Kim City - Mar 8th - underspin

[Dock-in-it]

I fished the past few mornings and the fishing is pretty good. I have been using the underspin (3" SB pro blue) and it seems to be the ticket for the deep fish. I am fishing around shad and trees and early the fish can be anywhere from 15 to 45 FOW and when the sun gets up the best range seems to be 25 to 45. The shad kill is still prevalent and that causes me to see a lot more fish than I catch. This morning I had about 10 keepers and several shorts. I had two good LM hit the underspin on the fall and the K's and SM hit on the retrieve. The fish are throughout the water column bugging shad and those around 20-30ft seem to be the easiest to catch. They also get educated pretty quick even with making very little noise and making long cast. There are a lot of shad in 15-20 FOW but I have not been able to catch many at that depth because the shad are so thick. The SM pic is from yesterday and it weighed 3.75#

[Golf Pro]

Great job.  You are making me envious.   Are you noticing the fish are more at the mouths of the pockets and creeks or more towards the middle and backs.

[Dock-in-it]

I am staying at the mouths of pockets. I looked at a few creeks and did not really see what I am looking for. Currently I am looking for grouped up fish vs hitting a bunch of spots trying to catch individual fish. With this nice weather the clock is ticking pretty fast and I will routinely check the backs for deep fish to see if there is a good mix of shad and fish. If the backs start working I am set for a while, but some years the backs (for deep fish) can be disappointing. There are a lot of moving parts in the last two weeks of March  and some years are really good for deep fish and others are not. I have seen a lot of guys fishing areas that are normally considered mid April locations and perhaps they are doing Ok. March will normally give you a few head fakes and that is why they call it fishing.

[Bill Babler]

Dock it,  I have a question for you and anyone on the board can also respond.  I"m talking about the single or underspin or what ever you want to call it.  Myself, my clients and when Bill was alive he and his clients fished it for I'm going to say 1,000's of hours.  Neither Bill nor myself ever found it caught more than the straight swim bait on the ball jig head.  We both would alternate it with our clients and a plain ball head.  It never seemed to win to the point that I could warrant paying more for it.

I at times depending on the client if they were good fishermen and repeats just out fishing for the day would fish against them using an underspin with them using a ball head.  Never made much difference.  Only difference that fishing an type of swim bait makes it getting it to the level of the fish and keeping it in the strike zone as long as possible.

Long casts and maintaining the correct depth with the SB is the key for either the ball head or the underspin.

My long winded question is do you feel the under spin out preforms a ball head or do you just like throwing the spinner on it.

Thanks I'll listen off the air.

[Dock-in-it]

I am a big fan of the plain SB. At times I think the underspin can actually be too much flash for the fish and some will ignore it. I am using it now because of the shad kill. Today I tried a 1/4 and 3/8 ball head and they did not seem to pay them much attention. I use the underspin in April if I can find them real active on shad. A 4" grub and and plain SB are my first choice if they will work.

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

When you say shad kill, what exactly are you seeing, Ive been running the kimberling area this weekend and havent seen any dyeing  shad

[Dock-in-it]

Regarding the shad kill. I am fishing around a lot of shad and a fair amount are right beneath the surface and I routinely see them sprinkle the surface if there is no wind. I can easily see the shad struggling and dying and the feeding fish apply even more stress. The attached picture was taken today and it shows some fish actively feeding on shad. If you are fishing in the wind and not staying in a place very long then you may not notice the shad kill. The shad kill has been steady for several days. I just fish in the morning hours (when the wind is normally light) and that probably helps me see the dying shad.

[Mitch f]

Some dang nice fish! Congrats 

[magicwormman]

3 hours ago, aarchdale@coresleep.com said:

When you say shad kill, what exactly are you seeing, Ive been running the kimberling area this weekend and havent seen any dyeing  shad

I live up the James and there is dead shad everywhere between pt.12 and pt. 14. I think that is the main reason the fishing g is so slow up here.

[bluebasser86]

6 hours ago, Bill Babler said:

Dock it,  I have a question for you and anyone on the board can also respond.  I"m talking about the single or underspin or what ever you want to call it.  Myself, my clients and when Bill was alive he and his clients fished it for I'm going to say 1,000's of hours.  Neither Bill nor myself ever found it caught more than the straight swim bait on the ball jig head.  We both would alternate it with our clients and a plain ball head.  It never seemed to win to the point that I could warrant paying more for it.

I at times depending on the client if they were good fishermen and repeats just out fishing for the day would fish against them using an underspin with them using a ball head.  Never made much difference.  Only difference that fishing an type of swim bait makes it getting it to the level of the fish and keeping it in the strike zone as long as possible.

Long casts and maintaining the correct depth with the SB is the key for either the ball head or the underspin.

My long winded question is do you feel the under spin out preforms a ball head or do you just like throwing the spinner on it.

Thanks I'll listen off the air.

I have no scientific evidence, or near the experience on the lake as most others here due to living a few hours away. However, a few years ago we had our little clubs year end tournament on the lake in early April and my buddy that was fishing with we was tossing an underspin while I'd rigged a plain jighead. I was never a believer in the underspin, it never produced for me, I even poked fun at him for even tying the stupid thing on. Got to the lake with about 4 hours to prefish on Thursday and found them in the back of a pocket pushing shad. This was my buddies first time ever even seeing the lake, and he proceeded to put 20lbs in the boat, from the back of the boat, while I managed 1 3lb smallie. Same boat, same cast, same swimbait, only difference was the underspin vs. plain jighead. Picked up some underspins that night, found some other similar areas they were eating the underspin and a jerkbait, ran away with the tournament.

I'm more a believer that a correctly presented bait is the right area is going to get bit more often than it's just a certain bait, but in that instance, the underspin was hands down the better option. I've not taken a butt kicking like that from the back of my own boat before or since.