Dog Days Tactics: Buzzbaits, Frogs & Shallow Secrets

WEBVTT
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That's a good one. That's a goodie.
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Oh God, it's a toad, son. It's a fucking toad,
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dude. Let's go. I wake up to a little bit
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of drool on my pillow, feel like it's gonna be a bad day.
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We got, uh, if you're watching, folks, we got somebody over here sitting here dancing
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to the intro music. We're gonna have
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some fun this afternoon. Uh, we've got a couple great guests lined up. We might
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have one more joining us if those, uh, storms pass down there in FlowRida area.
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But real quick, before we, uh, get cracking with this week's episode,
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we need to thank those who support this show so much, and that's One Cast
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Fishing. Head on over to onecastfishing.com, use the code THEONECAST, get your hands
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on all the weedless neds, soft plastics, long neck hooks, and finally
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those jigs that Ben's holding in his hand. Join the snagless revolution.
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Texas rig your soft plastic on the back of those jigs, catch more fish,
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lose less tackle. Also, while you're online, use that link we provide you
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to go to Hobie Eyewear. It's going to take you right to the site.
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You're going to order the eyewear that you want. They got different frames and different
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Uh, they got anti-fogging vents in the top of them. Everybody knows how
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help out a lot with that. Plus they float, like I said. Hey, when— before
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your next fishing trip, make sure you head on over and see our good friends
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at Deep Dive on your App Store. Go to your Play Store, App Store,
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download the Deep Dive app, down, uh, pay for the annual subscriptions,
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like $80 a year. They got tons of different features on there. You're seeing a
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that. The features on there really help you understand things that
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we're going to talk about today in this episode such as wind direction,
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inflows, outflows, uh, water levels,
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and all the weather that typically ends up smashing us at
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the end of the day in these dog days of summer, uh, with storms and
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stuff like that. So make sure you check out Deep Dive and all their features
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that they have. Download that bad boy. Uh, moving to Central
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North Carolina, you're going to need a good real estate agent. We call him Uncle
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Terry for a reason. He's a bass fisherman. He serves the Central North Carolina
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to get you into the home of your dreams. You can reach him at carpentert@hpw.com
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and let him know exactly what you're looking for. Trust me, he'll make sure that
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that bass boat fits in the garage properly. Then finally, our boys up into Indianapolis,
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Indiana with Waymire— Waymire Group up there,
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4th generation business. Uh, they have everything
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that you need boat trailer part related. Mikey, you're good friends with them too.
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They're a great partner of Special Operations Bass Anglers, and then they're a great partner
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Uh, with the show here at the OneCast. We love those guys. So if you
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guys need anything, and I mean anything boat trailer part
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and you're going to get online, uh, with a customer service representative.
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They are subject matter expert when it comes to boat trailer parts. They're going to
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get you everything you need, whether or not you need it at your house or
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you're on the road fishing a national tour or whatever. They're going to send it
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right to your Airbnb, your hotel room. They'll get you taken care of.
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Where'd you see that number? It's right behind me, but I got it
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memorized. Dang, he said it enough times. Yeah,
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hey, what? I am Good Will Hunting,
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dude. I'm super pumped for
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tonight's episode. You know, we've been running, running our gums for the past few weeks.
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We've had some great guests on. We've had our, our biologist friends on to talk
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about, you know, the health of our fisheries and the F1 bass stocking program
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and what the status is on that. Um, we've had Seth on a couple times
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within the last few months to kind of go, you know, talk about some national
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level tournament stuff. Uh, and then we've talked about, you know,
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organically we just talked about fishing in general. But tonight we got our good
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friend and, uh, brother Mikey from Special
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Operations Bass Anglers, Drop Zone Tech. I don't know, the list goes on and on.
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Uh, you're the tournament director for your club too, aren't you? Yeah, so Carolina
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Bassers Uh, out of Harnett County. He's the president of the
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Carolina Bassers Club— huh, tournament director. Tournament director.
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I'm sorry, the president's different. Yeah, sorry, Mr.— sorry, Mr. Not President.
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I got no time. Yeah. Uh,
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so you're— are you in an appointed or an elected position,
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man? We just volunteer, man. We just do stuff. We do.
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Mikey. But— and then we got Seth joining us up there in Durham.
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Uh, the Durham area, who's getting ready to leave here and go
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fish up, up north for some brownfish. Um, so appreciate you
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jumping on with us, Seth, and then Ben. But if you look around the room,
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I'm not saying they're good years, but there's about
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80 to 100 years of bass fishing experience
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in this room, right? Uh, some better than others. I would be at the bottom
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here. Uh, but anyways, you know, I wanted
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to talk to the audience tonight about, uh, just the dog days of summer
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fishing Uh, we're definitely in the middle of it right now.
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Um, and, uh, but you know what, wait, let me, let me back up.
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Ben, we talked about it before we even started. Are there any major
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updates in the bass fishing world right now that the audience needs to know about?
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Uh, just the, uh, well, the NPFL event at, uh, where are
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they at? St. Lawrence River. St. Lawrence will be wrapped up,
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uh, by the time you all are listening to this episode. So we'll
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know the winner then. We'll see what happens. Oh, I'm actually anxious
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to see how that event goes without Ford facing Sonar now on the,
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uh, on the St. Lawrence. Plus they got locking issues.
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Yes. Oh, that's right. Yep, yep. So it's— yeah,
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are they gonna be able to get in the lake at all? Yeah, so this
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is the first time that this is ever going to happen. Uh,
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the NPFL paid for lock times so those guys could
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lock down through the through the commercial
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traffic lock. See, with the way the Iroquois Dam's set up, there's a thoroughfare
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through there where just recreational traffic can come and go.
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But since the water's so high, it's shut down. So the only way to access,
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um, the western, I guess southwestern part of the, of the river to the
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lake is go through the, the commercial lock. So they're going
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to try that. Apparently it's, um, not a
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quick process. It's like up to an hour long. Wow. And then
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if you're running south, it's, you know, hour and a half. So it's,
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it's going to be something to watch over a course of 3 days.
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Um, I'm interested just to see how it plays out because a
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lot of these guys have never had to do that before. Yeah, I mean,
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in that case, I anticipate a lot of drifting in the river,
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probably over those sandbars with drop shots and stuff. Yep, probably.
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Well, hey, I mean, kudos to the, uh, to the NPFL for trying to,
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you know, adjust fire to that situation, do something a little bit different, maybe get
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those guys some more access We'll see how it plays out though. I mean,
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we've all heard the, um, the stories, uh,
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specifically Apopka. The Apopka lockdown in Florida seems
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to be the nemesis for a lot of people. Maybe this, you know, hopefully this
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situation isn't the same, but you never know, man. If they're on a tight timeline
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and you can't make it back, like, your weight don't count, right? So,
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um, it'll be interesting to see. I do want to ask you guys though real
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quick before we get talking about the dog days of summer though.
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Seth, you just got done fishing the MPFL over the last couple years. Who do
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you think— you just give it, give me one, give us one— who's gonna
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win the St. Lawrence River for the MPFL?
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Uh, who's gonna win the St. Lawrence River for the MPFL?
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Probably Zach
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Burge. Oh, I knew you were gonna say it, man.
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I'll be honest with you, with no scope,
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yeah, all those guys can catch them, right? Yeah, some of those
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guys better than others, but Zach's the type of guy that
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will literally pull up to a place, catch a couple fish,
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and he's not feeling it or they're not the right ones, and he will run
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70 miles the other way and get on them. So I just I
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know how Zach fishes. Um, he's not afraid to put it in
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the wind and burn fuel. And with the conditions being the
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way they are, that might be what you have to do. But that's my pick.
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Yeah. Mikey, do you, do you follow the NPFL much?
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No. No. All right, well, if you're gonna pick somebody in the world,
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Trey Thompson, it's definitely
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not gonna— I won't be there. But if I was gonna pick somebody, it'd be
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myself too. Uh, no, Ben, do you have a— do you have an
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idea of who you think may win this event? I mean, if, if Seth
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went with Zach, I'll just go with, uh, I'll go with Patrick Walters because kind
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of the same thing. He's got the experience, he's done well in those fisheries up
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there before. I think he's— does he have a
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century belt on St. Lawrence? He, he might from Bassmaster.
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I think he does. I don't know, he does. You probably— I'm not gonna look
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it up, but he pretty much got every title. Yeah, so you know,
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you're looking at guys with experience, especially there's lock issues,
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managing fish, and just being able to adapt. So yeah,
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that's a good choice. I'll have to go with Patrick just because he's a
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hammer and it's going to be very, uh, it's going to be different up there.
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Yeah, so I think Patrick Walters has the most earnings
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in the NPFL right now. I think they just published that. But I think
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second to Patrick was Timmy Reams. Is Timmy Reams still fishing, Seth?
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Uh, yeah, he's fishing both the Opens and the NPFL.
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All right, I'm gonna pick Timmy Reams. We're gonna go with Timmy Reams on this
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one. Uh, let me catch him. I mean, he's a shallow guy,
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but he can catch him. You know, I wonder if, you know,
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because Zach fishes the BPT format, which is vastly
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different than any other tournament circuit out there, I wonder if that really
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gives him a competitive advantage or not,
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uh, because like you said, uh, he's not afraid
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to pull the trolling motor up and make a really long run. And I'm,
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I'm sure guys do that, and, you know, guys definitely do that in a 5-fish
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format. But, you know, with being in the BPT, like, if Zach's on,
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you know, 1.7-pound fish consistently, he's got to pull
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the trolling motor up, he's got to leave, he's got to go find something else,
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right? He knows that he has to make runs make
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adjustments because he gets that live score tracker update. He gets
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to hear what the rest of the field is catching. He can't— you know,
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I don't, I don't know, but I'm just— I wonder if it does give him,
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uh, an advantage to being more adaptable.
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Maybe. But you got to remember too, if he's on 10,000
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1.7s, it doesn't matter. It's true. You know what I mean? They— yeah,
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they catch every fish. Now granted it's all
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based on what the minimum is set for that body of water that you're fishing.
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Yeah. Um, and a lot of times, guys, if you watch it— like,
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and I'm a fan of bass fishing, so I watch it all— but a lot
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of those guys will find those places that are full of those 1.5 to 2.25
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pound fish, and they'll burn it down because it's
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easy, for one, for them, and for two, it gives them comfortable
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enough to go then look for other better quality fish in different places. Uh,
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because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you're catching 10 5-pounders
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or 50 1-pounders, as long as you have that weight, that's all that matters.
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True, true. And well, and I lied, I did look it up.
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Patrick won in '23 with a Century Belt. There you go.
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Yeah, you know, somebody that I really would like to see win,
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and I know he's won a lot in the past, but I'm
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a big fan of Andy Morgan, right? He's like a taller version of Greg Hackney
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in my opinion, just with his style of fishing, you know,
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and how good he is. Flipping a jig and throwing a spinnerbait.
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I mean, he can do it all, but, um, you know, he's somebody that I
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think is a true steward of instinctual bass fishing, uh,
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and, and I've been a fan of his, you know, since he fished the FLW
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Tour and stuff. So, um, but got to give a shout out to— he's one
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of my best friends, Josh Watkins. Hopefully, uh, he can turn this season around
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up there and, and go smash them as well. I know it's been rough.
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I've been seeing a lot, uh, Like you said, Ben, the NPFL
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is going to be done by the time this is recorded. We all got our
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picks for that. But also the, um, the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit
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is going on on Champlain at the same time. Am I, am I wrong on
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that? No, it is Champlain. And let me tell you, dude,
12:33.508 --> 12:36.847
watching Latimer, Bobby Bakewell, some of these other guys post some
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of their Instagram reels and stories, it's rough up there.
12:40.411 --> 12:44.472
It's super, super rough. Hence reason I ordered
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an external bilge pump today with some gator clips on it, because I ain't
12:47.954 --> 12:51.307
trying to go upside down in the lake. But, um, but yeah,
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man, so we got, we got all you guys in the room and stuff,
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and, uh, you know, the dog days of summer are upon us,
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and I wanted to kind of hit you guys with some different questions and stuff.
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Uh, first and foremost, and, and anybody can jump in, but,
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uh, let's ask Mikey. Mikey's sitting here right now, so we're gonna, we're gonna,
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we're gonna hit you with the first question. The dog days of summer in
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your opinion, you see a lot of people, uh,
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talk about their top 5 baits for the dog days of summer and stuff
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like that. What is your top 1 bait for
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the dog days of summer? Depends on what fishery. Ah, I knew you
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were gonna do that. Well, talk, talk to the audience. So like,
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why, why, why do you say it depends on the fishery?
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Okay, so we just come off of the river. Yep. Past 2 tournaments.
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Um, We're at Show-On and
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they were not touching the topwater. I like topwater.
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Yeah, I'm a topwater fanatic. I mean, he's holding the buzzbait in his hand right
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now. Um, he wears that. You go to the other
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ones, other like lakes and stuff, might not be topwater.
13:55.517 --> 13:58.586
Yeah, shaky head, Carolina rig,
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deep diving stuff. Or they could be shallow. I know Seth likes to
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fish shallow too. I'd rather fish shallow all day. Yeah, it's deep. I don't like
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fishing 20 foot deep because then I got to worry about fish— I gotta stick
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them and all that stuff. Yeah. So I catch a fish in 2 foot
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of water, I don't have to worry about it. Yeah, throw it in the live
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well and they're good. Yep. But one of the things that we didn't even talk
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about this the other day, the fish right now up at Roanoke,
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a lot of them are post-spawn.
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We caught a ton of fish that were post-spawn. I actually had one die
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because it was straight up post-spawn. Like immediately post-spawn? Oh dude,
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pretty quickly. Any— I mean, big head, it still didn't
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put the weight on yet. And if you remember the,
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uh, the Bassmaster when they were down here, they were talking about catching them on
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beds. So when I saw that fish, I was like, dude, that's a post-spawn fish.
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And I was like, I did everything I could. My live wells had ice
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in them and everything. Gone. Yeah, but, but buzzbait
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up in the rivers is is my go-to. Yeah,
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absolutely. You bring up a good point, Mikey, and I'll turn this over
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to Seth. Like, you know, when we ask the question like, what is your top
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baits? And, you know, Seth, you do a really good job promoting your— your— one
15:10.385 --> 15:14.314
of your sponsors being Strike King. Um, you know, your, your top 5 bait choices
15:14.411 --> 15:17.476
for July or what, August, whatever. But really, like,
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when you're in the middle of the dog days of summer like this, you love
15:21.328 --> 15:25.472
to go shallow, but If you were to really truly
15:25.504 --> 15:28.974
pick like a bait for you in this month of the year,
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like what is your 100% go-to bait?
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It's going to be some type of topwater. I mean, yeah, I'm,
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I'm along the same lines with Mikey. Here's the deal,
15:39.481 --> 15:42.405
if some of the lakes around here didn't— or were at full pool,
15:43.257 --> 15:47.032
it would probably be a frog, right? But right now with everything being down
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and a lot of fish suspended out off the bank Um, and even on the
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bank, you know, I really love a Mach Patroller, which is a plopper-style
15:55.482 --> 15:59.011
bait, uh, backs in the pockets for bluegill eaters. And then
15:59.043 --> 16:02.679
on the main, the main bodies of water, I like a walking bait like
16:03.179 --> 16:07.377
a Strike King KVD Sexy Dog. But it's gonna be a topwater because
16:07.409 --> 16:10.786
you're just more apt to get a bigger bite and more
16:10.981 --> 16:15.044
bites, I think, on topwater this time of year because the fish
16:15.544 --> 16:19.130
are so pelagic, they're moving. And they've seen almost every type
16:19.630 --> 16:23.315
of soft plastic there is up until this point in the year. And the topwater
16:23.379 --> 16:25.864
baits is something that you can move quickly and get a reaction bite.
16:26.506 --> 16:29.953
Yeah, no, I agree. I definitely agree with that. Ben, do you
16:30.453 --> 16:33.416
have any takes on the, the dog days of summer style fishing? Because I'm gonna,
16:33.512 --> 16:36.510
I'm gonna segue this here after you're done. I mean, I think, I think Seth
16:36.542 --> 16:39.717
is right. Like, you get— and, and I think the dog days set in
16:39.813 --> 16:43.116
early for us this year, um, mainly because it's
16:43.616 --> 16:46.715
been so hot and so dry. So the water, you know A lot of times
16:47.215 --> 16:50.061
our lakes will get lower in August, early September,
16:50.595 --> 16:53.909
um, but it's, it's, it's been that way all
16:54.087 --> 16:58.037
year. And as the fish— as that
16:58.537 --> 17:01.837
thermocline rises in a lot of our bodies of water, as the fish
17:02.337 --> 17:05.846
are pressured, they're beat up, uh, they are— they get a lot more lethargic,
17:05.862 --> 17:10.353
uh. And so usually— so like you
17:10.853 --> 17:13.718
guys covered it, like it depends on your fishery and, and what the fish are
17:14.218 --> 17:16.550
doing and where you're at, but you all things being equal, like, to me,
17:16.582 --> 17:20.321
a jig, I love just dragging on the bottom because a lot of times instead
17:20.821 --> 17:23.883
of suspending, sometimes they just lay on the bottom, um, just kind of laying there
17:24.383 --> 17:26.916
in the mud. And if you bring a big meal past them,
17:27.461 --> 17:31.184
um, I think they're more willing to exert some of that energy to,
17:31.312 --> 17:33.864
uh, to eat a big meal. And with that said,
17:34.297 --> 17:37.988
you know, this time of year, starting in August, a lot of times I,
17:38.453 --> 17:41.823
I've had a lot of success over the years doing an old-school technique with the,
17:41.903 --> 17:45.128
the jig and worm. So you take a 10-inch worm and
17:45.628 --> 17:49.782
put it on a, a big 3/4-ounce football jig, and you just drag
17:50.282 --> 17:53.537
it along. And, um, a lot of times the,
17:53.633 --> 17:57.131
uh, the bites actually won't be very heavy. You'll just kind
17:57.163 --> 17:59.586
of feel your line get heavy. It's not like, you know, a lot of times
18:00.086 --> 18:03.101
it's not that tap tap or you really hear a thump. They just kind of
18:03.601 --> 18:06.487
suck it in. Yeah. Um, yeah, so,
18:07.257 --> 18:10.883
yeah, like a Carolina rig bite. Yeah, Mikey's right on
18:11.383 --> 18:14.861
that. So, you know, and, and this is why, like, for, for all the listeners,
18:14.877 --> 18:18.162
like, when you see a lot of the pros and a lot of social
18:18.662 --> 18:22.281
media influencers and stuff talk about their, their top baits for,
18:22.505 --> 18:25.758
for said month, like, understand, one, it's relative to the area
18:25.790 --> 18:29.796
that they're fishing. It could be relative to, uh, you know, the state they're fishing
18:30.296 --> 18:33.449
in, could be relative to the body of water specifically, because we have
18:33.497 --> 18:36.975
places like Mikey talked about in North Carolina, you could go 10
18:37.007 --> 18:40.692
minutes away from where we are right now and fish vastly different from what
18:41.192 --> 18:44.874
you're going to fish 2.5 hours to the east or 2.5 hours to the west.
