July is the time I check my favorite mid lake structure spots and in the past few weeks it has produced greatly for us. Checking the mid lake structure, we have found everything, and the unique thing is everything seems to be swimming together so you don’t know what will be biting. In one trip we caught five different species of fish while spot locked and surprisingly perch wasn’t one of them!
Inside weed lines we have seen a lot of quality fish but in the morning, it seems the fish haven’t had
their coffee yet and were favoring a slower presentation. Slip bobbers have been producing a good
percentage of our fish tipping them with usually a leech but this past weekend I couldn’t buy a bite and
switched to a night crawler with immediate results. The crawler presentation is something new to me
and I can honestly say I’ve never used it before, but with the results we had this past week it will be used
as often as a leach.
We have been having best luck with a 5-Inch long Kalin soft plastic with a 1/8 oz VMC jig. This
combination is giving us enough weight to make long casts away from the boat but light enough to not
instantly sink down into the weeds. The VMC jig has an oversized hook that allows me to get the hook
further into the 5-inch plastic allowing for better hook sets. Best results have been a twitching/popping
presentation as we lift the rod up with a long pause allowing the lure to fall. Most of our bites have
been on the fall so using braided line we are watching our line for a twitch indicating a bite as it is
dropping. When shallower we were feeling the bite before we had our bails closed from our initial cast.
If the inside weed line isn’t producing check the outside weed lines and points. Since we were deeper
fish weren’t skittish of our boat and on the clear days the fish were using our boat for shade. A vertical
jigging presentation produced just as many fish as casting away from the boat. Covering water and
finding active fish is key because some schools regardless of what we were doing wouldn’t bite but
marking them and coming back a few hours later did produce fish in the boat.
Cody Hill Guide Service
www.chillguideservice.com
|218-443-3813
