on the TV today to find Al Lindner talking about swimbaits. He was on his new show “Lindner’s Angling Edge,” a TV fishing show that was on the channel Versus at 5:30am. I’m sure it appears later in the day too, I’m gonna have to look it up on the TV guide or something.

Anyways, the fishing show was just great. Al Lindner and his nephew Dan were talking about how deadly swimbaits can be used on smallmouth bass and largemouth bass. Al explained how they have just become popular because they were kind of a secret in the western fishing states. Some pro bass fisherman started using them and other fisherman began to learn of their existence.

Al and Dan were on a lake in southern California, they didn’t say the lake they were fishing on, kind of pisses me off. They were catching a decent amount of bass at the lake, almost one after another with the swimbait. Al suggest if you are to use a swimbait, he recommends using the sizes 3″, 4″, and 5″ swimbaits. At the time they were using the Berkley Powerbait hollow belly swimbait, Berkley Powerbait is great because they scent their lures. Another great thing about swimbaits is they are durable, whether they are soft plastic or hard plastic, the lure lifespan is a lot longer than any other soft plastic bait. The lure is awesome to use on bass all season long, in all different types of environments.

There are a few ways to rig a swimbait. First the Texas rig way, it’s a great rig to throw into a lot of cover such as weeds or rocks because it’s weedless. Second you can have a regular showing of a hook or even use a treble hook. All these different rigs are great and easy to use, but you must figure out how you are going to fish the lure. Whether to twitch it, retrieve it fast, or retrieve it slow. Each lake or river is going to be different. Get the most out of swimbaits with a medium action rod with a baitcasting reel.

It truly was great to see Al Lindner preaching about bass and later Walleye, I haven’t seen him in awhile. Supposedly my Dad said he’s a born again Christian, Al confessed he used to be a drinker. Now at the end of the show he shares some of his religious beliefs, which is great for the kids and even adults, teaches good morals with fishing. Two elements that should be together in everyone’s life. Though the program was pretty short, I can’t wait to see the next one. Going to have to check out the times.

After all these years of bass fishing, the one thing I haven’t tried out is fly fishing. I have tried using a fly on a regular spinning reel and rod, but I’ve heard that’s not the same thing. I remember watching the movie “River Runs Through It” with Brad Pitt, and just seeing the way you have to sway the line back and forth is an art. I’m not sure if I’d be able to do that the first time, I would definitely have to practice a little that is for sure.

It’s seems very intriguing to me though, I want to give it a try. Just not sure what’s a good pole or line to buy for fly fishing. I’m going to have to research it a little, if you can give me some pointers in the comments section I would much appreciate it. There’s quite a few streams and rivers in Michigan, it would be great if I caught a Trout or two.

I was talking to my Dad the other day when I was fishing. I told him how I miss all the bass shows him and I use to watch. Nowadays, I have no clue what time or channel these shows are on. In the past they use to play them back to back on TNN, shows like Roland Martin, Orlando Wilson Fishing Show and Fishing with Bill Dance. In-Fisherman was an awesome show too, man do I miss all of them. I heard the Lindner brothers sold In-Fisherman, I guess they needed the money. If I were them, I would of never sold a great fishing show and company like that, it’s priceless. They must of been offered a lot of money.

I don’t even think there is a TNN on cable anymore, didn’t SPIKE replace it? I did see a fishing show on there called Versus, but it wasn’t as good as any of the shows I listed. If anyone knows of any good bass fishing shows or regular fishing shows in general, please list them down below in the comments section.

I remember when I was little and would get the two bass pros mixed up: Bill Dance and Orlando Wilson. Reason being because they both wore hats with a capital letter on them. Nowadays, I don’t have that problem anymore. Orlando Wilson has the capital “A” hat for Atlanta and Bill Dance as the capital “T” hat for Texas.

I’m going to try and look around to see if I can buy the fishing shows on DVD. Maybe Amazon or Barnes and Noble carry the bass fishing shows.

There’s all types of different ways you can work the Gitzit on smallmouth bass. I kind of like jerking it really fast in the summer time and really slow in the spring and fall. A key point is to keep jigging it right near the boat when you reel up, you definitely don’t want to stop. A lot of the bass will follow the Gitzit right up to the boat and hit it. That’s what happened on my last fishing trip. The smallmouth bass followed the Gitzit right up to the boat, I twitched it a bit and bam!

If you ever get a follow up and the fish disappears, trying doing the figure eight in the water with your lure. Fish just can’t resist that!

There’s something truly unique about the Gitzit I haven’t seen in other jigs or lures. It swims like a wounded fish and wiggles it’s tail to entice that big bass. When my brother first showed me the lure and we used it on lake St. Clair, I just new I had to buy a whole bunch of them. The lure can be hard to find, we try to keep a stock up on our website. But, they come and go really fast. If you can find them on here, you can try Dick’s Sporting Goods or Sports Authority. Those are the only fishing stores that I know of that carries the Gitzit lure.