18:44.938 --> 18:48.143
And so you need to understand that. Uh, but, but that
18:48.643 --> 18:52.197
brings me to talking about like breaking down the
18:52.229 --> 18:55.658
water. And this is why Deep Dive is such a great tool, especially for people
18:56.158 --> 18:58.542
that are just trying to get an understanding of what may be going on based
18:59.042 --> 19:01.891
on the, the data that they have for you guys in the, in the features.
19:02.324 --> 19:05.528
But Mikey, when it comes to like, you love to throw topwater.
19:06.233 --> 19:10.034
Um, so talk about whether or not it's the river system
19:10.243 --> 19:13.692
or it's a lake and stuff like that, you know, Ben talked about and
19:14.192 --> 19:17.655
Seth talked about like really pressured fish, subtle bites and stuff.
19:18.585 --> 19:22.147
When you're breaking down a lake, a reservoir,
19:22.677 --> 19:25.998
a river, like what are some of the— in the month of July
19:26.463 --> 19:30.249
and going into August, what are some of the biggest things that you're looking for?
19:31.019 --> 19:34.775
Uh, because let me, let me preface this too. Tournament fishing
19:35.273 --> 19:39.127
is different than fun fishing, right? Like, I can go out right
19:39.143 --> 19:42.097
now and I know where about 6 different schools of fish are at. So if
19:42.597 --> 19:45.646
I'm going out to fun fish and I just want to catch fish,
19:46.433 --> 19:49.227
that's going to change the way that I go and attack a body of water
19:49.259 --> 19:52.551
versus if I'm preparing for a competition. So let's
19:53.051 --> 19:55.923
talk about on the competition side, because if you're going fun fishing, you just do
19:56.423 --> 19:58.878
whatever you want. Yeah, but if you were going out and you had a tournament,
19:58.894 --> 20:02.169
let's say, on whatever body of water Talk us through like
20:02.669 --> 20:06.487
the way in this month and going into August that you're gonna really attack breaking
20:06.503 --> 20:10.050
that body of water down. So river, I'm gonna look for
20:10.114 --> 20:13.741
current and water color. Lakes,
20:14.447 --> 20:18.203
current plays a big one. Uh, like Seth was talking about topwater
20:19.343 --> 20:22.649
with a lake, I noticed this a long time ago, uh,
20:22.890 --> 20:26.180
Tillery, you go in there, wind current is your biggest
20:26.680 --> 20:29.757
thing now. Um, they do have current sometimes during the weekend,
20:31.793 --> 20:34.848
but Duke took over and they don't pull current during the weekend anymore.
20:35.338 --> 20:39.016
It used to be they did. So now you're looking at wind current. Um,
20:39.257 --> 20:42.896
if you don't have a lot of wind current, your topwater bait's gonna be smaller,
20:43.282 --> 20:46.828
like a spook. It's got to be like a puppy spook or a pop bar.
20:47.235 --> 20:50.166
If the wind's blowing, buzzbait or spook.
20:50.964 --> 20:54.510
Um, at the river Same thing. If the
20:55.010 --> 20:58.704
currents are flowing, the loudest buzzbait you can get, the loudest
20:58.768 --> 21:02.415
buzzbait. I don't like spooks because there's so much wood you're
21:02.528 --> 21:05.757
working around. Um, when the current dies on the river,
21:06.496 --> 21:10.224
a frog, a horny toad, those are the key things
21:10.724 --> 21:13.453
I'm looking at. So when you go— let's just, let's use,
21:13.614 --> 21:16.667
um, let's use a Highland or— I don't—
21:16.763 --> 21:20.377
is Tillery considered a Highland reservoir? No, it's just a reservoir.
21:21.244 --> 21:24.182
All right, so it's a flood control reservoir though, right? Um,
21:24.552 --> 21:27.699
so, so are you— so like, talk us through,
21:27.763 --> 21:31.103
like, what are the types of things you're looking
21:31.135 --> 21:35.037
for besides current? Are, you know, like, are you looking— like, do contour lines
21:35.069 --> 21:38.441
play a role this time of year for you? Do— does certain types
21:38.941 --> 21:42.214
of grass play a role? Certain type of docks? Like, really, outside of current and
21:42.714 --> 21:45.199
stuff, are you focused on any of that stuff? Shade.
21:45.985 --> 21:49.786
Shade in July, like I've seen on grass lakes— well,
21:49.978 --> 21:52.881
willow grass. If you got shade in July, August,
21:53.426 --> 21:55.302
you can throw a frog up in there middle of the day and catch fish.
21:55.430 --> 21:58.814
Yep. They move to the shade. They want shade. The deeper fish,
21:59.279 --> 22:02.358
you might want to look at points that drop off real quick. They'll move up
22:02.406 --> 22:04.683
there and push shad up there, and they can stay up there all day.
22:05.132 --> 22:08.933
Yep. They'll stay up there all day and feed. And that's
22:09.719 --> 22:12.059
deep water or shade. Deep water and shade.
22:12.668 --> 22:16.307
Yeah, I will tell you, like, and, and Ben, I'll turn this over to you.
22:16.371 --> 22:19.625
Like, so if I'm going to in this time of
22:19.721 --> 22:23.183
year, it takes everything out of me not to
22:23.683 --> 22:27.991
go deep immediately, right? But I will tell from
22:28.056 --> 22:31.357
what I've seen over the years, and especially now with how
22:31.454 --> 22:35.332
much pressure is being put out into the middle of the lakes on
22:35.525 --> 22:39.612
the offshore structure, the contour lines being the roadbeds the,
22:39.693 --> 22:43.288
the humps, the saddles, everything, and then just straight up middle of the
22:43.788 --> 22:47.366
water, do nothing type thing. I feel like a lot of times
22:48.040 --> 22:51.379
the bank or the shallow water areas are really being
22:51.475 --> 22:54.268
left alone, right? Because anglers,
22:54.381 --> 22:57.639
especially if you're going out on a weekend, if, if they're not tournament anglers,
22:57.672 --> 23:00.802
they're just going there to catch fish, and they're going to go to where the
23:01.302 --> 23:05.521
majority of the fish are at, right? And, and majority of the fish relative
23:06.021 --> 23:09.515
to where you're fishing won't use the river, that's not a good example. Certain rivers
23:09.547 --> 23:12.881
in there can be offshore rivers, um, but if you're going to one of these
23:12.978 --> 23:16.456
lakes and you're just going to catch numbers of fish, clearly most
23:16.956 --> 23:20.256
of your numbers are going to be out there, um, feeding on bait,
23:20.448 --> 23:23.815
right? Feeding on shad, gizzard threadfin, gizzard shad,
23:23.879 --> 23:27.518
whatever. We're talking largemouth and spots because the,
23:27.743 --> 23:31.205
the north is, is built different, right? But if
23:31.254 --> 23:34.588
you, but if you think about it, a lot of the shallow water fish,
23:34.716 --> 23:38.245
there's so many resident shallow water fish Those are the
23:38.326 --> 23:42.101
ones to me that really end up being some of your biggest
23:42.601 --> 23:46.037
fish in the dog days of summer. Because the,
23:46.584 --> 23:50.166
the end of July and beginning of August, those fish, they were nice and
23:50.215 --> 23:54.038
fresh in May and June, but they have been pounded on.
23:54.553 --> 23:57.027
And I'm not saying you can't catch big fish this time of year offshore because
23:57.527 --> 23:59.710
I do it all the time. What I'm saying is if you want to,
24:00.722 --> 24:03.807
I go out and I start eliminating shallow first.
24:04.337 --> 24:07.693
It's— it takes everything in my body, but I've been
24:07.725 --> 24:11.498
burned so many times on these lakes where if you don't go shallow,
24:12.686 --> 24:16.315
you're missing enough. You could be missing a big opportunity. I think Brandon
24:16.815 --> 24:19.318
Palaniuk said it years and years ago. I think he was on this, uh,
24:19.863 --> 24:23.540
I think it was on Santee or somewhere, and he goes, I always eliminate the
24:24.040 --> 24:27.298
shallow bite first because if I do find a shallow bite, I usually know it's
24:27.314 --> 24:30.812
going to be probably a quality type of fish, especially in
24:30.845 --> 24:34.100
the middle of the summer. The only caveat to that is something that
24:34.132 --> 24:37.227
Ben brought up. And for the listeners, you're like, yeah, well, you know what,
24:37.339 --> 24:40.547
I've been fishing Jordan Lake, I've been fishing Falls Lake, I've been fishing wherever,
24:41.092 --> 24:44.604
I can't get a shallow water bite. Well, the drought
24:44.700 --> 24:48.485
probably has a lot to do with that, right? So that
24:48.565 --> 24:52.157
is something we're seeing abnormality with the drought here
24:52.657 --> 24:56.583
in central North Carolina. I don't know how to break
24:57.083 --> 24:59.677
down those bodies of water that well. I haven't even been on them really,
25:00.334 --> 25:03.476
um, and that's why I think a lot of people are going immediately deep water
25:03.976 --> 25:06.714
because that's where most of the fish are congregated. But if we were in a
25:06.762 --> 25:10.241
perfect situation, we had normal levels of water and stuff like that,
25:10.850 --> 25:14.954
Ben, what are your thoughts on, you know, looking at
25:15.454 --> 25:18.561
a lake from a tournament perspective, not like the Roanoke River? Like,
25:18.849 --> 25:22.907
how do you go about breaking that down? Mikey talked about wind
25:23.407 --> 25:26.651
direction, wind-driven current, uh, shade lines and stuff like
25:27.151 --> 25:30.154
that. What else would you add to that? So one of the key things,
25:30.732 --> 25:32.741
uh, this time of year, really in the summertime,
25:33.625 --> 25:36.292
uh, when I first get on the body of water, I turn up the sensitivity
25:36.792 --> 25:41.161
on my graph and I, and identify if there is a thermocline and what
25:41.193 --> 25:45.130
depth. And, and the main reason for that is it eliminates a
25:45.630 --> 25:49.226
lot of water. Like if you're out on Jordan Lake or Harris and the
25:49.726 --> 25:52.775
thermocline's 12 or 15 feet, then that can eliminate
25:53.275 --> 25:56.404
a lot of water. Um, and as it— right, there's certain— there can be fish
25:56.532 --> 25:59.326
below it and some fish can go for a certain amount of time, but they
25:59.826 --> 26:03.292
usually don't live there just because that water is not mixing. There's no— there's
26:03.792 --> 26:07.659
not enough oxygen formed down there, right? And that just continues to get greater as
26:07.692 --> 26:11.577
the season goes along. So that helps eliminate a lot of the depths
26:11.786 --> 26:15.574
you need to look at. Um, but I
26:16.074 --> 26:19.392
think, you know, early in the season when that thermocline first starts
26:19.892 --> 26:23.627
up, you got a lot more post-spawn fish. They're a lot more active.
26:24.205 --> 26:27.718
They seem to roam around out there more along the thermocline.
26:28.633 --> 26:32.531
But as the season goes along, and, and although thermoclines
26:32.644 --> 26:35.836
can shift, I do feel like a bass will move up a
26:36.336 --> 26:40.446
little shallower, as you were talking about. And I think Part
26:40.946 --> 26:44.377
of that's because as the summer goes along, the water
26:44.877 --> 26:47.696
up top just gets warmer and warmer, and so it floats. And although it may
26:48.196 --> 26:51.507
not be as much of a difference, um, to create like
26:52.007 --> 26:55.070
a thermocline or a second thermocline, which can happen on some bodies of water,
26:55.859 --> 26:59.579
um, because that water doesn't mix
27:00.079 --> 27:02.687
as much, that shallower you get, the more oxygen it's going to have.
27:04.246 --> 27:07.503
And of course, bass love eating bugs and everything else too, so Right.
27:07.567 --> 27:11.114
It just feels like as the summer goes along, you can start
27:11.258 --> 27:14.115
keying on some, some shallower spots or mid-depth range again.
27:15.030 --> 27:17.132
Um, but that's, that's one of the first things I look at,
27:18.079 --> 27:21.369
and it just to help eliminate a lot of water. And then current,
27:21.385 --> 27:24.756
shade lines, um, all that stuff plays a role. Uh,
27:25.157 --> 27:28.206
water inflow too. If you got a lot of water inflow,
27:29.073 --> 27:32.556
um, that's just naturally stirring the water up, um, bugs and coming in.
27:32.620 --> 27:35.751
So Um, you know, in summertime you can,
27:35.815 --> 27:39.027
you can still catch, you know, fish out in the backs of pockets or in
27:39.527 --> 27:42.976
the little ditches back there and, uh, do really well when most
27:43.476 --> 27:47.071
guys are out on the main lake. Yeah, you know, some of those places may
27:47.571 --> 27:50.523
be harder to find, or they may be a 1 or 2 fish spot,
27:50.924 --> 27:54.264
but, um, they're not, they're not
27:54.296 --> 27:57.749
beat up as bad because most people aren't targeting them, right? One of
27:58.249 --> 28:01.490
the things I I'll, I'll tell to the audience, then we'll transition over to
28:01.990 --> 28:04.636
your tournaments, Mikey, because this kind of bleeds into what you were talking about with
28:05.136 --> 28:07.703
like current and, and lack of current, right? Uh,
28:08.169 --> 28:11.508
A, pay attention to the weather this time of year, right? Like here in central
28:12.008 --> 28:15.105
North Carolina, we're getting ready to get— not enough, but we're getting ready to get
28:15.605 --> 28:18.589
a downpour over the next couple days. We're gonna get a significant amount of rain,
28:18.685 --> 28:22.458
right? So that— what immediately I know that I'm gonna go to
28:22.958 --> 28:25.443
my Deep Dive app the next time I go fishing if it's on a body
28:25.943 --> 28:28.425
of water that just got done getting a bunch of rain. And I'm going to
28:28.473 --> 28:32.208
go to that inflow feature on the app, and I'm going to turn
28:32.256 --> 28:35.622
it up and, and go to where the majority of the inflow is coming into
28:36.122 --> 28:38.940
the lake. And those are probably going to be the areas I start targeting first,
28:38.956 --> 28:42.451
because like Ben said, you got watershed, you got runoff
28:42.515 --> 28:46.554
pushing into the water, either whether or not it's high ground pushing in
28:46.683 --> 28:50.161
or you got a stream inflow, whatever, it's going to push in there.
28:50.834 --> 28:54.300
And the highest protein diet's going to be in the shallow waters
28:54.800 --> 28:58.360
for these bass during that time. The bluegill are higher protein diet,
28:58.860 --> 29:01.960
crawfish are, bugs and stuff probably not so much. But they're going
29:02.460 --> 29:05.800
to leave— a lot of fish will not abandon, but they'll leave a lot of
29:06.300 --> 29:09.440
those threadfin shad that are 2 to 3 inches. They're tired of chasing them and
29:09.940 --> 29:12.440
they're going to move up there. They're going to feed, uh, in the shallows and
29:12.940 --> 29:14.500
stuff like that. So I'm going to use that feature and I'm going to go
29:15.000 --> 29:19.040
target those areas. The other thing, especially if you have a good mapping product this
29:19.540 --> 29:22.420
time of year you have a lot of fish that are off on the flats
29:22.613 --> 29:25.902
offshore, right? They'll be in that 10 to 12 foot range, or relative
29:26.402 --> 29:30.169
to where you're fishing, those flats where they can, they can move laterally and chase
29:30.669 --> 29:34.036
baitfish. They're not really relating to that vertical contour lines
29:34.536 --> 29:38.239
like you'd see like in the wintertime and stuff. Um, but one
29:38.271 --> 29:41.528
of the things to pay attention to on your map though is your creek channels,
29:41.560 --> 29:44.913
right? So if you have a creek, if you have a flat that butts up
29:45.413 --> 29:47.914
with a creek channel that goes to a pocket,
29:48.621 --> 29:52.522
that is like textbook what you want to be looking for this
29:52.635 --> 29:55.750
time of year, especially if you're getting a bunch of rain in the afternoons and
29:56.250 --> 29:59.715
you're trying to target shallow fish. Because what will happen is they'll be on those
30:00.215 --> 30:04.211
shallow flats, they'll slide out into that creek channel, and they'll follow it to
30:04.259 --> 30:07.486
where majority of that inflow is coming into those creek arms. It may not be
30:07.986 --> 30:10.392
in the very back of a creek, it could be at the highest point,
30:10.601 --> 30:13.828
high ground on that creek, and the water's coming in and they're only able to
30:14.328 --> 30:17.280
move like 50 feet off of a flat into a creek channel and go feed.
30:17.650 --> 30:21.375
But you're— I, I get so dialed into mapping this time
30:21.875 --> 30:24.795
of year because it tells the story.
