Sightfishing with poppers

[djkimmel]

I decided to call my Friday morning fishing trips 'Sightfising with Poppers" because that's pretty much what I was doing to catch a lot of the bass I did get. I love sightfishing and visual fishing because it keeps my interest and appeals to my easily distracted, losing patience bad gene!

I only had the morning to fish so I rented a rowboat at little Round Lake near Lansing (fished for about 4 1/2 hours). Because I was out there a few days ago and the panfish were very nervous for cause that time, I went loaded with several topwater lures ready to go.

I was happy to see multiple schools of panfish on top and definite signs of them having good cause to be nervous while they're up to. To make a medium story short I pretty much stuck with on little popper, I think it is a Pradco popper similar to the Sugoi or other higher end poppers but without quite the same price tag (there are lots of pike in Round Lake ). It's got some hologram flake on the belly and a white tail hook feather. It can pop and spit and skitter depending on how you pull on it.

I tried different cadences and will say many of the strikes did come on the pause. On a longer pause near a break where I used distraction to get myself to wait a little longer I had the biggest bass of the day - a little over 3 pounds blast the popper. (I was by myself in the little rowboat so these are all my attempt as 'selfies' )

Big one in the first hour of the morning


This one was nice enough to hit twice on the same cast!
I ended up landing 16 bass with about half being decent keepers but I missed 11 bass! Most of the bass I missed did not hit on the pause, or I committed the sin of distraction and they somehow knew to hit right in that moment so by the time I reacted it was too late. I either caught the same bass or a buddy on a few right away again by throwing back out to the same spot though so that helped my pride!

On one bass I caught on a follow up cast I caught 2 more smaller bass on the next two casts so there was definitely some schooling action going on with bass of mixed sizes getting in on the action!

Most of the largemouth bass I caught were choking on the popper. The lure was either cross-ways in their mouth with lots of hook points set, or they were deep in the throat and I had to use pliers to get at the hooks. Most of the bass were released pretty much unharmed back into the water though a few smaller ones that somehow still managed to choke on the popper required minor surgery to get the lure out.

Lots of bass had the lure solid crossways in their mouth or
deep in the back of the throat!

I was waiting half a second to a second when my attention span was real good before I set the hook after they would blast the popper, and I think that helped with how many solid hook ups I did get of the ones I was ready for. I never found a magic cadence but since I really was 'sightfishing' - throwing right past very nervous schools of panfish on top, or throwing right at bass that had just busted them, that helped a lot in catching how many I did land, plus I think it boosted the number of more decent bass I caught since I would throw to the biggest, most impressive splashes instead of the obviously tinier bass.


Another decent little keeper popper bass from Round Lake
Though... bass being a tricky species, the biggest splash and even the biggest hit wasn't always the better bass! Some surprised me quite a bit, and some were those really great topwater bites we all fish bass for!

Even some of the tinier bass hit pretty impressive. I had one bass shortly after my biggest one that hit nearby and dove into the weeds stripping out a little line. It pulled hard I had a hard time breaking it out of the weeds and then it quit fighting and come in easy only being about 11-12 inches long! I don't know how that little bass fought like a 2 or 3 pounder at first even considering the weeds! But I thanked it for hitting and tossed it back to grow bigger and spread those overachiever genes!

[Mojo]

I am very glad to see you getting out Dan..... And sight fishing with top water is amazing ! Glad you got bit.

[djkimmel]

Thanks Mojo. It helps to get out once or twice a week for sure. And this is a fun way to fish.