I was making the most out of being shut in at my camp. In the same area, often on the same trip, we caught trout, reds, and bass. If you’ve never thrown Paul Brown’s Original suspending jerk bait, you should give it a try. I’ve caught more big fish in the past two weeks than I would have ever thought. The only reason I had that bull red in my boat was to get my bait back. Had it been on a jig, I would have just broken him off and gotten back to fishing for trout. The bass fishing in the same general area is crazy. Fishing heavy grass in water about 3-4 feet deep. MANY times just dropping a lizard right down beside the boat in the grass would work just fine. Grass was too thick to cast. It’s so easy to catch 50+ bass without much effort or time. The limit is 10 per person.
One day when I grow up I want to be Harold Wilcox!![
JW
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Full Pull Charters
Captain Ryan Riggs
843-860-1911
www.fullpullsportfishing.com
Full Pull Charters
Captain Ryan Riggs
843-860-1911
www.fullpullsportfishing.com
George,
Yes, it’s a lot of brackish water. Whenever I pull up to a spot like that, before I start fishing I taste the water. I prefer high salinity, especially for trout, but they don’t seem to mind lower salinity. I guess the freshwater I’m tasting is on the surface and the saltier water is down below, but most of those big trout were caught on topwater or suspending jerk baits, so there goes my theory about their being below that fresh tasting water.
That is a Vudu Vixen by Egret Bait Co. I know there are hundreds if not thousands of such plastic baits, but the Vudu Vixen has some unique qualities that make it my go to bait and overall favorite. For instance, as you can see, the plastic is molded onto the lead head jig. That’s important because the bait is much more aerodynamic than many other plastics. I can cast it farther and cover more water. It’s also virtually indestructible. Last summer during one stretch, I caught 55 trout and 13 ladyfish on the same bait…and it still looked new. That toughness is nice when I’m trying to get a bait out of a fishes mouth, especially when I’m wade fishing. With most plastics, I have to be careful not to grab the plastic with my needle nose pliers or I’ll tear it up. With the Vudu Vixen, I can just grab the bait with the pliers and jerk it out. The bait remains unscathed. A more subtle but important feature that I like is the tight wiggle of its tail. Because of the consistency of the plastic, the tail has a wiggle that you can feel every time you raise your rod tip…like when I’m bouncing it off the bottom. It reminds me of slow rolling a spinner bait with a Colorado blade when I can feel the thump, thump, thump of that blade. I’m thinking/hoping that fish can sense that thumping and are drawn to it to investigate. As I said, there are many other good baits that I’ve caught fish on, but the aforementioned features are really appealing to me.