30:24.907 --> 30:27.845
Like, you just think of a, think of a natural highway that a bass is
30:28.345 --> 30:31.458
going to follow. And Rick Salvatore, who, who is Bassin' Through, man,
30:31.490 --> 30:36.195
he does a really great job with his audience talking about like the natural highways
30:36.227 --> 30:39.759
that a bass will follow, baitfish are following it, and all that stuff. So make
30:40.259 --> 30:43.901
sure you guys pay attention to your mapping products. Outside of
30:43.997 --> 30:47.444
visually looking around, right? Like visually seeing docks,
30:47.524 --> 30:50.970
visually seeing shade lines, visually seeing that current that Mikey's about to talk
30:51.470 --> 30:53.888
about here in a minute. Like look at your mapping product and be like,
30:53.968 --> 30:57.559
okay, what's the highest probability of success if I'm going to target
30:58.059 --> 31:01.470
fish after a strong rain or it's windy today? Where are
31:01.970 --> 31:05.301
they going to go to, right? Especially if you don't want to go offshore all
31:05.317 --> 31:08.379
day long. Offshore is a whole different animal, but you're still
31:08.879 --> 31:13.028
going to use your contour lines. And there also is shade offshore, y'all. So if
31:13.528 --> 31:17.147
you're fishing stump fields, you're fishing brush piles. When that sun hits
31:17.500 --> 31:20.867
at a certain angle on a brush pile or a stump, there's a shade
31:21.367 --> 31:25.019
line on the back side of it created, right? So positioning is everything
31:25.115 --> 31:28.802
when you're targeting fish offshore as well. But I want to move into that
31:28.882 --> 31:33.066
July-August current that you're talking about, Mikey, specifically with
31:33.566 --> 31:37.523
the river that you were fishing. Um, you just got done winning 2
31:38.180 --> 31:41.979
one-day individual tournaments right down there on the in, in the Albemarle
31:42.479 --> 31:46.498
Sound area. Um, but you fished differently
31:47.556 --> 31:51.001
each day, and I, I kind of want you to talk to the audience about
31:51.501 --> 31:55.376
that. Um, talk, talk, talk them through like day
31:55.504 --> 31:58.789
1, what was going on, and what was so different on day
31:58.869 --> 32:02.026
2 and the adjustments that you made, uh, to have success.
32:02.571 --> 32:06.080
So I'm gonna back up even further. Back up. Practice.
32:06.161 --> 32:09.497
Back it up. Because I had 3 different
32:09.754 --> 32:14.007
colored buzzbaits tied on. So I had a black bladed
32:14.507 --> 32:16.943
one, I had a silver one, and a gold one.
32:18.420 --> 32:21.565
It just depends on what they want. And they did not want the black,
32:22.110 --> 32:25.528
which my biggest fish up there, it was almost 8 pounds, it came off a
32:25.576 --> 32:28.658
black one. And black works really good, but it was not working.
32:29.652 --> 32:33.183
Uh, that was within the first 200 yards. Not a bite,
32:33.199 --> 32:36.247
not a bite, not a bite. Changed up the silver, not a bite, not a
32:36.747 --> 32:39.905
bite, not a bite. Changed up the gold, 2, 3 casts later,
32:40.402 --> 32:44.172
boom. I said, okay. Went back through the same area
32:44.252 --> 32:47.878
and caught 2 more fish. That's it, I'm done, I'm coming back here.
32:48.520 --> 32:51.889
Came back Saturday and just locked that buzzbait in my hand,
32:52.049 --> 32:55.418
a Gold Blade. It's a 9/11, it's got a—
32:55.498 --> 32:58.274
it ticks the head, but it also has a clacker, so it's ultra loud.
32:58.867 --> 33:03.025
And those fish, because the current and because of the water color, it was kind
33:03.525 --> 33:06.300
of dingy. They want that loud. They want loud.
33:06.718 --> 33:09.271
You gotta think they're, they're mainly looking at crawdads.
33:10.009 --> 33:13.558
They want— they eat crawdads all the time. So when they hear the crawdad fall
33:14.058 --> 33:16.849
in the water, just like when you're flipping, you want a heavy weight. You make
33:17.349 --> 33:19.579
that loud splash. Not like a lake, you want to be nice and subtle.
33:19.836 --> 33:23.176
No, here you want to be as loud as you possibly can. Yeah, they want
33:23.676 --> 33:27.060
to hear it. And usually within the first foot of the bank, they're going to
33:27.108 --> 33:30.089
crush it. Very rarely they'll come all the way out.
33:30.795 --> 33:34.097
Oh, and the current was moving pretty decent,
33:34.161 --> 33:37.784
so I just fished all day with that buzzbait and caught fish non-stop.
33:38.168 --> 33:41.551
And I think I had almost 19 pounds. Big fish was 6,
33:41.567 --> 33:45.206
and that's the only fish that hit away from the bank. The reason was
33:46.200 --> 33:49.325
the bank has about a foot to 2-foot ledge, and then it dropped off into
33:49.390 --> 33:53.266
15, 20 foot. There's a bunch of log jams right there. So I
33:53.766 --> 33:56.205
think what happened was it came off that bank and came over. It was logs,
33:56.253 --> 33:59.465
and she come shooting out. When she hit it right next to the boat,
33:59.545 --> 34:04.237
it just— yeah, well, yeah, I was giggling
34:04.737 --> 34:07.819
like a little schoolgirl, man. I was like, so,
34:07.835 --> 34:11.608
but so that day though, you talked about current, like it was ripping,
34:11.721 --> 34:14.847
right? It wasn't ripping, but it was moving. It was moving pretty good.
34:15.916 --> 34:19.424
Um, ripping in there's rough. It's tough
34:19.924 --> 34:23.512
to fish in there. Um, like, you catch a fish in the
34:24.012 --> 34:27.279
current when the current's really ripping out there, you have to— you have to hook
34:27.779 --> 34:30.646
that fish, get it away from all the wood and stuff. You got to get
34:30.710 --> 34:33.996
out into the current and put that Spot-Lock on, because if you don't,
34:34.013 --> 34:36.962
you come off that trolling motor, you'll be half a mile down the river and
34:37.462 --> 34:40.714
smashing into some other logs. Uh, it's, it's fun,
34:40.746 --> 34:44.321
but it's, it's hair-raising. So you After day
34:44.338 --> 34:47.950
1, you had, you know, 19 pounds. You said that was an individual day tournament.
34:48.031 --> 34:51.659
You won that one. What happened day 2? Day 2,
34:51.740 --> 34:54.951
I went in there, um, right away within the
34:55.451 --> 34:58.965
first 100 yards, I think I had one blowup on a buzzbait. And I
34:59.465 --> 35:02.578
started looking at the current. The current was not flowing. It was not flowing like
35:03.078 --> 35:05.982
it was day 2. Um, I started thinking about it. I was like, well,
35:06.126 --> 35:09.627
I'm gonna start flipping. And I'm like, you know what, me throw
35:10.127 --> 35:12.501
a horny toad because they'll bite a horny toad.
35:13.480 --> 35:15.712
And as soon as I started flipping that horny toad, they started coming out.
35:16.467 --> 35:20.288
But they were coming out and slashing at it or getting it. And the ones
35:20.304 --> 35:23.451
that were slashing at it— there's something I told you about this already. It was
35:23.951 --> 35:26.711
kind of funny. I come over a log, it got hung up on the log,
35:27.867 --> 35:30.019
and I popped it. When I popped it, you know, that slacks the line.
35:30.067 --> 35:32.604
So I'm reeling up slack, and I watched that thing kind of flutter down,
35:33.085 --> 35:36.361
and a fish come out and grabbed it. So it kind of turned me
35:36.861 --> 35:39.171
on something. I'm like, wait a minute. So I started chucking the Horny Toad like
35:39.187 --> 35:42.238
normal, but when I came over a log, I just let it drop and I
35:42.738 --> 35:46.252
kind of fished it like a fluke. And just watching that thing, how erratic it
35:46.752 --> 35:49.945
is, is nuts. It's better than a fluke, I think. Yeah, because you
35:50.445 --> 35:53.124
don't know which way it's going to go. It just— it'll go backwards sometimes.
35:53.782 --> 35:57.780
And the fish were just hammering it. In between that, when I was flipping,
35:59.081 --> 36:02.228
they would pick it up And I tried 4 different baits,
36:02.389 --> 36:05.295
but every single bait they would just pick it up and chew on it.
36:06.082 --> 36:09.824
And you'd lift up and either they let it go or they just start
36:09.856 --> 36:13.003
swimming little circles with it. And like, you had to let them eat it.
36:13.228 --> 36:17.226
Yeah, I mean, it was painful. So what color Horny
36:17.726 --> 36:21.016
Toad were you throwing? White. White. Okay, yeah, I was gonna ask you
36:21.516 --> 36:24.533
if you've thrown a different color compared to your buzzbait the day prior— a gold
36:25.033 --> 36:28.322
blade with a white Horny Toad on it. You were throwing a straight white Horny
36:28.822 --> 36:32.160
Toad. You noticed a lack of current in the river,
36:32.176 --> 36:35.163
which made you go a little bit more subtle in your, uh,
36:35.548 --> 36:38.840
your approach to catching the fish and stuff. And you ended up catching like,
36:38.904 --> 36:42.693
what, 17 pounds that day? 14 pounds, almost 14
36:43.193 --> 36:46.611
pounds, but big fish was only like 4.5. Okay, so the quality of fish
36:46.627 --> 36:49.694
went down, but you still caught a bunch of numbers, right? Yeah, yeah.
36:49.822 --> 36:52.729
And that's the thing too, like the last fish I caught,
36:53.034 --> 36:56.855
coalfish, was actually at 4.5, and I just I just
36:56.903 --> 36:59.987
messed— there's a brush pile that I caught, caught 2
37:00.100 --> 37:03.424
off of, missed 2, came back to it. I say brush pile, but it was
37:03.473 --> 37:06.910
like a couple logs and there's some vines hanging down, and,
37:06.926 --> 37:08.901
uh, it was a pain in the butt trying to get that horny toad in
37:09.014 --> 37:12.804
there. But I happened to look behind me, there's a log going with the current
37:13.304 --> 37:16.820
and a log going across the current, and there was actually current, wind current.
37:16.996 --> 37:20.996
And I was like, wait a minute, there's wind current now. I was
37:21.496 --> 37:24.610
like, give me— pick up the buzzbait. I fired that buzzbait over there twice,
37:25.110 --> 37:28.230
that 4.5 just jumped all over it. Ah, but then I couldn't get a buzzbait
37:28.730 --> 37:32.410
bite after that. It doesn't matter, that was the winning fish. I'm happy.
37:32.910 --> 37:36.090
So, so Mikey— so Seth, thanks for joining us again after making— yeah, sorry I
37:36.590 --> 37:40.040
had to step out. You're good, you're good. Uh, this is a perfect segue.
37:40.070 --> 37:43.400
So, well, congrats Mikey on smoking the competition both days.
37:43.590 --> 37:47.290
But Mikey's talking about current and he's talking about in a, in a river system.
37:47.390 --> 37:51.394
Before you, uh, while you were away, we talked about shallow
37:51.894 --> 37:55.339
water fishing in the middle of July and August, right? Fishing for those less pressured
37:55.387 --> 37:58.819
fish, maybe some of the bigger fish in the lake, especially after rain,
37:59.091 --> 38:02.587
good rain and stuff. Looking for those strong inflows coming in where they're feeding
38:02.683 --> 38:06.067
on gills and bugs and lizards and everything else that's going on.
38:06.612 --> 38:10.718
But Mikey's talking about current, and I think that's a topic that's really
38:11.218 --> 38:13.973
not talked about a lot, like, and I know how important it is,
38:14.711 --> 38:18.159
uh, on a lot of bodies of water in, in July and August,
38:18.175 --> 38:22.023
specifically when that thermocline is at its strongest and they need
38:22.523 --> 38:25.856
the maximum amount of oxygen they can get to survive and feed and stuff like
38:26.356 --> 38:30.057
that. You're a big reservoir fisherman, right? You fish rivers and stuff too,
38:30.121 --> 38:33.680
but you're really good on places like Carr Lake, Bugs Island, whatever,
38:34.129 --> 38:37.368
Gaston. Obviously you just got done fishing the Potomac River.
38:37.416 --> 38:41.120
That was current, tidal-driven stuff like that. For the lakes,
38:41.184 --> 38:44.038
for the audience— so Mike, you just talked about current in the river systems,
38:44.070 --> 38:48.063
but for the lakes— and I'll talk about what we know, what I noticed
38:48.563 --> 38:52.236
the other day when we were out Uh, fishing. But talk about your approach to
38:52.349 --> 38:55.254
like current-driven situations, um,
38:55.757 --> 38:59.241
in some of our reservoirs. What's most important for the audience
38:59.741 --> 39:03.043
to know? So July and August,
39:03.609 --> 39:07.055
mainly current is king. Doesn't matter where you're at— rivers,
39:07.653 --> 39:11.256
lakes— current is king. If you have current, you're going to have shallow fish and
39:11.756 --> 39:15.696
you're gonna have shallow feeding fish, um, and sometimes more
39:15.905 --> 39:19.517
in August than you in July because there's still a big contingent of fish out
39:20.017 --> 39:23.499
deep. You'll have a lot of fish shallow in August because of the current,
39:23.933 --> 39:27.561
right? Um, and you'll have a lot of fish
39:27.626 --> 39:30.596
because of the bait as well. You'll be at the last— the tail end of
39:31.096 --> 39:34.899
that last bream spawn. Um, the, the big bait balls are starting
39:34.915 --> 39:38.062
to move back shallow again because of the thermocline. Um,
39:38.126 --> 39:41.915
they need to get into the best oxygenated water as well. And current just
39:42.059 --> 39:45.830
adds a recipe for, lack of a better word, disaster for
39:46.330 --> 39:48.991
shallow fishermen, right? It's just a way to go in there and catch really big
39:49.040 --> 39:51.992
fish shallow in those, those months. Um,
39:52.971 --> 39:56.549
the places to look for me would be obviously in the backs of pockets,
39:57.143 --> 40:00.449
um, where there's some type of inflow if you have that, right?
40:00.689 --> 40:03.497
Um, whether it's a small feeder creek, uh,
40:04.139 --> 40:07.958
runoff from rains, things like that. And then if there is
40:08.055 --> 40:10.540
a river system that feeds that lake.
40:11.277 --> 40:14.804
Those are places that I'm going to first. Now, not necessarily a river,
40:15.269 --> 40:18.780
but a bigger stream that will create some type of
40:18.796 --> 40:22.355
current flow. Now, what we have around here for a couple of the
40:22.855 --> 40:26.683
lakes that you mentioned, they use a dam system
40:26.731 --> 40:30.578
to generate electricity, so that in itself creates
40:31.078 --> 40:34.618
current, right? And you can go to the far end of a creek or a
40:34.683 --> 40:38.228
pocket. And if there's dock posts, stumps, laydowns, anything that
40:38.276 --> 40:41.885
will break that current, those fish are going to sit there and feed on whatever
40:42.385 --> 40:44.901
comes and goes as that current comes in and goes back out,
40:45.270 --> 40:48.542
depending on whether they're, they're backflowing or actually pulling current
40:49.042 --> 40:52.969
to generate electricity. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's no secret.
40:53.033 --> 40:55.873
Like, you guys can jump on Deep Dive and check out if you're on a
40:55.921 --> 40:58.984
lake where they're pulling. This isn't a Deep Dive episode,
40:59.049 --> 41:02.373
by the way, but it fits well with like you know, July,
41:02.663 --> 41:06.021
August fishing, you know, and especially like targeting, um,
41:06.618 --> 41:09.862
you know, targeting shallow water fish like I was talking about before. Like,
41:10.185 --> 41:13.247
if you're fun fishing and you just
41:13.747 --> 41:17.544
want to catch numbers, you can pretty much go offshore. Oh,
41:17.887 --> 41:21.478
can you hear me now? You got
41:21.496 --> 41:24.403
me? Oh no,
41:25.382 --> 41:25.953
can you hear me?
41:29.949 --> 41:34.032
Can't hear. Do you got me now? I can't
41:34.532 --> 41:39.897
hear you. Oh, hang on a minute.
41:40.866 --> 41:44.548
But anyways, I'm gonna keep talking while, uh, I think, I think Seth can't
41:44.564 --> 41:47.844
hear us because Ben, uh, stepped away for a minute. But, um,
41:49.307 --> 41:53.021
here's a question. Yeah, you're saying shallow. What's shallow?
41:53.522 --> 41:57.193
Right, shallow is also relative. A lot of people— is it— I
41:57.258 --> 42:01.042
mean, 6 foot to me, you know, that's shallow. Yeah,
42:01.058 --> 42:05.207
you start talking down to 12, that's a little bit like mid-range.
42:05.578 --> 42:09.110
Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and pause it just for a second. We'll be right
42:09.610 --> 42:12.789
back, folks. Mikey, you just, uh,
42:13.062 --> 42:16.742
you just asked a great question to the audience, or to myself, like, what is
42:16.774 --> 42:20.430
considered shallow water, right? Like Actually, that's a very great,
42:20.510 --> 42:24.370
great question. It's, it's also relative to how each individual
42:24.870 --> 42:28.069
defines shallow water, right? Like, go ahead, Mikey. Seth, what's shallow to
42:28.569 --> 42:32.300
you? So you mean in July and August?
42:33.096 --> 42:35.907
Yeah, shallow, general. Uh, foot and a half or less.
42:36.636 --> 42:39.844
Oh wow, because here's the thing,
42:40.199 --> 42:43.472
you're— you have a lot of fish that are cruising up there in nothing,
42:43.584 --> 42:47.014
in shade lines. Oh sure. And if that's all they got,
42:47.030 --> 42:50.114
that's all they got. So a foot and a half, I mean, to me,
42:50.468 --> 42:53.680
I saw fish at Gaston last week in 6 inches of water in shade
42:54.180 --> 42:57.808
lines. Yeah. Um, and it was 88 degrees, 89 degrees.
