Lake St. Clair Spybaiting with Scott Dobson VIDEO

[djkimmel]

Dobber called me Tuesday afternoon to say the weather was looking great for the next day - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - for a bass fishing trip to Lake St. Clair, did I want to do some Spybaiting? Did I? Heck yes!

I prepared my tackle as best I could with the short time available and since I get bored easy I took extra stuff beyond the spybaiting tackle. Just in case...

We got to Lake St. Clair by about 7am thanks to building traffic but plenty early to get on a morning bite. Scott put us on bass right away as I landed my first Lake St. Clair spybait bass on a Spinbait 90 on my 2nd cast! After missing a bite on my first cast!

It was a decent keeper though not big. Scott was trying to figure out how to increase his hooking and landing percentage on the tiny Spinbait hooks, especially big current bass of Lake St. Clair. So he had a bunch of rods and reels - both spinning and casting - rigged up with different pound test line (all fluorocarbon though).

I had two 7 1/2 foot medium light crankbait rods rigged up for the technique. One with 8 lbs. test P-Line HALO and the other with 10 pounds test monofilament, wich I do not recommend for this technique though it works well in shallow water. In deeper water and heavier current the mono line causes the lure to ride up a little quicker in the retrieve. You want it to stay down better as sinking fluorocarbon helps it do.

I was able to compensate somewhat by counting down a little longer or even letting the Spinbait 90 hit bottom in clean spots first before starting a slow steady retrieve.


We moved around the lake a lot looking for more bass to try the technique on, catching bass in a number of places on the technique. This is one of my better bass I caught on the technique on perchy, chartreuse looking color and a flashy bream/perch looking color (the only 2 Spinbaits I have at the moment).

Scott caught over 20 1/2 pounds on his spybaits using about the same colors as me and even using the smaller, original Spinbait 80 in a nice color I forget the name of a few times. He landed several 4 1/2 pounders and lots of 3's with lots of smaller bass.

My best bass was a heavy 3 pounder that I forgot to get a picture of in my efforts to get my lure back out there and catch more while they're feeding! I caught bass as small as 8 inches and one tiny perch even smaller on the technique.

I can see why Scott wanted to improve the odds of hooking and landing bass on the technique. The shallower ones would usually launch into the air as soon as they were hooked. The lure is heavy and compact by comparison making it easier for them to throw it on jumps. The hooks are also small and since lure balance is critical with these lures you can't probably get away with upgrading them to larger hooks.

Here's a little Scott Dobson video action from the day:


Scott did find a combination of line, reel and a medium light crankbait rod that seemed to be the ticket to hooking and landing more bass, and you really, really want to lay into them - to Taco them as Scott said he was told to do (fold the rod right over double on them).

I won't say we were perfect. I, being new to the technique really still, lost almost as many bass as I landed though most of them pulled off not on the jump even. I lost a nice, dark 3+ pounder on one spectacular line of jumps though off a shallow weed patch on a sand flat.

I don't have the technique down very well yet compared. I was told it takes about 6 months of using it to get really good at it and I haven't had as much opportunity as Scott to throw it. He probably caught 3 or 4 bass to my 1 on Spybaiting. He landed a much bigger limit and could have culled a bunch too, but it sure was a beautiful fun day on the water.

We covered lots of water and had a good number of opportunities to land bass though we found some deep cruisers that we couldn't get to bite as well as we could see them compared to how you can get them sometimes to go even when you are sure they can see the boat. But it was fun seeing them and we saw a couple monsters come up and thrash small emerald shiners (we think that's what they were thrashing).

I also had a huge muskie follow up my spybait once and actually take a swipe at it. I could have probably hooked it but having only 2 Spinbaits with me I pulled my lure quickly away when it looked like the muskie was opening its mouth to eat!! Part of me was tempted to let it eat but then we would have had to fight it for 10 minutes or so when we could have been bass fishing instead, so I easily resisted the urge, and that's assuming it didn't lunge and just bite me off!!