So if you haven’t bought a few yet, give them a try on your next fishing trip. Smallmouth bass can’t resist them, they are also good on largemouth. I’ve caught quite a few largemouth bass on the lure.

I suggest trying the Gitzit “Mother of all Minnows or the “Bully” or “Paddle” fry sizes. I haven’t tried any of Gitzit’s other jigs yet, but they do look pretty good. I wouldn’t mind trying the “Helpless Size Crappie,” “Hard Time Minnow,” or the “Fat Gitzit Tubes.” The “Helpless Size Crappie” looks prime time man. I bet that would work great on Pike and Bass.

Well I had a decent fishing trip yesterday out on Kent Lake. I finally got my Dad to go, we planed this fishing trip a day ahead. We ended up waking up at 5am and making it out to Kent Lake around 6:30am. It was just set for a perfect day of fishing: no rain, little bit of wind and some sun to get a nice tan.

The first fish was caught by me of course, caught it on a Mepps spinner with a blue flec Berkley Powerbait worm. Wasn’t the biggest of bass, but it was enough to put me on the board ahead of my Dad. After that I ended up changing lures, put on a Gitzit and caught a nice sized smallmouth bass. He fought pretty good just like smallmouth bass do and got him in the boat without any trouble.

At the end of the day, the score came to 5 bass all together. One largemouth bass by my dad on his Norman crankbait. Two largemouth and two smallmouth caught by me. The lure of the day was the Gitzit, the smallmouth bass just loved that lure. It was the first time I ever caught anything on the lure in Kent Lake. I remember one smallmouth followed it up all the way to the boat, then I jerked it a bit and he bit on it. It was just so astounding to see that. It’s a beautiful sight when you get to see a fish bit on your lure in the water. It’s like you go in to immediate shock and you kind of get an adrenaline rush.

My Dad and I had a really fun day of fishing. Though he ended up casting three times into the I-96 bridge with his crankbait and that was all in a row. The third time he snagged the fencing. Just like in Bill Dance bloopers, he tried to unsnag it from the boat and almost fell in the water. I was just cracking up the whole time. He then realized to just bring the boat ashore and unsnag it from above. I guess fishing experiences like that just brings you closer to your Dad, lol. Had a great fishing trip!

My Dad’s largemouth bass, caught off of a Norman crankbait lure. Was of decent size, ended up throwing it back. It’s good to practice catch and release, just like the Bass pro Kevin Van Dam preaches.

Some beautiful aerial shots of Kent Lake. This was on the huron river side of the lake, just beautiful over there. If I was to have a barbecue, I would definitely like to have it on the huron river side in Kensington Park. It’s so quiet and peaceful over there. It was really sad to see the other side of the lake so weed choked, I never seen it that bad before. There was just globs of algae everywhere, I don’t know what you would call it, fungus of some sort.

Kent Lake was just like glass when we first arrived at the lake. The wind eventually picked up a tad bit to make some nice ripples in the water. It turned out to be a perfect beautiful day for bass fishing at Kensington Park.

When my Dad and I arrived at our last fishing outing at Kent Lake in Milford Michigan. We noticed that the one half of the lake was just covered in these algae globs or fungus. Not sure what you call it, but it looked rather harmful to the lake. If it is covering the one half, it surely can cover the other half eventually too. It was quite disturbing to my Dad, he did not like it all.

It’s funny because I was out there about 4 days ago and the algae wasn’t that bad, did the rain make it worse, or did it just grow over time. Really makes me wonder. My Dad thinks this new algae came over on freighters from the sea and eventually made it over to inland lakes such as Kent.

My Dad asked two old timers who have boats over near the wells, they stated “they have never seen this type of algae in the whole life.” Kind of scary!

I just hope it doesn’t hurt the fish spawning or the over all lake in the future. Stuff just doesn’t look healthy. I took some pictures for you fisherman to get a good look at it, they are down below.

I just made a remark on a fishing forum about the pollution that’s going on. A few fisherman knocked me for it, saying the lakes are cleaner than 40 years ago. Well that’s not the case in the Rouge river. Stonycroft Hills Club just had a chemical spill over there that reportedly killed around 400-500 fish. That’s just an estimated people, you never know how many fish have died. It’s really sad hearing stuff like this, makes me wonder what the waterways are going to be like in 10-20 years or so.

The Club stated the spill was an accident, a fungicide used on the golf course leaked from a faulty chemical sprayer. The chemical, Daconil Ultrex Turf Care, reached a storm drain that led to a tributary of the Rouge River.

I just read this in the newspaper!

“Robert McCann, a spokesman for MDEQ, said the fungicide used by Stonycroft contains the chemical Chlorothalonil, which does not pose serious risks for humans in water but is toxic to fish.”

Oh so that makes it alright, what about the fisherman that love to fish out of the river. And who cares about the fish right, it’s just 400 or 500 dead. If those were humans there would be an uproar. But rich people get to keep playing golf on their golf course.