42:58.033 --> 43:01.326
And it's only gonna— there's only gonna be more fish go that
43:01.826 --> 43:05.101
direction as it— the hotter it gets or the amount of rain that we have
43:05.601 --> 43:08.972
and it circulates through a system. And like you
43:09.472 --> 43:12.643
said, relative to fisheries too. It is, because when you get
43:13.143 --> 43:16.725
out to the rivers— and the pros saw it— these fish
43:16.854 --> 43:20.815
get shallow. Oh yeah, I'm sorry, like Seth just
43:21.315 --> 43:24.435
said, a foot and a half to a foot. Yeah, I mean, sometimes they
43:24.935 --> 43:27.173
get back there so far, you're like, how is that fish back there? There's like
43:27.673 --> 43:31.425
6 inches of water. Yeah, and dude, I know this conversation between all of
43:31.925 --> 43:35.452
us doesn't really— you know, I hate to say it, but I don't
43:35.952 --> 43:38.255
think it really speaks to the guys that fish a lot of like the Tuesday,
43:38.352 --> 43:40.140
Wednesday, Thursday nighters, right? Like,
43:40.204 --> 43:43.163
that's Like, clearly those guys that go out there,
43:43.372 --> 43:46.771
they know exactly where they're going, they know exactly what brush pile
43:47.271 --> 43:50.683
they're going to, what ledge they're going to, right? But we're talking
43:51.183 --> 43:54.772
to the, to the masses here. Like, if you're trying to go out, for instance,
43:55.237 --> 43:58.621
and just practice for— like,
43:59.487 --> 44:03.175
just practice to practice, or practice for a tournament, whatever, and you,
44:03.511 --> 44:06.558
and you're not on a body of water that you fish every single day of
44:07.058 --> 44:10.616
the week, like Jordan Lake, or Sharon Harris or Falls Lake or anything around
44:10.712 --> 44:14.241
here in the Piedmont, whatever. If you're not going to your local
44:14.741 --> 44:18.684
lake and you're not going shallow this time of year, you could be hurting yourself,
44:18.748 --> 44:22.518
right? There could be some of the best quality fish that have the best
44:23.018 --> 44:26.351
protein diets up there in the shallow waters, and it's— you're
44:26.851 --> 44:29.624
doing yourself a huge disservice. And that's one of the challenges that I've had,
44:30.201 --> 44:34.051
um, over the years, man. Like, as I've gotten more and more in touch with
44:34.551 --> 44:38.414
like the offshore fishing— and offshore is also relative too, Mikey, that's like
44:38.914 --> 44:42.152
saying shallow— but like where I'm not casting at the bank. We'll just put
44:42.652 --> 44:45.023
it to you that way. When we're going off and we're looking for groups of
44:45.039 --> 44:48.986
fish and stuff, like, it's hard for me not to just go and
44:49.486 --> 44:53.687
use my mapping product and go offshore and look for those high percentage areas to
44:53.703 --> 44:57.088
catch numbers of fish. That has hurt me because some
44:57.588 --> 45:00.617
of the best quality fish are still living shallow this time of year. They do
45:01.117 --> 45:05.222
it in January too. I've seen it happen, right? So, um, but for,
45:05.510 --> 45:08.928
for you, for you guys, like Mikey, you talked about using a buzzbait and stuff,
45:08.960 --> 45:11.818
which is a great bait, uh, this time of year to go up there in
45:11.850 --> 45:15.014
the shallows and cover water, especially if you're on a place
45:15.514 --> 45:18.675
like the Roanoke River with a lot of timber, or you're on a grass fishery
45:19.175 --> 45:22.691
and stuff. Seth, you talked about using a walking bait. Are you going to use
45:23.191 --> 45:26.497
a walking bait in a foot of water, like really, really shallow as well?
45:27.252 --> 45:29.532
Yeah, if there's shad in the back of a pocket, absolutely.
45:30.078 --> 45:33.933
Okay, what if you— what if you notice that they're really primarily
45:34.433 --> 45:37.546
feeding on bream? What's your go-to bait for that? Frog or a Mock
45:38.046 --> 45:41.815
Patroller, yeah, popper-style bait. I mean, those 2 things just depends,
45:42.024 --> 45:45.652
you know. If you're targeting single fish on an isolated piece of COVID in
45:46.152 --> 45:49.889
the back of a pocket, then I might, I might tend to, to lean
45:49.921 --> 45:53.806
more towards the frog. But if you're charging or targeting
45:53.838 --> 45:57.594
wolf pack fish that are on bream or bait, then I'm gonna go
45:58.094 --> 46:01.847
to something that's moving because then it becomes no different than these
46:02.347 --> 46:05.648
guys that are forward-facing sonar, and it's a competition. And the biggest one's going to
46:06.148 --> 46:09.071
go after the most aggressive bait. And I want something that draws the biggest fish
46:09.571 --> 46:11.698
out of the wolf pack. And to me, that's going to be a plopper-style bait.
46:13.460 --> 46:16.786
So, uh, my last question on this,
46:16.802 --> 46:19.261
and I'll turn over to Ben if he's got anything, then I got some other
46:19.761 --> 46:21.736
random questions for you too. Um,
46:22.540 --> 46:25.886
what is— so Mikey, for, for, for you, for the audience,
46:26.032 --> 46:29.589
if you can give them one piece of advice for fishing in the dog
46:30.089 --> 46:32.953
days of summer It doesn't even have to be fishing related, it could be anything
46:32.969 --> 46:36.478
related. What is your best piece of advice to give people for the dog days
46:36.671 --> 46:39.939
of summer? Drink lots of water. I knew he was gonna
46:40.035 --> 46:43.480
say, you know, over the years— and eat.
46:44.057 --> 46:47.791
I mean, guys don't eat. Yeah, me and Nick are horrible
46:48.291 --> 46:50.899
with eating. When we fish team tournaments, yeah,
46:51.476 --> 46:55.097
we kind of have this unwritten rule that if you don't get 5 fish
46:55.597 --> 46:59.137
in the boat, you punish yourself. Yes, we do, we do. Because you should be
46:59.586 --> 47:03.679
throwing. Um, but if you don't eat and drink,
47:03.920 --> 47:07.274
yeah, it tears you up. It's 100 degrees out there and
47:07.774 --> 47:11.527
you just start doing stupid crap. Yeah, I mean, you become— right,
47:11.848 --> 47:15.571
you're— yep, it's just worthless. It doesn't only affect your physical
47:16.071 --> 47:19.760
ability, it also affects your mental capacity too when you're out there all
47:19.808 --> 47:23.258
whacked out because you're dehydrated and you ain't peed in like 4 hours
47:23.758 --> 47:27.207
and stuff like that. Uh-huh, bright orange. That's a great piece of advice
47:27.707 --> 47:31.109
from Mikey, who's been fishing for a very, very long time. Once you retire from
47:31.125 --> 47:35.225
the Army, like 1976—
47:35.257 --> 47:39.099
I, I'm joking. I know when Mikey retired.
47:39.530 --> 47:42.895
We actually crossed paths and didn't even know it in Afghanistan one time. So yeah,
47:42.959 --> 47:46.955
it's pretty cool. Seth, what is your biggest piece of advice for fishing
47:46.988 --> 47:50.263
in the month of July, August, dog days of summer, for, for those listening?
47:51.379 --> 47:55.063
Go until you can't go anymore. Know when to quit?
47:55.919 --> 47:59.813
No, I mean as far back in a place as you can go. Go until
47:59.862 --> 48:03.059
your boat cannot float anymore, and you'd be surprised what's laying back there
48:03.559 --> 48:07.079
in the shade. Yeah, I promise you, you will. Um, that's one thing
48:07.127 --> 48:10.718
that, you know, growing up where I grew up, fished that way all
48:10.895 --> 48:14.517
the time. But down here, I got sucked into being offshore and big groups of
48:15.017 --> 48:18.176
fish. And to be honest with you, what put me back shallow was, was I
48:18.257 --> 48:22.120
could not stand the boat traffic around here. It is absolutely
48:22.620 --> 48:25.740
horrific. So I just said, all right, I'm going back to the bank and I'll
48:26.240 --> 48:28.360
have to figure it out. And I did. And I just started going back because
48:28.860 --> 48:31.640
you don't have skiers in those places, you don't have jet skiers, right? And then
48:32.140 --> 48:34.200
all of a sudden you start realizing, well, maybe those fish are back there for
48:34.700 --> 48:37.920
the same reason and it's cooler. But yeah, don't be afraid to go
48:38.420 --> 48:41.300
as far back as you possibly can go and find shade, and you'll, you'll be
48:41.800 --> 48:45.340
surprised at what you see swimming around. So folks, Seth is speaking directly to
48:45.840 --> 48:49.284
me. Uh, and, and I'm taking it, I'm taking it to heart. No, but let
48:49.784 --> 48:52.971
me tell you, let me tell y'all a little secret. Where does— if
48:53.019 --> 48:56.513
you got a fishery that you're like, man, they killed all the grass in here,
48:56.786 --> 49:00.777
whatever, what are the first thing— where's the first place that's usually gonna start growing?
49:02.076 --> 49:05.682
It's gonna start growing in the shallowest water in the back of a
49:06.182 --> 49:08.920
creek most of the time. Not all the time, but a lot of the times.
49:08.968 --> 49:12.126
And when you start going back in these creeks and these little cuts and stuff
49:12.190 --> 49:15.383
like that and getting away from the jet skiers and the wakeboarders and the
49:15.883 --> 49:19.377
lake lice, as Pete likes to call them, uh, you start noticing
49:19.490 --> 49:22.554
things. You start visually seeing things with your eyes and you're like, hey,
49:23.084 --> 49:27.239
there's something there that I'm not going to tell the biologist about. You know what
49:27.271 --> 49:30.769
I mean? But, but it's a great way to get away from
49:30.785 --> 49:34.234
the traffic. It's a great way to get yourself some shade, target some
49:34.734 --> 49:37.780
resident fish and stuff like that too. Uh, Ben, what's your piece of
49:38.280 --> 49:41.858
advice for folks besides drink water and go back? If you're just out fishing
49:41.890 --> 49:46.069
the fish, have a good time, you're not focusing on a tournament and,
49:46.327 --> 49:49.933
you know, focusing on finding fish during that tournament window, go in the afternoon to
49:50.013 --> 49:52.198
evening. Yeah, I feel like, um,
49:54.448 --> 49:57.757
it doesn't translate because if— like, I've spent years,
49:57.805 --> 50:01.363
you know, getting off from work, from the Army, and going running up
50:01.863 --> 50:04.020
to Jordan in the evening in the summertime to get ready for a tournament and
50:04.520 --> 50:07.688
stuff. And even though it's like— but the fishing is different. I mean,
50:07.705 --> 50:10.757
it's always different on the weekend, and it's different in the, you know, in the
50:11.257 --> 50:14.966
morning and the feeds. But I feel like, especially a lot of lakes around here,
50:15.480 --> 50:18.146
and this even applies the places I fished in Missouri,
50:19.014 --> 50:22.532
um, when as the day goes on,
50:22.564 --> 50:26.131
you know, those fish will kind of migrate out, kind of get lazy, lay there.
50:26.982 --> 50:29.488
And so if you go late afternoon, you can kind of get on that bite.
50:29.697 --> 50:33.488
But I feel like it turns on more because Um,
50:35.213 --> 50:37.474
I have a feeling a lot of the fish in the summertime feed at night.
50:37.797 --> 50:40.946
Maybe they feed at night more, they move up shallow, and so you're starting to
50:41.446 --> 50:44.451
get that transition. They're trying to get hungrier and then they'll move up, but you
50:44.951 --> 50:48.073
can get that late evening topwater bite. A lot of times I've had more,
50:49.167 --> 50:52.450
uh, success, you know, evening topwater bite than I have a lot of times in
50:52.950 --> 50:55.764
the morning in the summertime. Maybe that's just me, but that's just, uh,
50:56.463 --> 51:00.011
some success I have and I mean, especially if it's full
51:00.511 --> 51:03.715
moon. Like, if it's like bright, they are feeding at night, you know.
51:04.694 --> 51:07.612
If you go out in the morning, like, they've gorged themselves all night, probably.
51:08.142 --> 51:11.734
Yeah. So you can turn around. So, dude, and it doesn't apply
51:12.234 --> 51:15.487
for tournament fishing because, like, I mean, it's jacked me
51:15.987 --> 51:18.951
up before because the only time you can practice is in the afternoon and night,
51:19.031 --> 51:22.655
and then it's not— they're not there in the day, in the morning. So night
51:23.155 --> 51:26.535
fishing is so fun, night bass fishing. And,
51:26.727 --> 51:29.853
and I'll tell you, if you never fished at night,
51:30.158 --> 51:34.230
A, it's scary, uh, but depending
51:34.358 --> 51:38.317
on where you're at. But if you're on a place like Lake Norman,
51:38.349 --> 51:41.876
Lake Gaston, stuff like that, you know, there are
51:42.376 --> 51:45.082
certain areas of the lake that you should look at to target. I'm not going
51:45.582 --> 51:47.951
to give you the juice, okay? Check for the lit docks. Go check for the
51:48.451 --> 51:50.869
lit docks, right? Because those bass are going to be up there feeding by those
51:50.917 --> 51:53.578
docks with lights on them. But if you're on a place like Sharon Harris or
51:54.078 --> 51:56.993
Jordan, used to hear the tales of the the old guys back in the day
51:57.025 --> 52:00.231
with the black jitterbugs, black buzzbaits, and stuff like that. But I'm gonna tell
52:00.731 --> 52:04.768
you right now, fish still eat offshore at
52:04.800 --> 52:08.247
nighttime. I have caught monster fish on big
52:08.632 --> 52:12.447
black shaky head worms in 15 foot of water offshore,
52:13.041 --> 52:15.942
one after the other after the other. And so, um,
52:16.087 --> 52:18.427
it's a great time to get out there. And dude, yeah, you have no boat
52:18.927 --> 52:20.960
traffic. The only thing you get to see on a lot of our lakes around
52:20.992 --> 52:24.343
here is those guys with them boats with them generators and those big old lights
52:24.359 --> 52:28.152
bow fishing for carp. Dude, like, that's pretty cool to watch those guys do
52:28.652 --> 52:32.540
that. Um, but I want to transition here. So we talked about all the things
52:32.556 --> 52:35.827
you like to do in the dog days of summer. Mikey, I'm at— nope,
52:35.907 --> 52:40.772
let me go to Seth this time. Seth, what is— what
52:40.965 --> 52:45.141
baits do you not even have in your boat during
52:45.157 --> 52:48.325
the dog days of summer? Like, give us, give us a couple baits you're like,
52:48.470 --> 52:49.909
I'm not even gonna have it in the boat.
52:52.216 --> 52:55.858
Um, I usually don't have any type of lipless
52:55.972 --> 52:57.744
in the boat, uh, in the summertime.
52:59.845 --> 53:03.682
Um, Mikey's thinking.
53:04.101 --> 53:07.196
That's a good question. Uh, you know,
53:07.825 --> 53:11.041
depending on the fishery, most of the time I get an idea what I want
53:11.541 --> 53:15.231
to do, but I don't usually carry much lipless. Um, and then
53:15.328 --> 53:18.567
honestly, I scale down my shallow water tackle a lot. Um, yeah,
53:19.225 --> 53:22.498
only because I, I tend to fish bigger baits in the summer—
53:22.658 --> 53:26.557
big jigs, full-size Game Hogs, Rage Hogs, things like that.
53:26.749 --> 53:29.172
Um, so I take out like,
53:30.038 --> 53:33.151
uh, like small beavers and things like that. I want a lot of action.
53:33.680 --> 53:36.456
So, um, that'd be about it,
53:36.472 --> 53:39.825
probably just the lipless. I mean, I still have squarebills in there because
53:40.325 --> 53:43.611
I do, I do fish isolated targets with squarebills. Um,
53:43.932 --> 53:47.063
Maybe ones I don't carry a bunch is like big thumping spinnerbaits.
53:47.143 --> 53:50.162
I take those out too just because usually in the summertime,
53:50.900 --> 53:53.694
like Ben was saying earlier, our lakes start to get a little bit lower.
53:53.806 --> 53:56.857
We don't get as much rainfall. We're— we've been dealing with that since April this
53:57.357 --> 54:00.116
year. So, um, dirty water is not much of an issue in the summer,
54:00.148 --> 54:03.327
so I take that out. Um, but other than that,
54:03.359 --> 54:06.587
that's probably the 2 that I don't carry. Everything else— but there
54:07.087 --> 54:10.527
again, Trey, you've seen my tackle selection. It's not crazy. You know, I got
54:10.576 --> 54:14.547
Rage Bugs and I have, you know, some handful of topwaters, some frogs,
54:14.563 --> 54:17.787
and some, and some bladed jigs. So that's about what I have all year round
54:18.287 --> 54:21.758
anyways. That's true, that's true. I, I do, I do have to tell the audience
54:22.258 --> 54:25.972
that, like, if there was the most streamlined tackle setup
54:26.020 --> 54:29.521
that I've ever seen, it's definitely not mine, it's definitely
54:30.021 --> 54:33.910
not Mikey, it's definitely not Pete, it's definitely, it's definitely Ben
54:33.926 --> 54:37.018
has all his organic stuff in there, but it's definitely not Ben because he
54:37.518 --> 54:38.295
carries a lot of tackle too.
54:38.648 --> 54:41.866
It's definitely not Mike Johns, who didn't join us tonight because he
54:42.366 --> 54:46.234
got our storm that came through. Seth, you definitely have the most streamlined
54:46.282 --> 54:50.474
tackle setup I've ever seen out of any competitive angler. So it's about
54:50.974 --> 54:54.215
efficiency. That's the only reason why. If I was a— if I was
54:54.247 --> 54:57.989
a recreational angler and that's all I did, I'd carry everything. But it's about efficiency,
54:58.728 --> 55:01.522
and so I know what I use and that's what I carry.
55:02.020 --> 55:05.167
Yep. And a lot of confidence. But yeah, it's a big one for me.
55:05.311 --> 55:08.699
I don't carry a bunch like And if guys were to get in my boat,
55:08.924 --> 55:12.200
I don't carry full-size 3700s anymore. Um,
55:13.034 --> 55:16.149
I carry small— I don't know what they are. They're,
55:16.470 --> 55:19.938
I guess, half-size freight. Yeah, they're small, and I carry a
55:20.438 --> 55:23.647
bunch of those because it has what I need, and that's it. Yep, 100%.
55:24.257 --> 55:27.709
Mikey, I know you, you took, you took 4 minutes to think about
55:28.209 --> 55:31.755
this. You better come, and don't use the Roanoke River as the answer. No.
