buddha162
Moderator
Like @george, every Spring I am faced with the dilemma of fresh or salt, always succumbing to salt during the height of the green/brown bass prespawn. As you guys know, this is generally the most productive time to land some quality bass, also the easiest in terms of patterning, and so this year I stuck to freshwater in my little inflatable Hobie kayak...in large part because I've experienced incredible success with one bait: the Keitech Shad Impact rigged on a Keitech 1/16oz jig head.
I broke my smallie PB multiple times on the Shad Impact, and more surprisingly, numerous quality largemouths as well. My experience with various finesse presentations in the past, esp for largemouths --- from dropshot to ned to shaky head --- have been numbers over size...for w/e reason, the diminutive Shad Impact has been catching mainly quality bass of both species.
Method: Let settle on bottom, and start twitching rod tip while taking up slack. Every few twitches let it settle back down on semi-slack line. The pickups have been extremely subtle.
Conditions: Calm winds, 2ft+ visibility.
Rod: Any ML spinning rod with a light, sensitive tip. I use a Shimano Expride 610ML, which is their dropshot special...any DS rod would be a good place to start. The tip action is paramount to imparting a controlled, erratic movement to your bait.
Reel: Any 1000 - 3000 sized spinning reel; mine is the Daiwa Theory 2506 (JDM), a 4.8 : 1 ratio reel that works great for any slow bottom tracing presentations.
Line: 8lb Daiwa J braid to 6lb Sunline FC Sniper floro leader.
Bait: 4" Keitech Shad Impact, 1/16 - 1/8oz Keitech Super Round Jig head. The hook on this jig head is impressive...extremely thin, sharp, and strong.
Here's my latest trip, by far my heaviest bag in freshwater...best 4 of 5 on the Shad Impact:
I don't bed fish, and I'm gearing up for fluke...but I'll definitely continue to play around with the shad impact once the fish settle into a summer pattern, then again in the Fall/early Winter. Would need some kind of weedless rigging method soon, as the exposed jig hook requires relatively clean bottom to fish through.
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