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Posts: 224
Location: Madison | Hi,
I've just recently started fishing the Madison chain again. Most of the water I had been fishing has pretty decent visibility - at least four or five feet, some much more. Now I feel like I'm fishing in pea soup.
The problem is I don't have confidence in my go-to baits (bulldawgs, sometimes slug-gos) because I feel like the fish just won't make contact with a finesse bait when it can't see the lure. I mean, I know the fish have lateral lines and can feel vibrations, but it just seems to me that I need to throw something that is going to rattle or thump in order to get a decent chance at connecting with fish from any distance. I've had pretty good luck with plastics when the fish are neutral, but that's when the fish can see the baits. In this water - I just haven't thrown them much.
Am I nuts? Just need to throw those baits and have confidence in the fish's ability to find them? Or is my hunch right, and when the visibility of the lake is almost nil, need to throw something else?
Thanks,
-d |
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Posts: 1764
Location: Ogden, Ut | Half of the Bulldawg fish I have gotten this year have been in windblown 'mudlines' with zero or near zero water clarity. Their lateral line sense is much more acute than we as humans (w/o one) give it credit for being. A completely blind muskie, normally considered a 'sight feeder') will feed just fine by using it's other senses. Admittedly, there's a confidence hurdle there, but stick with it for a while, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
K.
Edited by sorenson 10/14/2004 2:24 PM
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| I use to fish dark Canadian water in the 70's and 80's. My best big fish bait was the spinnerbait but a very close second was a Reef Hawg(no rattles - no nothing). There were times when only a small Reef Hawg worked as fast as you could work it was the only way to catch a fish. If they can find and catch a quickly worked 6 inch Reef Hawg in black water, they can catch anything.
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Posts: 5171
| Anything that vibrates loud colors also.I love fishing in these conditions fish will bite also.0723 |
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Posts: 110
Location: NEW LENOX IL | I FISHED WITH A VERY GOOD GUIDE LAST YEAR ON THE MAD CHAIN. HE TOLD ME HIS ALL OUT FAV LURE WAS A BULL DOG. DURING OUR OUTING HE POPED 2 NICE NORTHERNS 40 + AND I GOT A NICE LOW 40s SKI. HE SHOWED ME PICS OF A 6 LB SMALLIE HE GOT ON A DOG ON MONONA. HIS FAV COLORS WERE WALLEYE AND ORANGE SHERBERT.
GOOD LUCK ,KEEP THROWIN EM
DAVE
P.S. A TIP HE SHARED WITH ME WAS ON THE FIG 8 PLUNGE THE BAIT DOWN DEEP THEN RIP IT UP . |
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Posts: 2515
Location: Waukesha & Land O Lakes, WI | Please...please..please...turn "Caps Lock" off. |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Just because it seems to be very poor visibility from the top doesn't necessarily mean that the fish can't see a bait from a few feet away. Really murky water will stillallow good ciontrast up to 3 or 4 feet if the color choice is right. |
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Posts: 600
Location: West Bend, WI | Add a tail gunner to the back of that dawg.This may help ya a bit.  |
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| 0723 - 10/14/2004 3:24 PM
Anything that vibrates loud colors0723
Wonder what this bait could be????  |
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Posts: 5171
| rattlin shad bucktails spinnerbaits
Edited by 0723 10/14/2004 8:14 PM
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| Use anything with vibration such as jointed crank baits, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, and bucktails. The tail action of the Bull Dawg and especially the Magnum Bull Dawg puts off some vibration.  |
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| Bill... for a minute there I thought you were talking about something I have never seen in a bait shop only XXX shops. |
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Posts: 5171
| that would work also how did the reef hawg modification work out .0723 |
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| so far so good |
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Fishing in zero-visibility waters