55:33.008 --> 55:36.652
What do you not have in your boat this time of year? I don't fish—
55:36.717 --> 55:39.944
well, we fish rivers. Yeah, we don't fish— if
55:40.444 --> 55:44.584
I go to a lake in the summer, it's fun fishing. Okay, so everything
55:45.084 --> 55:48.679
in my boat's for river. Yeah. Um, so I don't have a lot of crankbaits
55:49.179 --> 55:52.629
and stuff in there. Okay. Um, I don't— I'm not a crankbait fisherman, so I
55:52.677 --> 55:55.551
mean, I have some, but I don't— yeah, throw it a lot. But yeah,
55:55.567 --> 55:58.859
I don't have traps in there. That ain't till like
55:59.359 --> 56:02.617
spring and fall for me. Um, I got a little bit of everything in
56:02.649 --> 56:06.328
there, man. Yeah, it's like we went to— are you, are you throwing a wacky
56:06.828 --> 56:10.182
worm this time of year? I, you know that I hate throwing that
56:10.682 --> 56:13.154
stupid thing. I'm with you, bro.
56:13.716 --> 56:17.057
I do hate saying it, but I am more of a power— I'd rather power
56:17.105 --> 56:20.317
fish. Yeah, throw a buzzbait, throw a horny toad. Yeah. Uh,
56:20.638 --> 56:23.979
even my damn shaky head, when I'm throwing it, I'm, I'm moving that thing.
56:24.236 --> 56:28.444
Yeah, it's— unless we know it's a slow, slow, slow— yeah,
56:28.508 --> 56:31.704
buckhorn or something. Yeah, but I'm moving. Yeah, I don't
56:31.720 --> 56:34.530
like sitting still. That's why I don't like this forward-facing.
56:34.915 --> 56:38.593
I hate it. I hate it. I don't see the sense of sitting
56:38.609 --> 56:41.917
on some fish for an hour and you don't get a bite.
56:42.479 --> 56:45.546
I just wasted an hour where I can go shallow. Yeah, and go catch some
56:45.594 --> 56:49.320
fish. Yeah, touché, Mikey, because that was touché,
56:49.465 --> 56:52.771
buddy. You know, I, I mean I know how to use it.
56:52.900 --> 56:56.028
I've used it to my advantage, but I'm— I,
56:56.124 --> 56:59.413
I can't do sit-up schools. Yeah, it's just, it's, it's a
56:59.913 --> 57:03.520
pain. Yeah, especially now that everybody's got it. These fish are
57:04.020 --> 57:07.916
not stupid. No, they're not. Trey and I experienced that this weekend.
57:07.997 --> 57:11.109
These fish are as smart as they've ever been, and they're only going to get
57:11.609 --> 57:14.976
smarter. And it's stupid to waste your time out there. But you know what was
57:15.056 --> 57:19.387
cool about this weekend fishing that tournament? They ate like—
57:19.887 --> 57:22.372
yeah, we got them on a couple urchin stuff. Like, we— I think we caught
57:22.420 --> 57:25.372
like 2 or 3 on an urchin, but they didn't do anything for us.
57:26.190 --> 57:29.575
But all of our bigger fish came off like traditional baits,
57:29.639 --> 57:33.730
like paddle tail swimbaits, the One Cast Fishing 5-inch Stinger
57:33.811 --> 57:36.891
I was talking about. Seth was throwing a little bit bigger, uh,
57:37.372 --> 57:40.485
swimbait and drop shots. Well, we caught a good one
57:40.985 --> 57:44.031
on top. Yeah, and topwater. Yeah, right, like Straight up, dude.
57:44.560 --> 57:48.508
Um, so we got Mikey who doesn't really throw a whole lot of
57:48.572 --> 57:51.910
like non-moving baits. If there is, he's power fishing a non-moving— or,
57:53.162 --> 57:56.420
uh, yeah, you got Seth talking about spinnerbaits. And,
57:56.452 --> 57:58.923
uh, what was the other thing you said? Traps.
57:59.180 --> 58:02.599
Traps. Ben, what's, what's not in your box in
58:02.631 --> 58:05.760
the dog days of summer? So if you said traps to begin with, but I
58:06.260 --> 58:09.644
fish enough grass, I always have traps. I mean, I get it.
58:09.756 --> 58:12.292
I just, it's just like I'm with Mikey on it. It's a spring and a
58:12.340 --> 58:15.767
fall bait for me. Yeah, um, blade baits.
58:16.689 --> 58:18.550
Oh, there you go.
58:20.837 --> 58:23.512
Yeah, blade bait, like a steel shad. Um,
58:24.141 --> 58:29.695
uh, probably like, uh, Shad Wraps, so like those little cold
58:30.195 --> 58:33.311
water things. A lot of times I probably take my
58:33.392 --> 58:36.801
Wiggle— my Wiggle Wart Rock Crawler crankbait box out.
58:37.817 --> 58:40.899
Um, I usually tend to focus on other crankbaits in the summertime,
58:40.915 --> 58:44.275
so Um, but like, to be honest, like,
58:45.271 --> 58:47.759
my tackle selection isn't as small as, uh,
58:48.161 --> 58:51.323
Seth's, but it's definitely— I know it's smaller than everyone else's.
58:51.677 --> 58:55.128
Yeah, than the rest of you guys. I just, you know, I got
58:55.628 --> 58:58.789
all my organic stuff and some other standard stuff. I actually need to expand out
58:58.821 --> 59:02.192
and, and try and do more things again. But, um,
59:03.220 --> 59:06.077
but like, I don't, uh, I don't carry that,
59:06.832 --> 59:10.023
that much stuff because like a lot of my plastics and
59:10.135 --> 59:13.500
stuff. And like, jerkbaits are a great cold water bait. A lot of people quit
59:14.000 --> 59:16.641
throwing them, but like, I, I can love a jerkbait in the summertime.
59:17.410 --> 59:20.791
Um, I've had some phenomenal days on it. Um,
59:21.111 --> 59:23.996
that's actually mine that I was gonna say, especially with scope.
59:24.781 --> 59:28.867
Um, I, I just, I don't, I don't, I always— so
59:28.963 --> 59:31.880
first of all, I'm gonna— I carry way too much stuff. Everybody knows that.
59:32.633 --> 59:36.576
Uh, and I have everything tied on. All the time. But there is one bait
59:37.076 --> 59:39.685
that usually in the dog days of summer I just do not throw, and that
59:40.185 --> 59:44.639
is a jerkbait. The only time I've really— and it's, it's a scope-only
59:44.735 --> 59:48.855
deal for me— is if I'm trying to target an individual or group
59:49.355 --> 59:52.670
of fish that is suspended like immediately underneath the surface. And so
59:53.170 --> 59:56.581
far this year, the urchin-style bait has taken over that
59:56.613 --> 59:59.835
because I've tried to focus on getting dialed in on that bait.
59:59.899 --> 01:00:02.995
But yeah, jerkbait Um, and yeah, same as you guys,
01:00:03.428 --> 01:00:07.215
lipless crankbaits, dude. Like, I'm just not— there's— there— I've heard
01:00:07.715 --> 01:00:11.980
of guys doing really, really well in schools of fish offshore throwing
01:00:12.012 --> 01:00:16.151
those, but if we're talking about like targeting more shallow water, relative shallow
01:00:16.167 --> 01:00:19.938
water areas and stuff like that, a lipless crankbait is just not
01:00:20.438 --> 01:00:23.644
going to be— I actually don't have that tied on. That is one thing I
01:00:23.724 --> 01:00:26.532
do not have tied on right now. I got a wacky worm though, Mikey.
01:00:26.612 --> 01:00:29.853
You look— I do. Welcome. You can throw it and work it like a spoon.
01:00:30.463 --> 01:00:33.321
You can, you can. And you can throw really, really,
01:00:33.417 --> 01:00:36.902
really big lipless crankbaits offshore too and do really well with those,
01:00:37.431 --> 01:00:41.397
uh, mimicking big gizzards. Yeah, glide baits and stuff. Is it—
01:00:41.542 --> 01:00:44.881
yeah, I mean, but yeah, I mean, you know, the dog days
01:00:44.913 --> 01:00:48.189
of summer, man. Like, it's, uh, you know, a lot of people talk about—
01:00:48.689 --> 01:00:51.288
like, I've seen it on, you know, social media forums where guys are going out
01:00:51.336 --> 01:00:54.515
there and blasting numbers. And then I've also seen guys that are,
01:00:55.013 --> 01:00:58.401
uh, you know traditional shallow water anglers that are having
01:00:58.417 --> 01:01:02.255
a really, really hard time, uh, this time of year. Uh,
01:01:02.335 --> 01:01:04.872
because when you're, when you're fishing this time of year in the dog days of
01:01:04.905 --> 01:01:08.919
summer, and you guys can correct me if you think I'm wrong, you're not gonna—
01:01:09.385 --> 01:01:12.516
most likely you're not gonna go out there and set the world on fire with
01:01:12.532 --> 01:01:15.760
catching 100+ fish on the, you know, in the shallow water.
01:01:16.226 --> 01:01:20.449
But so you may be going for 7 to 9
01:01:20.561 --> 01:01:23.918
bites a day, maybe 5 bites a day, depending on what
01:01:24.418 --> 01:01:28.405
you're doing, depending on where you're at, not not where you came from, but depending
01:01:28.421 --> 01:01:30.854
on where you're at, you, you may not set the world on fire in the
01:01:31.354 --> 01:01:34.462
shallow water situation, uh, but you might catch some of the right fish. So for
01:01:34.962 --> 01:01:37.457
those of you guys that are— and you guys correct me if I'm wrong— maybe
01:01:37.957 --> 01:01:40.710
some of your best numbers come in the shallows this time of year. I don't
01:01:41.210 --> 01:01:44.703
know. No, it's usually better than average fish for me.
01:01:45.330 --> 01:01:48.560
Um, I go up there and I'm 5 to 7,
01:01:48.624 --> 01:01:52.030
8 bites a day. Um, but it's gonna
01:01:52.530 --> 01:01:55.194
be quality. It's not gonna be you know, pound and a half, or is this
01:01:55.694 --> 01:01:58.705
going to be 3 pluses? Because it's either wolf packs or it's individual fish on
01:01:59.205 --> 01:02:02.055
isolated cover, right? And that's, that's why I think, you know,
01:02:02.247 --> 01:02:05.582
for, for those anglers out there that are getting deterred from,
01:02:05.758 --> 01:02:09.060
you know, fishing in shallows this time of year, like, look, man, like,
01:02:09.685 --> 01:02:13.100
you're fishing for resident fish or fish that just slid up there after a good
01:02:13.148 --> 01:02:16.354
rain or something like that, or fish that are, you know, hanging out in the
01:02:16.854 --> 01:02:19.720
backside of a dock because it's got a shade line. And, you know, if you
01:02:20.220 --> 01:02:23.407
guys go watch, uh, camera footage of— there's tons of
01:02:23.907 --> 01:02:25.860
videos out there, but one of the best ones that I saw, I think it
01:02:26.469 --> 01:02:29.694
4 years ago, uh, Swindle, uh,
01:02:30.288 --> 01:02:33.657
uh, Ben's like, ah, uh, Swindle did
01:02:34.157 --> 01:02:37.459
a video and he was talking, he was skipping docks. That was his whole
01:02:37.523 --> 01:02:41.614
video was talking about skipping docks. And they put some cameras underneath the docks and
01:02:42.114 --> 01:02:45.545
dude, those docks were absolutely loaded with bass in the middle of
01:02:46.045 --> 01:02:49.379
the dog days of summer. I mean loaded with them. And they, and guess
01:02:49.396 --> 01:02:53.054
what they were sitting right next to? Bluegills. They're all just sitting there next to
01:02:53.070 --> 01:02:56.633
each other, just hanging out. Like, one minute I'm your friend, one minute
01:02:57.133 --> 01:02:59.041
I'm your frenemy, dude, and I'm gonna try to eat you, you know what I
01:02:59.541 --> 01:03:03.278
mean? So like, if you think that there's not groups of fish up there shallow
01:03:03.778 --> 01:03:07.258
in the dog days of summer, you're wrong. Getting them to bite is,
01:03:07.451 --> 01:03:10.661
is the art of, of fishing shallow and
01:03:11.161 --> 01:03:15.059
targeting those fish during the dog days of summer, because you may throw a half-ounce
01:03:15.559 --> 01:03:19.293
One Cast Fishing Snagless Jig underneath the dock one of the 18
01:03:19.470 --> 01:03:21.826
fish may eat it, and then you're not— and look,
01:03:22.932 --> 01:03:26.042
this is also something that you need to know about shallow water fish too.
01:03:27.244 --> 01:03:30.963
You will pull those fish away from that structure
01:03:31.108 --> 01:03:34.538
or cover when you're fishing for them shallow. They don't
01:03:34.554 --> 01:03:37.648
just all stay there. It's the same concept as when you're
01:03:37.664 --> 01:03:41.127
offshore and you're looking at them on forward-facing sonar and you
01:03:41.627 --> 01:03:44.173
catch one and about 50 of them come back to the boat. Well, a lot
01:03:44.673 --> 01:03:48.139
of fish do that stuff in the shallow shallows too. So that shallow piece
01:03:48.204 --> 01:03:51.415
of COVID that you fished— and Seth and Mikey and Ben, you can talk about
01:03:51.463 --> 01:03:54.963
that too— like, you may have to revisit that 45 minutes to an
01:03:54.995 --> 01:03:57.629
hour later again to catch another one off that one. Am I wrong?
01:03:58.303 --> 01:04:01.868
No, you're right. Yeah, it depends. But yeah, it depends for sure. Yeah,
01:04:02.092 --> 01:04:05.705
it depends. Like I said, a lot of times if you're around something like
01:04:06.205 --> 01:04:08.660
a bream bed and there's wolf packs, then yeah, absolutely, I'm going back to that
01:04:09.160 --> 01:04:11.547
area. But if I'm running to the very back end of a place and I'm
01:04:12.047 --> 01:04:14.930
fishing one stump, one laydown, one fish deal, yeah,
01:04:14.994 --> 01:04:19.291
yeah, yeah. So it just, it's all situational. But absolutely,
01:04:19.949 --> 01:04:23.252
um, there are going to be places on your local bodies of water that are
01:04:23.752 --> 01:04:27.790
going to hold multiple fish that you need to revisit, especially because
01:04:27.822 --> 01:04:31.493
think about it, you probably, everybody probably has a place that they'll go and they
01:04:31.654 --> 01:04:35.262
always catch a fish off something, right? Oh, I always catch fish
01:04:35.762 --> 01:04:38.323
off this dock. Well, it's not the same fish Right, so that means there's a
01:04:38.823 --> 01:04:42.041
group of fish there. There's a group of fish that lives there. So that's why
01:04:42.169 --> 01:04:45.774
you need to, to, to revisit that multiple times in a day,
01:04:46.399 --> 01:04:49.877
um, because it's, it's a group of fish usually. Yep.
01:04:50.982 --> 01:04:53.915
I got, I got one more question before we end here. I know we've been
01:04:53.947 --> 01:04:56.911
going over a little over an hour, but I, I wanna, I wanna ask this
01:04:57.411 --> 01:05:00.789
question because you hear about it a lot of times in the summertime, but in
01:05:00.901 --> 01:05:04.544
general, right? And that's talking about rotation. Getting in a
01:05:04.608 --> 01:05:07.239
bad rotation. All right, so,
01:05:08.385 --> 01:05:11.113
and anybody can answer this, it can be Seth or Mikey or Ben.
01:05:11.872 --> 01:05:15.880
What— how do you know how to get into a good
01:05:16.380 --> 01:05:19.932
rotation versus a bad rotation? Like, what are, what are some of the things that
01:05:19.981 --> 01:05:23.171
you're looking for? Seth, you can go ahead and answer.
01:05:23.967 --> 01:05:27.784
So for me, um, if I'm gonna start where
01:05:28.284 --> 01:05:31.900
I feel like there's a big population of fish in an area. So it might
01:05:32.400 --> 01:05:33.988
be the back end of the creek, like I might go into a creek and
01:05:34.488 --> 01:05:38.933
I might get 4 or 5 bites off of different pieces of COVID So
01:05:38.949 --> 01:05:42.225
I'm going to start there because that's their highest percentage of getting a bite.
01:05:42.803 --> 01:05:46.913
Then from there, my rotation is going to be based on what part
01:05:47.413 --> 01:05:49.884
of the lake I'm in and then how much shade I have throughout the day,
01:05:50.911 --> 01:05:53.561
right? So I'm going to start on the area that's going to get the sunlight
01:05:54.061 --> 01:05:57.160
first, that I get the most bites in. That's going to have the shortest amount
01:05:57.208 --> 01:06:00.502
of shade, so I'm going to start in there because your, your percentage of getting
01:06:00.551 --> 01:06:03.331
a bite or higher quality goes up. From there,
01:06:03.604 --> 01:06:06.470
I just run— so for instance, I might have a creek I know that I
01:06:06.598 --> 01:06:09.738
can fish down a stretch that has shade until 10:30.
01:06:10.125 --> 01:06:13.168
Well, I'm not going to run that to my second or third stop. I'm going
01:06:13.184 --> 01:06:16.432
to run that later in the day, and I know that I still have
01:06:16.721 --> 01:06:20.257
a good, uh, bite window in that area because of the shade
01:06:20.273 --> 01:06:23.859
line that it creates till 10 or 10:30. Um, that's how I do
01:06:23.907 --> 01:06:27.631
it. Some guys just kind of run all over the place this
01:06:27.679 --> 01:06:30.664
time of year when I'm running shade and I'm running the backs of places.
01:06:31.065 --> 01:06:34.178
I always go to the areas that get the sunlight the first and work my
01:06:34.678 --> 01:06:37.517
way to the places that have the shade the longest. Yeah, that makes sense.
01:06:37.870 --> 01:06:41.705
That makes— so you're— go ahead. I should send Braden an
01:06:42.205 --> 01:06:45.252
email from Deep Dive. They need to have a, a shade feature, you know.