I didn't get a picture of it but this is from last year's Michigan Legislative Sportsmen's Caucus outing that Scott helped with when he put State Rep. Andrea LaFontaine on a big catfish on the spybaiting technique.

Scott did not catch just 1, but 2!! BIG catfish during our outing back to back on the spybaiting technique. Both times we thought he had a big muskie on until the fish started rolling and thrashing differently than a muskie does, though the 2nd catfish acted like a big walleye for a moment. Scott also caught a nice walleye on the spybait proving it is a technique that just catches minnow-eating fish period!!

We also threw a few other lures out in the lake at the bass. I threw tubes a little though I only got one bite I missed on them. I caught a few little bass on the Stevie Rig (drop shot worm) and Scott caught a few nices ones on the 'Flanders' (his nickname for a Ned Rig), one nice one on a tube and he resisted the urge to drop shot much because it was a spybaiting day we had planned.

I didn't hammer them completely but I caught enough to make it fun, and really enjoyed my day once again fishing with Scott Dobson, the recent Costa FLW Series Thousand Islands Champion by over 7 pounds leading wire-to-wire! The day culminated with a little dinner at Culvers talking about the day's fishing and listening to Scott's young son tell us about his recent activities.

[djkimmel]

How we would fish the Spinbait 90.

Cast out and count down 1 second for every about 1 1/2 foot drop so that you're just above the bottom. For 12 foot we would count down to about 9000. 1000 2000 3000 etc.

Start a slow steady retrieve while pointing your rod towards the lure. Scott Dobson recommends you stick your rod tip under the surface to help get the Fluorocarbon line down. He used Sunline Sniper among others while I used P-Line HALO.

When you get a strike - could be hard or could feel just like hooking a weed (lots of mine did) - set the hook hard! Taco the rod (fold it over double) and keep pressure on the bass especially if it jumps, which you know smallies often do...

I recommend a quality casting reel with 8 pound test line for the Great Lakes smallmouth bass though the company recommends 5 to 7 pound test line. I recommend a long flexible rod like a medium light crankbait rod to give the bass some cushion hence the really hard hookset.

You shouldn't break your line if you have the drag set right to allow a little slippage on the hook set. You might want to loosen your drag a little bit if you hook a big bass (or other big fish). A quality reel will have a quality drag that works smoothly.

You can try spinning tackle which they recommend and you can even backreel but you want to make sure you don't give the fish leverage or too much ability to flop the dense, compact lure around.

[21XDC]

Great post. I need to add this to my arsenal... We need to get out again before winter arrives.

[djkimmel]

Sure! Sounds good to me!

[dartag]

Great videos.  Espically since I can watch them on my new TV.    Guess that lightning strike that took out our big tv's was a good thing.

[Mojo]

I am sooo gonna move up to 8 lb floro. I have flung / snapped the line on the 6 lb, sending $15 sailing ! And they don't float ... Arg.

Anyhoodles, while fishing with Mark Flick, I learned something very important, don't horse em. Relax. It's so hard in tournament. Thank God for my C15 Razr blank and the awesome drag system on the older FH Stradics. I let em peel line when they want while slow reeling to hold pressure. Man that Rod wears em out!  Eventually I win em up. I'm glad when they stay down, seems the bigger ones do. However, When they rocket to the top immediately, you can only hope they stay on. Anyway - great great post Dan and Scott, keep em coming ! Always like Scotts videos. He's kinda like - great and stuff 

[djkimmel]

Glad you liked it.

[Firefighter Jeff]

   Gonna give em a try Tuesday and Wednesday.  Have fingers crossed ......... could be difficult to reel.  lolololol

[djkimmel]

I'm going to try again on Thursday if the weather holds out.

[Mojo]

How did it go Thursday Dan ?

[djkimmel]

How did it go Thursday Dan ?

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