Cut Bait

Fishing this morning in the cold windy conditions of Lake Lanier. Wind was at about 14 mph and the air temp was in the 40s.

Using trout on free lines first, meaning I just rigged up the trout on the hook and let it swim, well it tuckered out and died. So, I decided to cut it up into sections and use it for cut bait on the bottom.

For this I used my 1/2 oz Carolina rig setup for bass that I bought from Cabelas a while back. Thought this would be ok for weighting purposes. I tied that into the main line and then a 2 ft leader of my main line along with a 4/0 circle hook on the end with a sliced section of trout.

Let the bait sit after casting it a long distance and letting it fall a good 15 to 20 feet.

Well it wasn't a striper that picked it up and made my line strip off my reel it was this big catfish! Enjoy the pictures.

Getting Cold Outside

Well, it's December and the bass are getting ready to hit the Winter patterns. Right now they are still chasing baitfish but seem to be holding very shallow on rock. 

Today was a rainy day with winds from the West and dropping barometer. Great conditions for feeding bass. Didn't much like getting wet but I had on my insulated goretex Team Triton jacket so no problem with that.

Using a Rapala Husky Jerk 10 in a Tennessee shad color. It has 3 quality mustad number 4 treble hooks to help it suspend right where it needs to for the kill. I casted this one out on my 7' Berkley Lightning Rod on 8 lb test Berkley Solutions monofilament spooled on a Shimano 2500 spinning reel. 

I casted out around a rip rap wall where the park had built for people to walk next to the lake and view the scenery. I reeled it in causing it to dive down and let it sit for a few seconds. Then, I jerked it to make it rip through the water column and let it sit again while I reeled in the slack.

After my lure hit the rock and bounced off I felt a huge thump on my line and then it seemed like the fish took off with it! I thought i had hooked a baby striper the way the spotted bass attached this thing. I reeled him in but lot without a strong fight! Check him out and go get a Rapala Husky Jerk in your favorite baitfish color and get ready to reel, jerk, twitch, pause, and BOOM, catch that fish of a lifetime.