01:06:45.380 --> 01:06:49.489
100%. I want— hey, I want royalties off of that then
01:06:50.067 --> 01:06:53.563
because, uh Because that obviously, that changes
01:06:53.595 --> 01:06:57.409
where you're at in the country, where the sunrise, sunset location.
01:06:57.985 --> 01:07:00.549
It's no different than in the spring of the year when you want to fish
01:07:01.049 --> 01:07:04.331
north-facing banks, right? That water heats up the fastest. So it's just in the
01:07:04.831 --> 01:07:08.338
summertime I want to find places that hold shade the longest. And that's
01:07:08.838 --> 01:07:12.120
pro— I mean, it depends, uh, but obviously it's usually the, uh,
01:07:13.001 --> 01:07:17.793
east side. And correct. And, uh, probably It'll
01:07:18.293 --> 01:07:21.691
be east to south. Yep. Yeah, southeast side.
01:07:21.803 --> 01:07:25.076
Well, and, and that's where you, you know, folks, you gotta— and we'll go
01:07:25.092 --> 01:07:27.337
to Mikey here in a second, but you got to keep your eyes open.
01:07:27.401 --> 01:07:31.348
This is one thing that, like, you know, forward-facing sonar has kind of messed
01:07:31.848 --> 01:07:35.598
with me a little bit, and it's my fault, is paying attention to your surroundings
01:07:36.098 --> 01:07:38.855
instead of getting hyper-focused in on your screen. Like, look, I got it, man.
01:07:38.951 --> 01:07:42.704
Like, I, I love using the technology, but a lot of times you miss those
01:07:42.736 --> 01:07:45.481
little things that Seth and Ben were talking about. You know,
01:07:45.850 --> 01:07:48.902
even, even a, even a, a shade or
01:07:49.063 --> 01:07:52.355
an east-facing bank can be— it's going to be
01:07:52.371 --> 01:07:56.708
vastly different. I know areas on Falls Lake that get like shade
01:07:57.208 --> 01:08:00.917
lines until 10:30 like you're talking about, and they're east-facing banks, right? Um,
01:08:01.833 --> 01:08:04.756
and it has to do with the terrain, the surrounding terrain, right?
01:08:04.884 --> 01:08:08.242
If you're going to fish a mountain reservoir in western North
01:08:08.258 --> 01:08:11.534
Carolina, or you're going to fish the Yadkin chain, which has a lot of rolling
01:08:11.631 --> 01:08:15.498
hills and stuff like that, they— everything sets up so
01:08:15.578 --> 01:08:18.272
differently. But if you're going to fish a place like out in the desert or
01:08:18.304 --> 01:08:21.271
something like that, you got to look at the mountain terrain, you got to look
01:08:21.771 --> 01:08:25.120
at the way the sun's hitting that stuff. So like, that is a great point
01:08:25.620 --> 01:08:28.456
for the audience to know about, like rotations. You're talking about chasing the sun,
01:08:28.809 --> 01:08:31.375
or chasing away from the sun is what you're talking about.
01:08:32.000 --> 01:08:35.609
Um, and that makes a lot of sense, dude. Um, well, here's for
01:08:36.109 --> 01:08:39.627
you, Trey. Well, go ahead, Seth. Well, I'm saying, here's the thing. Once I've run
01:08:40.127 --> 01:08:43.943
all my shade stuff, then guess where I go? I go
01:08:44.443 --> 01:08:47.371
right back to where I started, because then those fish are going to position themselves
01:08:47.468 --> 01:08:50.788
on the COVID the way they need to with the shade line. Exactly. Yep,
01:08:50.965 --> 01:08:54.716
same deal. Yep. So you got shade down the entire bank
01:08:55.216 --> 01:08:58.813
line, and then you have isolated shade, correct? Which is going to position the fish
01:08:59.414 --> 01:09:02.354
the exact same way that you would run offshore stuff,
01:09:02.825 --> 01:09:06.660
positioning fish on brush piles on ledges, on stumps,
01:09:07.094 --> 01:09:10.369
with the way that the sun's hitting them and creating shade lines. And so
01:09:10.401 --> 01:09:13.838
whatever, you know, for you offshore guys— and I'm— I love offshore
01:09:14.338 --> 01:09:17.450
fishing— you can treat the bank or treat the shallows the
01:09:17.950 --> 01:09:20.646
exact same way. Yeah, right. Current, shade lines,
01:09:20.822 --> 01:09:24.258
structure, cover, targets of opportunity, right?
01:09:24.451 --> 01:09:27.486
Bait. Mikey? So I don't know if
01:09:27.986 --> 01:09:32.606
you've noticed this, Seth, about Kerr, but What I've seen schooling
01:09:32.702 --> 01:09:35.575
fish, 9, 10,
01:09:35.751 --> 01:09:39.379
11, 12 o'clock in the sun on points,
01:09:40.021 --> 01:09:43.487
you will start seeing schooling fish. Yep. And I— you might see
01:09:43.987 --> 01:09:46.874
some in the morning, but I see the majority later in the day. And you
01:09:46.906 --> 01:09:50.260
may not see them schooling, like blowing up like crazy,
01:09:51.015 --> 01:09:54.000
until 12 o'clock, right? Did you say bugs?
01:09:54.465 --> 01:09:58.208
Huh? Did you say bugs? Yeah, Bugs does it, Tillery does
01:09:58.320 --> 01:10:01.502
it. Well, Tillery makes sense because Bugs does
01:10:01.759 --> 01:10:04.105
have herring in it, so that kind of makes sense with the herring because the
01:10:04.605 --> 01:10:07.800
herring love the sun. That's right, they move up. Yeah, yeah.
01:10:07.881 --> 01:10:11.512
But there's a thing too, like Tillery and Kerr,
01:10:12.765 --> 01:10:16.139
it drives me nuts for topwater because you
01:10:16.639 --> 01:10:20.301
want to run shade and they're in the sun. When it's bright sunny,
01:10:20.879 --> 01:10:23.978
oh, it's perfect. It's great topwater. But when it's cloudy, yeah,
01:10:24.170 --> 01:10:27.797
it sucks. It's awful. People don't realize that it's
01:10:27.861 --> 01:10:31.391
awful in those places when it's cloudy. It's backwards. Yep.
01:10:32.353 --> 01:10:35.883
Well, you know, this is interesting too. So Seth and
01:10:36.383 --> 01:10:38.803
I fished a tournament out on, uh, on Mayo Lake. I'll just say it,
01:10:38.852 --> 01:10:42.141
right? Everybody knows that lake's a clear water
01:10:42.641 --> 01:10:45.141
reservoir. Um, clear water,
01:10:45.607 --> 01:10:48.799
it's a— that's a whole nother podcast in itself about bait
01:10:49.299 --> 01:10:53.195
selection and movement and stuff like that. But, you know, one of the things,
01:10:53.371 --> 01:10:56.578
uh, for those of y'all that are listening, you know, fishing clear water
01:10:57.078 --> 01:11:00.346
reservoirs, try to find some of the more stained water in your
01:11:00.846 --> 01:11:04.211
reservoir. Because, you know, we— there are— there is some stained water, and we ran
01:11:04.711 --> 01:11:08.268
across it. You could— you would— you would be out in the middle of
01:11:08.300 --> 01:11:12.389
clear water, and the bait would be suspended on a bright bluebird sky
01:11:12.889 --> 01:11:16.366
day, right? But you would slide 25,
01:11:16.398 --> 01:11:19.574
50, 100 feet off to this area, and this water has a little bit more
01:11:19.606 --> 01:11:22.814
stain to it based on the runoff, and the bait's all pushed towards the bottom,
01:11:23.760 --> 01:11:27.481
right? Why that is, maybe because of whatever,
01:11:27.545 --> 01:11:30.609
right? They can't see as well, so they're trying to get to the closest amount
01:11:31.109 --> 01:11:34.281
of COVID to keep themselves protected. So the fish are down there. So the way
01:11:34.426 --> 01:11:37.938
we were catching them 200 feet this way was
01:11:38.131 --> 01:11:40.938
vastly different than the way we were catching them 200 feet that way, right?
01:11:41.258 --> 01:11:44.563
And it was, it was night and day. It was like you're fishing 2 different
01:11:44.707 --> 01:11:48.718
lakes, dude. I'm telling you right now. So Uh, that's another thing during the dog
01:11:49.218 --> 01:11:52.296
days of summer is water clarity, man. Like, pay attention to that water clarity because
01:11:53.050 --> 01:11:56.323
your bait may be relating like you were talking about on Bugs and Tillery in
01:11:56.823 --> 01:11:59.821
that clear water to certain stuff, but then you go up into a place like
01:11:59.870 --> 01:12:03.079
Grassy Creek at Bugs and it's a little bit more stained water and
01:12:03.579 --> 01:12:06.994
your bait's relating differently. So your bite is going to be different, your bait selection
01:12:07.494 --> 01:12:10.332
is going to be different. That's why I carry the whole tackle box. Well,
01:12:10.380 --> 01:12:12.482
that's not why, because I'm too lazy to take it out of the boat.
01:12:12.546 --> 01:12:16.362
That's the real reason. But still, like your bait's going to be relating
01:12:16.394 --> 01:12:20.080
differently in different parts of the lake, so your bait selection could be different.
01:12:20.625 --> 01:12:24.246
Um, and it's crazy to me, dude, I— this— a lot
01:12:24.746 --> 01:12:27.387
of our lakes that you were talking about, like Tillery and Bugs and Gaston and
01:12:27.887 --> 01:12:31.970
stuff, they remind me so much of northern fisheries up in Michigan
01:12:32.483 --> 01:12:36.088
and Wisconsin and stuff like that, where you can get away with throwing topwater
01:12:36.168 --> 01:12:39.581
all day long in the brightest bluebird sky conditions, and it—
01:12:39.710 --> 01:12:43.044
because they're sight feeders. And they want it that way, you know
01:12:43.060 --> 01:12:45.985
what I mean? So anyways, Ben, what was you gonna say?
01:12:46.920 --> 01:12:48.912
I was gonna ask you, like, when you're fishing offshore,
01:12:49.908 --> 01:12:52.978
uh, the rotation is a little bit different. I mean, you talk about how shade
01:12:53.478 --> 01:12:56.159
plays a little bit of role, but that shade is much less of a role
01:12:56.272 --> 01:12:59.580
than, than fishing the bank. So how do you, how do you,
01:12:59.596 --> 01:13:03.018
how do you know when you're in good or bad rotation, uh, for,
01:13:03.229 --> 01:13:05.877
uh, like fishing offshore brush piles, ledges?
01:13:06.090 --> 01:13:09.725
Because, uh, that, that's To me, that's more— it's more of a timing
01:13:09.774 --> 01:13:13.544
deal. Yeah. And if you're targeting maybe isolated fish
01:13:14.044 --> 01:13:16.863
under a dock or stump, uh, a laydown shade.
01:13:17.652 --> 01:13:21.179
So I mean, for me, offshore fishing, like getting into a
01:13:21.679 --> 01:13:25.704
good rotation, has to do with, with really 2 factors, and that's bait
01:13:26.204 --> 01:13:29.793
and that's current, right? So like, you know, Mikey and Seth talked
01:13:30.293 --> 01:13:33.514
about current. Current exists. There's underwater current seams that
01:13:34.014 --> 01:13:37.694
you can't see. You have no idea what the current is doing underneath
01:13:38.194 --> 01:13:41.067
the water. You only see what's going on in the surface, which is why your
01:13:41.567 --> 01:13:44.970
contour lines are so important on your map, right? So you're looking for those saddles,
01:13:45.002 --> 01:13:48.134
you're looking for those humps, you're looking for, um, those creek
01:13:48.198 --> 01:13:51.796
channels, you're looking for the generation schedule on a lake, which,
01:13:52.294 --> 01:13:55.763
you know, Deep Dive, you can pull up if, if they're generating on a
01:13:56.263 --> 01:13:59.136
lake or not, how much water they're pulling and stuff like that. And you can
01:13:59.636 --> 01:14:02.460
start targeting those high percentage areas. I noticed it the other day when we were
01:14:02.573 --> 01:14:05.912
out on Gaston My wife and I were out there, Seth was out there testing
01:14:05.961 --> 01:14:09.910
some new, um, Lew's rods, and the bite was phenomenal.
01:14:10.536 --> 01:14:13.795
The bite was absolutely phenomenal on those offshore places,
01:14:14.453 --> 01:14:17.808
those high percentage offshore places that I talked about— brush piles,
01:14:18.178 --> 01:14:22.223
stump fields, um, creek channel swings, uh, all those
01:14:22.255 --> 01:14:25.980
things— because they were drawing water. As soon as that
01:14:26.108 --> 01:14:29.399
water slacked off, I mean as soon as it
01:14:29.899 --> 01:14:32.672
slacked off That bite— I don't know about you, I think I called you,
01:14:32.688 --> 01:14:36.586
Seth— that bite died. It absolutely died.
01:14:36.938 --> 01:14:40.708
And that's when it was like, okay, either go shallow or go
01:14:40.868 --> 01:14:44.525
target individual brush piles, because now those
01:14:44.557 --> 01:14:48.118
fish need to hold on something or move somewhere
01:14:48.246 --> 01:14:51.213
so that they can get in a position to continue to ambush bait.
01:14:51.598 --> 01:14:55.207
The bait was just being brought to them. So I look for current, if they're
01:14:55.707 --> 01:14:58.623
drawing water, or if there's a natural current like a river or something like that.
01:14:58.992 --> 01:15:01.976
And then I look for, um, what was the other thing I said?
01:15:02.906 --> 01:15:06.210
Current and something else. Bait. Bait. Bait was the other
01:15:06.710 --> 01:15:10.621
thing, right? I'm literally— so I use my side scan a ton this
01:15:11.121 --> 01:15:14.599
time of year. And then much like the, the shade lines like Seth
01:15:14.952 --> 01:15:18.561
and Mikey were talking about, like, I will also chase, uh,
01:15:19.106 --> 01:15:22.122
chase the sun, um, this time of year.
01:15:22.972 --> 01:15:26.019
Sometimes the sun, the sun does a really good job offshore
01:15:26.083 --> 01:15:30.090
activating the bite. And it may not— it
01:15:30.590 --> 01:15:33.214
activates the bite in the shallow because of the shade lines, but it activates the
01:15:33.230 --> 01:15:36.515
bite offshore. And maybe because it's shade lines, but it really fires them up.
01:15:37.059 --> 01:15:39.318
Um, so I feel like, you know, a lot of guys are like, oh,
01:15:39.479 --> 01:15:42.955
there's that dead period between like 10 and 12 offshore
01:15:43.148 --> 01:15:46.657
where they're really not feeding that well. They are feeding, you just have to
01:15:46.673 --> 01:15:50.390
go throw some different bait selections at them. They may not be eating a deep
01:15:50.438 --> 01:15:54.443
plug. So to answer your question, I will go and
01:15:54.943 --> 01:15:57.988
find the maximum amount of bait in the lake, whether or not it's on the
01:15:58.488 --> 01:16:01.954
north end, south end, east end, west end, and then find out what
01:16:02.067 --> 01:16:05.647
position they are in the lake. That's why I like fishing lakes around here.
01:16:05.920 --> 01:16:09.404
I don't like that Ben and Seth really keyed me onto that, is because you
01:16:09.904 --> 01:16:13.370
can't really pattern our lakes as well in the central North
01:16:13.386 --> 01:16:16.309
Carolina region as you can going up to like Gaston and Kerr,
01:16:16.453 --> 01:16:19.761
because it's more spot-driven. Like, they're always
01:16:19.809 --> 01:16:23.600
going to be on that spot, right? Um, so I'll look for the maximum
01:16:24.100 --> 01:16:26.621
amount of bait. I'll look for the kind of bait that they're feeding on,
01:16:26.717 --> 01:16:30.509
whether or not it's gizzards or threadfin or whatever. And then I'll look at,
01:16:31.216 --> 01:16:34.510
um, what was the other thing I said? Bait and
01:16:35.010 --> 01:16:38.334
whatever. Current. Golly. And the current. I don't
01:16:38.834 --> 01:16:42.367
know why I keep messing that up. Uh, and then I will literally run—
01:16:43.685 --> 01:16:46.674
that's a practice thing, right? So like, I won't be able to do it like
01:16:46.738 --> 01:16:50.221
right off the rip. So it'll be like, hey, am I targeting
01:16:50.269 --> 01:16:53.510
the fish that are in 8 to 10 foot of water at the beginning of
01:16:53.542 --> 01:16:56.574
the day, and then I'm moving out deeper later on the day as
01:16:56.606 --> 01:16:59.959
the underwater current is more prominent out there? And so
01:16:59.975 --> 01:17:03.681
it's like going shallow to deep to deep to deeper
01:17:04.066 --> 01:17:07.403
and then following that thermocline like you talked about. And really,
01:17:08.382 --> 01:17:11.831
uh, Seth talked about this to me before, uh,
01:17:11.847 --> 01:17:14.461
we had to turn around gas, and it's like Hey man, pick a zone.
01:17:15.199 --> 01:17:18.277
You got to pick a zone of the lake, right? And that's where quality— they're
01:17:18.341 --> 01:17:22.092
going to be fish biting all over the lake most likely, but you
01:17:22.592 --> 01:17:26.484
got to zone yourself into whatever section of the lake you're getting the most quality
01:17:26.596 --> 01:17:30.043
bites in, right? And that truly was something I never
01:17:30.543 --> 01:17:34.083
really realized because our reservoirs here, they're too small
01:17:35.093 --> 01:17:38.523
to really pick a good zone. In my opinion, they're too small to pick a
01:17:39.023 --> 01:17:42.486
good zone. You need like 30-plus thousand acres to really hone
01:17:42.534 --> 01:17:45.536
in on a good zone of a lake. I mean, even Jordan,
01:17:45.584 --> 01:17:48.971
you could run from Pose to Farrington and north of that in like 15 minutes.
01:17:49.357 --> 01:17:52.984
Yeah, exactly. That's, that's not even— that's a whole, that's a whole zone on
01:17:53.484 --> 01:17:57.206
a big lake. That's a whole zone, right? I can go fish one laydown in
01:17:57.254 --> 01:18:00.657
Stinking Creek and I can run all the way up to Bush Creek, fish another
01:18:00.770 --> 01:18:04.044
laydown. And then you say, well, the pattern's laydowns. Well, no shit,
01:18:04.060 --> 01:18:07.415
it's 14,000 acres. Like, I can go fish laydowns everywhere.