So do you think it’s really polluted in our lakes? I think it may be and that might be having a huge effect on all the fish. I mean I remember when you could catch 50 smallmouth bass in one day out on Kent Lake or Lake St. Clair. It might be taking a toll on the fish. Some people call me nuts and I call them naive, I mean lets sit down for awhile and think about it.

I have read over the years in newspapers where lawn fertilizer has made it’s way into our lakes. PCB levels high from commercial spills. Waste water treatment plants pouring sewage out into the lake when they get overfilled by the rain. Litter by offshore people and boaters. Then there’s all the gas from all the boats. This is just the stuff I though up off the top of my head in the past five minutes. I’m sure there’s a ton of other pollution I have touch based on.

I also know that there’s a pile of trash floating around in the ocean double of the size of Texas. And how about the dead zones in Lake Erie and other inland lakes? Define dead zones! Dead zones are hypoxic (low-oxygen) areas in the world’s oceans, the observed incidences of which have been increasing since oceanographers began noting them in the 1970s. These occur near inhabited coastlines, where aquatic life is most concentrated. Pretty scary huh? Or am I just nuts?

Well I guess we’ll see in 10 or 20 years. I really hope it’s not bad!

Then there’s the dams. I just watched a special on discovery or history channel on these God for saken things. They are killing off all types of species of fish. The Sturgeon and paddle fish maybe extinct in a few years if we’re not careful. And they have been here since prehistoric time, it’s almost like we are a parasite just as Agent Smith described us in the hit movie “The Matrix.” I just typed in the keywords “dead zone” in the google search engine and noticed a ton of Salmon articles coming up also. So it’s affecting that species of fish too. I swear, if we’re not careful we’ll have no fish living in our waterways.

Or am just exaggerating? It’s better to be safe than sorry right? That’s why we should definitely be doing something about these things as a whole.

Though I’ve been kind of partial to mister twisters all my life, I’m thinking about changing to the dark side and trying out a tube jig. I saw a lot of people catching some good size smallmouth bass out on Lake St. Clair with them. One guy actually caught a 8 pound pike with one, kind of average, but I was still surprised to see a Pike bight on a tube jig. This means that the lure works really well on all sort of fish, which I like. I’ve been itching to catch some smallmouth at Kent Lake, but have only caught one this year on a beetle spin. Either they aren’t in this year or I’m just not using the right lure. That’s why I’m willing to try a tube jig.

It’s said a tube jig is to represent the look of a crawfish, though I think otherwise, the bass don’t. The smallmouth bass seem to prefer them, along with the largemouth too.

It’s a pretty simple setup, just use a tungsten jig head and slip the jig under the dress of the tube, snugging it tightlly together, just enough to peek the eye lid through the tube. I remember trying the lure once when I was really young, since then I haven’t used them at all.

Since they are to mock a crawfish, many anglers suggest fishing them on the bottom which I gonna have to try out. Draggin them or bounching them off the bottom. After reading one fishing article about them, I guess I can set them up like a drop shot rig also, which I’m definitely willing to try out also.

I also found some other tips on tube jigs. Since they are hollow, you can douse a small sponge with scent then impregnate the tube with the sponge. Making the fish go wild after the tube jig, it’s said to work really well. Others have said Alka Seltzer works really well too, but I can imagine you could through through that stuff like water.

Next time I’m at Lakeside Fishing Shop in St. Clair Shores Michigan, I’m going to have to buy myself a whole batch of tube jigs. I need to try something else on Kent Lake, the lures I’m using right now aren’t catching any smallmouth bass. Kind of pissed off, the lake is known for smallmouth!

I’ve been looking through quite a few tube jig colors, I came across a few that I like. What do you guys think? I like the pumpkin seed colored tube on the left, might have to give that one a try. I’ve read through a lot of fishing forums and fishing blogs, it seems that the pumpkin seed is a real hot color this year in all the lakes. If you have any suggestions, please don’t hesitate to post them down below in the comments section. Thanks!

Bass Pro Mike Wolfended uses a drop shot rig to catch smallmouth bass on inland lakes, he actually used this setup to win the Federation Nation Eastern Divisional at Lake Simcoe this year. Weighing it at 51 pounds and 11 ounces, he caught some really good size lunker smallmouth. Definitely enough to get my attention, that’s why I tried using this drop shot rig at Kent Lake. But, I had not luck with it on catching any smallmouth bass, I did catch a few largemouth bass on it though. The soft plastic he was using to win the tournament were smelt Berkley Gulp Minnow, 3-inch Berkley Gulp worm or a smoke Strike Zone Slammer. I just love the action you can get out of a drop shot rig, plus it’s kind of weedless. It doesn’t hit bottom, so you never pick up any of that sea weed muck. It also stays level with the fish, so they can see it more easily. Jigs tend to get hidden down in the dirt and muck, where the fish can’t see. It’s a new and pretty good setup for me, definitely going to use it at future fishing trips that’s for sure. Thanks for the tip Mike Wolfended!