u/DismalResearcher6546

Alright guys. Fished a new spot for 6 hours today. It was gorgeous. Just one of those beautiful, wild spots out in the middle of nowhere where I didn’t see another soul all day but the water was tough to figure out.

Hydrilla throughout the entirety of this floodwater. I floated around and found a couple deeper cuts that were fish highways. Lost two at the boat lol that’s just bad luck. It happens. I did manage to get one crappie in and there was something massive pushing around one little spot I’ll post a pic of in the comments.

Weedless weightless senko (which of course I forgot 45 minutes away at the house) is how I plan to pick this apart next time. Didn’t get any interest at all from a snagproof spook and managed a few hookups floating live bait in on a bobber, but that was salad city even set at just a couple inches deep.

TLDR; How are you fishing an entire body of water that looks like this?

Okay yall. I was here last week asking how to fish a snaggy river. The general consensus was: Santee Cooper Rig with egg weights. So here’s the dilemma. We’ve both already snapped off with those in the first 10 minutes. I literally have no idea where to go from here. I know there are fish here but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to keep a bait in the water and out of the rocks and submerged trees long enough to catch them. 4 foot gar floated up right in front of our feet a couple minutes ago just to laugh at us. Please tell me what to try next. Literally on the water as I’m posting this and I’m about to just float a bobber and see what happens.

Old vid for attention.

All of these came out of a pond. I don’t seem to have any trouble catching cats out of ponds and lakes, but in my river? I’ve caught some but I wouldn’t consider myself successful.

Finding a spot on the river where I’m not just getting snagged every cast is a nightmare. I’ll tie a breakaway sinker on so that I can atleast usually get the hook back, but I’m positive there has to be a better way to do it than what I’m doing.

I’d like to catch one good-sized flathead but as a general rule I’ve caught one flathead, several blues, and lots of channels and even a bowfin once out of my river.

It’s completely full of downed trees. Last night we had to break off twice from getting snagged on logs that were being pushed downriver.

TLDR; what rigs should I be trying to use in a fairly large, muddy, very timber-ridden tributary of the Mississippi or even on the Mississippi itself if that might be more beneficial to my success?

First crappie on the fly boys!🪽and a little bonus bluegigi

Yeah yeah I know she’s dirty. It wasn’t from flopping around on the ground. I saw her coasting between floating pondweed and grass, so I ripped off my weedless rigged senko, hooked it wacky, and dropped it right in front of her face. Got to watch her gobble it up! Sight casted in 8” of water and horsed her out of the muck. Proud moment as an angler adjusting on the fly like that and getting it done.

I used to throw buzzbaits all the time, maybe ten years ago? Once I got the spook action down, it just seemed like a more fun topwater technique to me so I stuck primarily to those. This winter, I bought some higher quality buzz baits than anything I had used in the past. Still, I had 3 blowups tonight and this was the only fish to show for it. I know I didn’t set the hook too soon, because I dropped the rod tip and waited for a pull, only to realize the bass never had the buzzbait in its mouth to begin with. 66.7% of the time tonight, the bass missed my lure. I wasn’t burning them 100 mph. I was bringing it in as slowly as I could while getting the buzz action on the water. I’m pretty confident I was doing everything right, but still, 1 for 3 doesn’t exactly seem like an acceptable hookup ratio to me. I’ve only thrown buzzbaits 3 days this spring but this is my first bass this year on one. I haven’t kept track with the spooks but I know it’s not as bad as this- I will try to remember to keep count next time I throw a spook. I know there are some diehard buzzbait fans in here. Are you guys just not catching fish on ~70% of the blowups you see?

TLDR; is the hookup ratio on a buzzbait just awful and is this expected or am I just having a weird spring?

This is the 10,000 Fish Yoto worm. I know it’s discontinued.

I know bellows gills are similar.

There are some other knock-offs, but nothing in this color pattern. This exact bait, in this exact color, was my all-time favorite Chatterbait trailer. As far as color and style goes, is there anything just like this out there anymore?

Yeah okay I’m hooked. I’ve bass fished well over 20 years now and I don’t know the last time I had so much fun reeling one in. I’ve been converted to the fly!