01:18:07.656 --> 01:18:10.878
You can stay in Grassy Creek. That's like fishing Grassy Creek from the
01:18:11.378 --> 01:18:14.885
back to the front. Yeah, yeah. Um, but offshore rotation,
01:18:15.029 --> 01:18:18.492
I think offshore rotation is pretty tough. I really do. I think it's
01:18:18.992 --> 01:18:22.419
a very tough deal. Um, and, and that's also relative to the
01:18:22.919 --> 01:18:26.042
time of year too, because I got my teeth kicked in at Eufaula,
01:18:26.651 --> 01:18:30.145
uh, offshore when I was fishing shallow and I should have been fishing offshore.
01:18:30.899 --> 01:18:35.003
And what a lot of those guys dialed in was the offshore rotation Uh,
01:18:35.324 --> 01:18:38.983
was because of the immediate post-spawn that was going on,
01:18:39.079 --> 01:18:42.610
and fish were constantly coming to them. That's the other thing about
01:18:43.110 --> 01:18:46.510
offshore fishing for, for folks out there during this time of year.
01:18:47.441 --> 01:18:50.860
They're— and Seth talked about it a little bit too— you could
01:18:50.892 --> 01:18:54.182
be fishing at the end of July offshore, and then
01:18:54.682 --> 01:18:58.515
all of a sudden those fish are gone, right? They moved,
01:18:59.061 --> 01:19:02.273
um, because now things are changing and are— in,
01:19:02.450 --> 01:19:05.824
in August is coming upon us and bait's starting to migrate potentially,
01:19:06.531 --> 01:19:10.050
uh, so you got to follow the baitfish. And you, you could find yourself
01:19:10.550 --> 01:19:14.057
fishing behind fish, uh, in the dog days of summer where you think
01:19:14.557 --> 01:19:17.240
they should be. I can tell you right now, and this goes for the audience
01:19:17.740 --> 01:19:21.364
listening from the central North Carolina region, our thermoclines on Jordan Lake and
01:19:21.864 --> 01:19:25.381
Sharon Harris have changed. They're not the same as they were before.
01:19:25.788 --> 01:19:29.205
They're shallower. Because we're in a drought. So now there's
01:19:29.285 --> 01:19:32.528
less oxygen in the lakes right now. So a lot of the
01:19:33.028 --> 01:19:36.350
stuff you were fishing before in 15, 18 foot of water,
01:19:36.687 --> 01:19:40.396
you're not fishing that anymore because the thermocline is higher
01:19:40.525 --> 01:19:43.800
in the water column. So you can't fish those same brush piles as
01:19:43.816 --> 01:19:47.429
you used to be able to before. So Mikey, go ahead, let's hit
01:19:47.929 --> 01:19:51.202
on that real quick. Thermocline, Seth, do you see a lot of thermocline up at
01:19:51.702 --> 01:19:55.035
Gaston? Kerr? Not usually because the water's moving.
01:19:55.227 --> 01:19:58.434
Kerr, yes, you'll see it occur more than you will, uh,
01:19:58.834 --> 01:20:00.902
Gaston because sometimes they won't, you know,
01:20:02.201 --> 01:20:05.535
the water won't move as much, especially if the
01:20:06.035 --> 01:20:09.960
systems are stable, meaning like Kerr is, or Gaston's at a good level
01:20:10.460 --> 01:20:13.566
where they don't have to push too much through to generate electricity downstream.
01:20:14.448 --> 01:20:17.879
Um, but at Gaston it's hard to find because there's so much water movement in
01:20:17.911 --> 01:20:21.092
the place. Yeah. Um, now I will see
01:20:21.592 --> 01:20:26.147
it, uh, at Bugs like this time of year, it's probably 35-foot-ish.
01:20:26.873 --> 01:20:30.407
Um, and then it'll get less and less as,
01:20:30.585 --> 01:20:33.247
as the summer goes on. But right now they're still pretty deep. I mean,
01:20:33.263 --> 01:20:36.788
I know a lot of guys are still catching fish that 35-foot zone.
01:20:37.289 --> 01:20:40.606
Um, which tells me that there's still a pretty good depth of
01:20:40.622 --> 01:20:44.068
thermocline there. I mean, that's a great question, Mikey. I mean,
01:20:44.265 --> 01:20:48.037
it's like Yak and chain. Yeah, I've never seen a thermocline until we bait
01:20:48.102 --> 01:20:51.697
because it's always running. That's something, you know, Ben, to keep— to
01:20:52.197 --> 01:20:54.473
go into your point on that one's like, you may,
01:20:55.709 --> 01:20:59.561
you may not even have to fish offshore, or you may not even understand
01:21:00.061 --> 01:21:03.269
the rotation offshore if you don't have a thermocline, or you don't, you know,
01:21:03.285 --> 01:21:06.511
that con— that water is constantly moving. I think you still can dial it in
01:21:06.559 --> 01:21:10.459
though offshore, uh, with constant moving water. You're really looking
01:21:10.556 --> 01:21:14.632
for targets at that point. I think you're looking for those offshore ledges,
01:21:15.049 --> 01:21:17.648
those brush piles, stump fields, and stuff like that.
01:21:18.258 --> 01:21:22.172
Um, and I think it's much like shallow water fishing. You just follow shade lines
01:21:22.429 --> 01:21:25.846
underwater, you follow baitfish population. And, uh,
01:21:26.119 --> 01:21:29.424
you know, that's also a thing where if you're not getting bit,
01:21:29.488 --> 01:21:32.745
you need to pull the trolling motor up and move. Uh, because offshore
01:21:32.793 --> 01:21:37.398
fish, you either— there's 2 things with offshore fishing that really I
01:21:37.446 --> 01:21:40.895
haven't really truly figured out yet. Unless it's on one of
01:21:41.395 --> 01:21:44.859
our lakes here. There's a time, there's a zone,
01:21:45.132 --> 01:21:48.678
a window where they're gonna actively feed. And that, I think that takes
01:21:48.742 --> 01:21:52.561
years of experience on bodies of water to truly figure out
01:21:53.155 --> 01:21:56.990
when they're the most active. Some guys are better at it than I am when
01:21:57.022 --> 01:22:00.231
it comes to figuring it out within a 3-day window of practice.
01:22:00.697 --> 01:22:04.532
But it's like, I can go sit on a spot for 6 hours
01:22:04.724 --> 01:22:08.045
and have confidence that I'm going to be able to catch fish on
01:22:08.093 --> 01:22:11.684
Sharon Harris in an hour and a half to 2-hour window. What's up,
01:22:11.700 --> 01:22:15.082
Seth? I'm not sitting anywhere for 6 hours. Thank you.
01:22:15.210 --> 01:22:19.217
Unless I'm at the house, dude. Unless I can fish everything. The first
01:22:19.717 --> 01:22:23.176
tournament, dude, the first club tournament I ever fished— I love it, man, I won
01:22:23.224 --> 01:22:26.366
it— I sat in the same spot for 6
01:22:26.866 --> 01:22:30.645
and a half hours with a Minn Kota Maxim trolling motor, keeping it
01:22:30.693 --> 01:22:35.021
in the same position, throwing the same Strike King 5XD.
01:22:35.547 --> 01:22:38.623
Until they activated and, and I busted them,
01:22:39.251 --> 01:22:42.262
right? Like, I can do that offshore,
01:22:42.955 --> 01:22:46.501
right? That's something that I think is, uh, you either, you either
01:22:46.517 --> 01:22:50.179
really know it or you get darn lucky, right? Uh,
01:22:50.453 --> 01:22:52.986
but I can do that. I can sit in an area all day long.
01:22:53.115 --> 01:22:56.179
I've done it on several of our lakes. I don't care because I— if you
01:22:56.679 --> 01:22:59.096
have the confidence that, you know, the quality of fish is there and they're gonna
01:22:59.596 --> 01:23:02.062
bite at some point, you just got to figure out how to make them bite,
01:23:02.078 --> 01:23:05.924
then you're good. Right? And that's— I've done that on places like Mayo before
01:23:06.424 --> 01:23:09.260
where there's— it was all current driven and I just had to wait for the
01:23:09.292 --> 01:23:12.308
fish to— the baitfish to come by and it was— and they activated them,
01:23:12.356 --> 01:23:15.308
right? So, um, but I don't know, man. I,
01:23:15.885 --> 01:23:19.141
I think that's a hard question to answer. And,
01:23:19.157 --> 01:23:22.686
uh, maybe we'll get like a real purebred offshore fisherman
01:23:23.186 --> 01:23:26.552
on here, uh, that fishes offshore 100% of the time. I don't know.
01:23:26.616 --> 01:23:29.920
You fish offshore a lot, Ben. What, what do you think the answer to
01:23:30.420 --> 01:23:33.966
that is? I mean, that's, that's something I haven't quite figured out, um,
01:23:35.395 --> 01:23:39.217
to get in that good rotation. Like, uh, as you're talking about, like, they get
01:23:39.717 --> 01:23:41.689
in these feeding windows and,
01:23:43.151 --> 01:23:46.715
you know, it's the same if their fish are at brush piles or,
01:23:47.662 --> 01:23:50.376
you know, because if you roll up and they're kind of on that feeding window—
01:23:51.018 --> 01:23:53.957
and now it's a little bit easier with LiveScope because you can see the baitfish
01:23:54.133 --> 01:23:57.765
moving around and fish moving around. But, but if they're not doing that, I mean,
01:23:57.798 --> 01:24:01.999
you could soak a shaky head or throw a weedless Ned
01:24:02.499 --> 01:24:04.600
or in like something down there, and you might pick up one or two,
01:24:04.729 --> 01:24:08.919
but it's gonna be very painful. But like, if you're brush pile fishing,
01:24:08.935 --> 01:24:12.106
like, you need to rotate because there's usually not as many fish on them.
01:24:13.072 --> 01:24:16.671
Yeah. And so it's very easy, like brush pile fishing, to get all,
01:24:16.751 --> 01:24:18.904
you know, your rotation get all messed up because,
01:24:20.366 --> 01:24:23.654
uh, they, they all don't hit the same window at the
01:24:24.154 --> 01:24:27.732
same time. It's not like there's a 2-hour window that all brush powers
01:24:28.232 --> 01:24:31.296
are firing. And so that's— I think there is a little bit of luck involved.
01:24:31.344 --> 01:24:34.314
I think you have to rely on practice for that. Yeah.
01:24:34.571 --> 01:24:37.846
Um, and then take what you learned in practice and
01:24:37.862 --> 01:24:41.073
apply it to the conditions in your tournament, you know. I mean, look what
01:24:41.137 --> 01:24:44.926
Cliff Prince did last year. Was it last year he got his first Elite
01:24:45.426 --> 01:24:48.763
Series victory, or the year before last on Wheeler Lake in Decatur,
01:24:48.844 --> 01:24:52.469
Alabama? He sat on day 4 in the same spot,
01:24:52.549 --> 01:24:56.222
Power-Pole down all day long, and made the same exact
01:24:56.722 --> 01:25:00.632
cast, or kind of had a zone with a chatterbait and
01:25:00.664 --> 01:25:04.786
a big old worm. And he sat there all day long
01:25:05.139 --> 01:25:09.292
and fished that offshore on the Decatur Flats because he knew that
01:25:09.792 --> 01:25:12.452
fish were coming to him, and at a certain point they were going to activate
01:25:12.952 --> 01:25:16.365
in that eelgrass and they were going to bite. You can burn yourself doing that,
01:25:16.445 --> 01:25:19.493
but a lot of guys have success doing that But
01:25:19.557 --> 01:25:22.924
I just don't think outside of LiveScope that,
01:25:23.245 --> 01:25:26.918
that if we remove that from the equation, because that really does
01:25:27.190 --> 01:25:29.917
gives you the signs, like you don't have to figure it out.
01:25:30.542 --> 01:25:34.247
Um, if unless you have years of experience under your
01:25:34.747 --> 01:25:38.352
belt or you, you just know, I don't know how you know, that to
01:25:38.852 --> 01:25:42.249
me is like either straight luck or years of experience on a body of water.
01:25:42.506 --> 01:25:45.794
It really is. I think that's a lot. And like The same thing
01:25:46.294 --> 01:25:49.328
applies if you're fishing points or ledges, right? You know,
01:25:49.408 --> 01:25:52.845
that throughout the different day, those baitfish will move up and those bass will move
01:25:53.345 --> 01:25:56.475
up to feed, to corral them on those points and ledges, and then drop back,
01:25:56.893 --> 01:26:00.475
maybe suspend off and stuff. Obviously, we know, you know, back in
01:26:00.975 --> 01:26:03.976
the day they said you can't catch a suspending fish. Well, we know that's not
01:26:04.024 --> 01:26:08.008
true. So like, you can still target those fish when they're not actively
01:26:08.024 --> 01:26:11.671
up there feeding. It's just going to get less. I think it's something too You
01:26:11.687 --> 01:26:15.547
got to look at your body of water. Um, you know, like Jordan
01:26:16.047 --> 01:26:19.648
Lake, they pull water, but they usually don't pull that much. But, but they,
01:26:19.664 --> 01:26:23.019
they still go through windows where they pull more than others. But on that body
01:26:23.035 --> 01:26:27.223
of water, you have a river section where there's always water coming
01:26:27.255 --> 01:26:30.700
in, and there's always more current down there on
01:26:31.200 --> 01:26:34.793
the southern end of the lake, uh, consistently because the Haw's
01:26:35.293 --> 01:26:38.840
running, running in. And if they're not pulling water, some of that's going
01:26:39.340 --> 01:26:42.180
to like backfill in. But like if you're up in the mid-lake or up,
01:26:42.404 --> 01:26:45.423
you know, past 64 Bridge, um,
01:26:46.354 --> 01:26:49.324
like that current can get a lot more slack because one, it has to go
01:26:49.824 --> 01:26:53.514
through the, uh, uh, the bridges there, right?
01:26:53.803 --> 01:26:57.239
Yeah. And, and it just has to go a long way, long way to go,
01:26:57.335 --> 01:27:00.723
and there's not as much inflow coming in on the, on that side compared to
01:27:01.223 --> 01:27:05.159
the Haw River. So like there's times that when the water— when
01:27:05.192 --> 01:27:08.330
there seems to be less flow or the water's more slack,
01:27:09.360 --> 01:27:13.094
like being down the river system. But if— but then if it changes, you can
01:27:13.594 --> 01:27:16.488
run to different parts of the lake. And that's just— but see, that takes a
01:27:16.988 --> 01:27:20.143
lot of time of practice or experience on a particular body of
01:27:20.643 --> 01:27:23.963
water to, to kind of notice those things. We just need Seth and
01:27:24.463 --> 01:27:27.800
Mikey to give us all their brush piles on Jordan Lake. Hey, I ain't got
01:27:28.300 --> 01:27:31.679
none. Sometimes it don't matter. Because yeah, the last club tournament I
01:27:32.179 --> 01:27:36.158
fished at Jordan Lake, I took big fish of
01:27:36.190 --> 01:27:39.225
a 6.9. It was big fish for the entire year for the club.
01:27:39.626 --> 01:27:43.720
Wow. And it was out of a brush pile, and it was like I
01:27:44.220 --> 01:27:46.770
was fishing a lot of the ledges and the brush piles and stump up by
01:27:47.270 --> 01:27:51.056
Farrington, but then I went down to a particular one little brush pile
01:27:51.104 --> 01:27:54.347
that I've had a lot of luck on, uh, which wasn't far.
01:27:54.540 --> 01:27:57.847
I pointed it out to you at the, uh Uh, lake cleanup day where
01:27:58.347 --> 01:28:01.267
it was at. It's just like a dude effing bank, it's off there. And I
01:28:01.300 --> 01:28:05.121
caught that 6.9 out of there. And then I— that was probably about like 9
01:28:05.137 --> 01:28:08.831
or 10 o'clock. That was my first fish. And then I ran
01:28:09.393 --> 01:28:12.909
like 50 different brush piles. Every brush pile I pretty much
01:28:12.941 --> 01:28:16.795
had marked. Like, I didn't get another bite. Yeah. And so like
01:28:17.295 --> 01:28:20.553
bad rotation, uh, you know, different stuff like
01:28:20.569 --> 01:28:24.359
that. It just— yeah, that's the deal. But like
01:28:24.859 --> 01:28:26.907
I, I caught that big one, I was like, I'm gonna commit to it because
01:28:27.407 --> 01:28:30.723
I know— because my thought process was there's fish on brush
01:28:30.755 --> 01:28:33.609
piles, like I've got to run into a couple more here and there. And of
01:28:33.625 --> 01:28:36.655
course it just, it didn't happen for me. But, um,
01:28:37.970 --> 01:28:41.449
but that just makes it very hard with brush pile fishing like that because you
01:28:41.949 --> 01:28:45.987
can have 120 mark, but if you're in a bad rotation or something, like you
01:28:46.051 --> 01:28:49.434
get burned easy too. Well, and then, you know, you asked
01:28:49.498 --> 01:28:52.849
a question, we asked it about shallow water fishing and offshore fishing.
01:28:53.346 --> 01:28:57.432
You can get into a bad rotation because you're fishing behind somebody, right? That's another
01:28:57.512 --> 01:29:00.925
thing too. If you're fishing a tournament and you got 100+ people on
01:29:00.957 --> 01:29:04.979
the water, the chances of you fishing behind somebody are probably
01:29:05.059 --> 01:29:08.360
pretty good, right? So, and that was like that, that day, that was my
01:29:08.860 --> 01:29:12.479
other factor. There was like, uh, a couple, you know, maybe it
01:29:12.495 --> 01:29:15.972
was a PBC out there. Yeah, Seth was probably out there fishing it.
01:29:16.372 --> 01:29:19.802
Yeah, this is a few years ago. There's a couple other tournaments
01:29:20.042 --> 01:29:22.865
And so like every single point and every single like,
01:29:22.929 --> 01:29:26.586
you know, traditional spot like you would go, had somebody on it, had somebody
01:29:26.682 --> 01:29:28.943
on it. And at least with brush piles, I was like, well, I've got a
01:29:29.443 --> 01:29:32.231
lot marked that— yeah, people, some people know where they're at, but like,
01:29:33.193 --> 01:29:36.785
you're— most people don't have all these marked and can run exactly to
01:29:37.285 --> 01:29:40.811
all of them. But hey, again, I got burned pretty much that day except for
01:29:40.955 --> 01:29:43.762
catching the big fish, so I guess it was worth something. But, uh,
01:29:43.938 --> 01:29:48.079
100%. But that was my thought process,
01:29:48.272 --> 01:29:51.643
and that was like a June or July tournament too. Oh yeah,
01:29:51.788 --> 01:29:55.481
yeah, I suck on that. I think everybody gets scared about fishing behind
01:29:55.981 --> 01:29:59.174
people. Oh yeah, and you don't. Yeah, don't get
01:29:59.674 --> 01:30:02.771
scared, dude. I fish behind so many people and catch them, dude.
01:30:03.188 --> 01:30:07.218
I waited one day for a point on Gaston. 7 different
01:30:07.718 --> 01:30:11.808
boats, 7 boats, community hole. I fired up,
01:30:11.840 --> 01:30:15.047
finally got over there because I was gonna go fish it because I
01:30:15.547 --> 01:30:18.094
knew exactly how I was gonna fish it. And I threw a shaky head up
01:30:18.594 --> 01:30:21.496
there— no, I threw a drop shot up there and I catch like a 3.5-pound
01:30:21.996 --> 01:30:24.612
spot. It broke off in the boat.
01:30:25.984 --> 01:30:29.121
I was like, all right, flipped it. Yeah, no, I didn't boat flip it.
01:30:29.201 --> 01:30:31.789
When I got in the boat, something broke off, whatever. But I picked up a
01:30:32.289 --> 01:30:35.099
shaky head and fired it all the way out on the point, and as I
01:30:35.163 --> 01:30:38.410
did that, a boat comes flying up next to me. I'm like, what are you
01:30:38.910 --> 01:30:41.430
doing? He's like, oh, I thought you were leaving. I was like,
01:30:41.930 --> 01:30:45.390
whatever. I catch a 4.5 and
01:30:45.890 --> 01:30:47.830
I fish for another 10 minutes. He's trying to come up again. I was like,
01:30:48.330 --> 01:30:51.210
you know what, you can have it. Oh man, I'm going. Well, that's, that's what
01:30:51.710 --> 01:30:54.410
you get in the dog days of summer. Seth talks about that all the time,
01:30:54.910 --> 01:30:58.450
you know, like, uh, you, you may go out and practice and you may
01:30:58.950 --> 01:31:02.550
find 120 different spots that you want to fish, and 119
01:31:03.050 --> 01:31:05.937
of them on tournament day are going to have somebody on them, right? Um,
01:31:06.017 --> 01:31:08.407
and that's just— that's the nature of the beast. And you know what, Mikey,
01:31:08.503 --> 01:31:12.095
I agree with you. Don't be— 2 things: don't be afraid to fish behind people,
01:31:12.111 --> 01:31:15.591
and don't be afraid to fish behind yourself, right? I do that
01:31:15.639 --> 01:31:18.526
all the time. I know Seth does it. We all do it. I'll turn the
01:31:19.026 --> 01:31:22.198
trolling motor around, especially if I'm going down a bank line of docks or something
01:31:22.214 --> 01:31:25.646
like that, and I'll make those same flips. I might change up my bait selection
01:31:26.240 --> 01:31:29.190
and give them something different to look at. But you, you fired a drop shot
01:31:29.690 --> 01:31:32.503
out there, turn around, fire a shaky head out there. And that's a— that's,
01:31:32.745 --> 01:31:36.544
you know, when the— when your wives ask you, why do you have 892
01:31:37.044 --> 01:31:40.246
fishing rods? Well, that's the reason why, because I got to throw that bait that
01:31:40.746 --> 01:31:42.848
looks a little bit different on my second cast after I catch a fish.
01:31:43.436 --> 01:31:46.488
I mean, so you're right with that. 2 of the club tournaments I won,
01:31:48.154 --> 01:31:51.721
it was a quarter or half mile stretch. I just— it was kind of,
01:31:51.737 --> 01:31:54.624
uh, one was the Choctaw, a creek in the Choctaw, and one was on McIntosh.
01:31:55.191 --> 01:31:58.985
Yep. And I literally lined yourself all day I went down both sides of the
01:31:59.485 --> 01:32:03.089
bank and a quarter, half-mile stretch, and I would just loop or, you know,
01:32:03.634 --> 01:32:07.641
pick it apart. One was topwater, one was a Texas rig trick
01:32:08.141 --> 01:32:11.857
worm, um, just making those loops around. And I probably
01:32:12.114 --> 01:32:15.592
each day— one was a 2-day tournament— I probably fished
01:32:16.041 --> 01:32:19.455
the same, didn't even fire the big motor up, like 5 or
01:32:19.955 --> 01:32:23.511
6 times, you know. And Seth's like, I can't do that, I gotta
01:32:24.011 --> 01:32:27.406
pull that trolling motor, bro. Not necessarily, but yeah, I get it. I mean,
01:32:27.663 --> 01:32:30.760
it's— but that goes back to finding the zone. You found the zone.
01:32:30.969 --> 01:32:33.749
Yeah, and I found both those zones.
01:32:34.584 --> 01:32:37.460
The Choctaw one, I caught— I never caught a big one in the tournament,
01:32:37.717 --> 01:32:40.143
but it was enough to win the tournament. But I caught like a 5,
01:32:40.995 --> 01:32:44.144
um, 4 or 5 in practice. And then in McIntosh,
01:32:45.252 --> 01:32:48.706
um, I caught a couple good ones a little bit farther
01:32:49.206 --> 01:32:53.446
from what I actually fished. I did fish where, like, in McIntosh, where the
01:32:53.946 --> 01:32:56.817
stretch that I caught those fish, but I never had anything. But like, I started
01:32:57.317 --> 01:33:00.808
before, and when your first and third casts are like 5 and 6 pounders,
01:33:00.840 --> 01:33:04.863
it's like, oh yeah, kind of hard not to fish that area. Well, hey folks,
01:33:04.911 --> 01:33:07.572
we've been going for about an hour and a half here. I want to ask
01:33:07.796 --> 01:33:10.906
one more question to both of these guys. Seth, you're getting ready—
01:33:11.323 --> 01:33:15.426
well, first, thank you guys for joining us this afternoon talking about offshore,
01:33:15.506 --> 01:33:19.256
you know, shallow water fishing offshore, what you're looking for, bait selections, what you
01:33:19.353 --> 01:33:22.895
don't have in your boat. Uh, this just gives me the opportunity to study
01:33:23.395 --> 01:33:26.758
my competition. No, I'm just kidding. Um, Seth, you're getting
01:33:26.790 --> 01:33:30.421
ready to head off to, uh, the St. Lawrence River for the MLF Toyota
01:33:30.921 --> 01:33:33.634
Series event. Um, what are you, uh,
01:33:34.405 --> 01:33:37.076
what are you looking forward to, man? Cooler weather.
01:33:39.787 --> 01:33:42.162
You still need to drink water, Mikey said. Yeah. Uh,
01:33:42.938 --> 01:33:46.299
no, I mean, I, I really— for the people who have never been,
01:33:46.802 --> 01:33:50.143
this is my, this is my PSA to that. You need to take
01:33:50.273 --> 01:33:53.728
one trip to the North Country, because I'm going
01:33:53.760 --> 01:33:57.004
to tell you right now, it's some of the most incredible fishing
01:33:57.052 --> 01:33:59.894
and fisheries that you'll ever see in your life. Um,
01:34:01.146 --> 01:34:04.502
big largemouth, big smallmouth, crystal clear water, and they
01:34:05.002 --> 01:34:08.661
bite. It's fun, and the water— the weather's nice. Um, the only
01:34:08.693 --> 01:34:11.551
thing that sucks is the drive up and a drive back. Other than that,
01:34:11.663 --> 01:34:15.115
those places are phenomenal. But yeah, I mean, I love it up there.
01:34:15.340 --> 01:34:18.805
You know, I went up last year and Really fell in
01:34:18.837 --> 01:34:21.975
love with it. Um, so I'm really just
01:34:22.475 --> 01:34:25.081
looking forward to getting back up there, man. You know, catch a big smallmouth in
01:34:25.274 --> 01:34:27.980
a foot and a half of water is always fun. Um,
01:34:28.882 --> 01:34:32.284
so that's what I'm basically looking forward to. And Seth doesn't need a
01:34:32.784 --> 01:34:36.138
flogger, for those who are wondering, because he's 872
01:34:36.638 --> 01:34:40.657
feet tall, so he can just see straight down. You don't need
01:34:41.157 --> 01:34:44.941
a stepping stool. No, man, we wish you luck going up there and,
01:34:45.099 --> 01:34:48.890
uh, You had a, a great amount of success from the Potomac River,
01:34:49.390 --> 01:34:51.790
and, you know, hopefully you do well in this tournament, and then the last one,
01:34:52.290 --> 01:34:55.550
it qualifies you for, uh, the championship, and you go knock that out of the
01:34:56.050 --> 01:34:58.710
park. So, uh, but make sure you hang out with us just for a second.
01:34:59.210 --> 01:35:02.490
Mikey, you just won back-to-back tournaments with your club. What's your
01:35:02.990 --> 01:35:07.370
next derby coming up? Chowan River. Chowan River.
01:35:07.870 --> 01:35:11.110
I don't think you're going to be throwing that buzzbait. I bet y'all will.
01:35:12.430 --> 01:35:15.370
It's a frog. It's a frog. Yeah, I'm gonna actually try a couple different things.
01:35:15.870 --> 01:35:19.180
Gonna be up there for 2 days pre-fishing. Um,
01:35:19.680 --> 01:35:22.840
am I gonna start looking out offshore, meaning no deeper than 8,
01:35:23.340 --> 01:35:26.520
9 foot? Oh, I got you. I'll send you some pins. Okay, I got
01:35:27.020 --> 01:35:30.130
you. Are you putting in a different eating pin or a Husky?
01:35:30.200 --> 01:35:34.500
They can trailer, right? No, not in this one. Oh really?
01:35:35.000 --> 01:35:38.460
Yeah, yeah, that's what we used to— I'll make the run, trust me.
01:35:38.960 --> 01:35:42.720
I, I don't— I'm not scared. Mikey's not scared to put that, uh, backwater creeks.
01:35:43.220 --> 01:35:46.810
They'll be loaded up there. Oh, they're gonna be biting. Well,
01:35:47.310 --> 01:35:51.650
you better have an urchin-style bait. I ain't
01:35:52.150 --> 01:35:55.900
got no confidence in it yet. Ben's like, you don't need an urchin.
01:35:56.070 --> 01:35:56.770
No, you don't.
01:35:59.420 --> 01:36:02.870
Uh, Seth, have you used it yet? Oh yeah, he's using it. Oh yeah,
01:36:03.370 --> 01:36:06.090
yeah. You got confidence in it yet? Oh yeah. Okay.
01:36:06.590 --> 01:36:09.810
Yeah. Hey, I've— I've— I'm telling you, first fish I caught
01:36:10.310 --> 01:36:13.673
on it, Mikey, was 7.5, a gassed That'll put some confidence
01:36:13.721 --> 01:36:17.541
on you right there. I don't think I've caught anything bigger
01:36:17.669 --> 01:36:20.911
than like 5 pounds on it, which— that I'm not being ungrateful.
01:36:21.504 --> 01:36:25.035
Um, I've caught my biggest fish like throwing big swimbaits
01:36:25.535 --> 01:36:28.533
and stuff this year and big jigs. But, uh, I'm telling you right now,
01:36:28.582 --> 01:36:31.582
like, it's a bait that, you know, it'll, it'll taper off.
01:36:31.647 --> 01:36:34.808
It'll continue to get bit forever. It's like the Whack. But, um,
01:36:35.065 --> 01:36:38.579
it's the drawing power of that bait is like a glide bait.
01:36:38.836 --> 01:36:42.466
Man, it's, it's crazy to me, right? They're just really aggressive towards it. Uh,
01:36:42.547 --> 01:36:45.679
but one of the things for the audience, if you're, if you're seeing a lot
01:36:46.179 --> 01:36:49.887
of fish following, like, there's a great backup bait to throw, especially if they're not
01:36:49.952 --> 01:36:53.469
feeding up and they're feeding down. Throw a big swimbait,
01:36:53.791 --> 01:36:57.244
throw a big jig. They'll feed on that stuff still too. It's not
01:36:57.744 --> 01:37:00.248
just the urchin. It's the world of the urchin, but I'm telling you right now,
01:37:00.296 --> 01:37:03.685
they eat a lot of other stuff. Mikey talked about it with the buzzbait.
01:37:03.766 --> 01:37:06.657
Seth talked about it. We talked about it with the One Cast Fishing Stinger.
01:37:07.588 --> 01:37:10.816
Um, so yeah, man, so you're gonna go up crush smallmouth, you're gonna
01:37:11.316 --> 01:37:14.846
go crush some big old, uh, river bass. Ben, you're finishing
01:37:14.894 --> 01:37:18.282
up the boat project, right? Yeah, after, uh,
01:37:18.828 --> 01:37:22.377
since we'll get all this rain the next 2 or 3 days. Yep. Then hopefully,
01:37:22.441 --> 01:37:25.973
uh, this weekend or early next week I'll get
01:37:26.473 --> 01:37:30.052
my, uh, my dash put on and just, uh, then hooking up the graphs
01:37:30.164 --> 01:37:33.745
and should be good to go. Awesome, man. Well,
01:37:33.761 --> 01:37:36.988
we're getting ready to gear up here. I just got all my safety equipment for
01:37:37.488 --> 01:37:40.890
the final Bassmaster Open of the year up at Lake Erie. Gonna be heading up,
01:37:40.906 --> 01:37:44.695
staying overnight at Pete's dad's house. He's gonna cook us some steaks and drink
01:37:45.195 --> 01:37:48.019
some cold beers and then, uh, head on up to Lake Erie for the final
01:37:48.067 --> 01:37:52.001
event for the year. And then all of us are gonna hopefully be at
01:37:52.501 --> 01:37:55.582
the Special Operations Bass Angler Charity Tournament, annual Mark McCowan,
01:37:55.678 --> 01:37:59.390
in November. Seth Ellis won Uh, the 2025,
01:37:59.890 --> 01:38:03.270
uh, SOBA event at Lake Norman. So, uh, we're gonna have to go
01:38:03.770 --> 01:38:07.430
up there and, and lay some, some havoc on— I don't get to fish
01:38:07.930 --> 01:38:11.170
this year. Uh, well, I'm a director, so— oh yeah, that's right,
01:38:11.670 --> 01:38:15.110
I am fishing it. Uh, oh yeah,
01:38:15.610 --> 01:38:18.710
I'm— I think I'm boat number 1 this year, so it's pretty awesome.
01:38:18.880 --> 01:38:22.010
Um, but yeah, man, number 1,
01:38:22.510 --> 01:38:25.130
huh? I think the winner from last year should be boat number 1. You can
01:38:25.630 --> 01:38:27.910
be boat number 1, I'll be boat number 1.5. I'm just kidding, I don't— you
01:38:29.060 --> 01:38:32.190
want to be boat number one. You like to be the last boat in every
01:38:32.302 --> 01:38:35.239
tournament. I actually like that too. Yeah,
01:38:35.817 --> 01:38:39.140
yeah. If— look guys, if you're trying to sign up for the SOBA
01:38:39.640 --> 01:38:42.976
event at Lake Norman, it's always the Friday before Veterans Day. You can go
01:38:43.476 --> 01:38:46.299
to the Special Operations Bass Angler Facebook page, you can go to the website,
01:38:46.347 --> 01:38:50.200
but the Facebook page where they do the DMs is really where, uh,
01:38:50.280 --> 01:38:54.100
the sign up is at. And, uh, our good buddy Nick Kincaid manages
01:38:54.116 --> 01:38:58.274
that, so just shoot a, uh, a message on the SOBA Facebook page saying,
01:38:58.306 --> 01:39:01.519
hey, I wanna, I wanna enter into this tournament, and that'll be the
01:39:01.599 --> 01:39:04.939
boat number. So it's based off who enters first, that's where your boat number is,
01:39:05.036 --> 01:39:08.778
right? Yep. Uh, it's a great event, make sure you come out and support it.
01:39:09.228 --> 01:39:13.339
Seth, you got the, uh, the Strike King Road to the Opens Championship
01:39:13.387 --> 01:39:17.627
on Table Rock in September. Ben and I will be at the MPFL Military
01:39:17.659 --> 01:39:21.144
Classic on Douglas Lake, uh, in September as well.
01:39:21.353 --> 01:39:24.796
So looking forward to that. We got a lot more fishing Uh, coming ahead,
01:39:24.877 --> 01:39:27.879
guys, if you don't have anything, I'm gonna close this out. You guys good?
01:39:28.363 --> 01:39:31.979
No, appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Make sure you guys stay online, don't log
01:39:32.479 --> 01:39:35.098
off just yet. Thanks everyone for joining us on this week's episode of The One
01:39:35.130 --> 01:39:38.186
Cast with our good buddies Seth Ellis and Mikey Nadeau. Ben,
01:39:38.849 --> 01:39:42.406
thanks for hopping on here. Thanks for One Cast Fishing and all of our
01:39:42.906 --> 01:39:46.447
other sponsors. And thank you for helping us continue growing culture of anglers helping anglers,
01:39:46.805 --> 01:39:50.392
one cast at a time. That's a good one.
01:39:51.072 --> 01:39:53.404
That's a good one. Oh God, it's a toad.
01:39:56.566 --> 01:40:00.383
It's a fucking hope, dude. Let's go. I wake
01:40:00.883 --> 01:40:02.917
up to a little bit of drool on my pillow, feel like it's gonna be
01:40:02.966 --> 01:40:03.502
a bad day.