Bass Fishing: Targeting The Crayfish Hunters: VFJ24

okay hi folks Paul here I want to start this video fishing journal off by sharing a fun video clip one of our TANF viewers union se sent along it's just plain fun and instructive - what is it huh in terms of the possibility of getting in over your head with tackle that's too light for the jungle in Journal 23 I caught a bass that already had a hook and it's got it obviously having broken somebody off previously that bass was then left having to drag around a good 30 feet of fishing line so kudos to Union SC for meeting the call of duty and going above and beyond in accomplishing it I'm thinking maybe we should have a TNF Distinguished Service Medal or something for such heroism here's a video check it out and all I can say is that's true jungle warfare right there okay under video fishing journal 24 number 24 now this one's a cool one in my book in addition to this summer's jungle warfare series actually the final one as fall is coming on fast the vegetation is dying back rapidly happens really quickly here in the month of August um and I think it's light level drops and water levels are receding too quite rapidly but I managed to slip this one in before fall really hit this one was an opportunity to take advantage of feeding bass using an actual accurate match the hatch type presentation something that's rarely easy to do especially outside of the fly-fishing world it came out of an unfortunate event actually that happened while I was filming a punching segment for our jungle warfare series in which I managed to hook a bass too deep killing it I get bit that's a fish all right well we didn't take it too deep and you can see we are esophagus hooked and that is a dead bass however this unfortunate event gave us the opportunity to check the contents of that Basset stomach and those contents were revealing possibly explaining the nature of the bites I was receiving while punching and tipping me off to the possibility of a true match the hatch type scenario so here are the stomach contents ate crayfish relatively recently captured this tells us that son fishes aren't the only game in town even the primary game for some bass on our jungle warfare pond so what's this bass a unique crayfish specialist possibly but the number of crayfish in that stomach suggests that there are simply a lot of crazies out there to be caught and almost certainly this bass was not the only one that found and it's taking advantage of this so to find out all I had to do to match that hatch so to speak was to narrow down possible locations and then come up with an appropriate lure that would match what the bass would be expecting to see the bass should do the rest when we're on feeding bass especially those with a specific search image in their sights we might not actually need any special triggering actions to incite a bite in sight bites the lure itself may take care of that on its own if we have the context correct that is bass are truly targeting crayfish the lure and presentation offer a good-enough mimic and I don't spook them what we should be in business I maintain that context speaks loudest most influential II in terms of duping fish with artificial lure context is the factors that tell bass when where and how they're most apt to get fed to take advantage of this in the case of crayfish it helps to know something about crayfish ourselves and then we need to go a step deeper and know what the bats know about crayfish in the particular water body that we're going to hit okay here's something about crayfish many if not most water bodies have large crayfish populations if it's wet for any duration of time that water body probably has crayfish crayfish generally need firm substrate in which to dig their retreats their hides crayfish seasonally live deep in the winter usually in pond or lake basins or in in deep pool basins and streams and most move into shallow sunlit waters for the warm months and it's there that they they also raise their young crayfishes do not live very long most reaching maturity in their second year and most rarely live past age 3 crayfish like son fishes are not entirely easy for bass to capture while crayfish are safe in their retreats they must come out to collect food this is when they are most vulnerable to bass lastly crayfish are low-light active especially at night if you're wondering whether your waters contain crayfish try crayfish spotting that's going out with a flashlight some summer night and just just spot those shallows the abundance of crayfish may may surprise you even shock you okay taking it a step deeper here's something about crayfish in our jungle warfare pond things I could figure out to location stand out from Journal 23 remember that the humps and bars left over from the other gravel mining operations we're left bare from wave action and water level drops exposing that good substrate that good hard substrate for the crayfish to dig the retreats in our crayfish packed bass came from just such a rubble top top crayfish may have factored into the reason the majority of my pitching bites actually came on those humps and came on the bottom those bass picking my baits up from the bottom the next likely location was along the shorelines where wave action and water level drops have left behind clean firm substrate pretty much the same thing as the humps wave action anything exposed to the surface where wave action can clear away sediment or water level drops expose them and bleach them in the Sun is where the native substrate gets exposed and that's in these gravel quarries is sand gravel and rock one such shoreline happened to be the one that I launched my boat to shoot the jungle warfare series from that shoreline is west-facing mean it takes the brunt of the prevailing westerly winds that we get here the resulting waves exposing the sand gravel and rubble substrate on that shoreline in particular I had actually spotted some of those crayfish hunting bass along that shoreline I even made a few casts to them but expecting bluegill hunters I had a bluegill ask swim jig tied on and they showed a little interest in chasing it pods have rolled in and I can hear bass busting all over in this one there's three of them right in front of me they're cruising they're moving now and they're not in there yeah they're interested in the jig if I the jig has to move fast yeah they were willing to poke at it when it when it moved nice to know there are best surround me alright let's decide what we're gonna do here after discovering the stomach contents though I decided to go back after those cruisers along that shoreline again and see if I could give them something closer to their expectations possibly offering us the opportunity to see a true match the hatch scenario in in bass fishing and conventional bass fishing back at home I rigged up a good chromatic starting with a snag resistant jig head of appropriate weight for that water depth that I'd be fishing and the line diameter I'd be using I chose an appropriately small soft plastic crawfish bait and modified the jig head a bit to lend itself better to that that's smaller crayfish and then return to hit that shoreline in a bit I'll share the lure and modifications that I that I chose to use and make I shot for low light periods early morning and under an overcast sky when the crayfish would be most apt to be active and my job a presentation would be made a bit easier in that shallow flat calm water so here's the presentation challenge under low lighting I most probably can't expect to sight fish that is spot fish before I cast being in such shallow water it'll be easy to alarm them by their seeing me or by my dropping the lure or even the line on top of them to add to the challenge that relatively clean shore line break I'm targeting for this that the inside weed line is narrow especially as the water is dropping and strewn with obstacles fouling something on it snagging something runs the risk of kicking that lure into the not food category for those fish or alarming them outright the right weight and design of the jig head casting accuracy and some luck are the dice rolls in this in this adventure okay that should clue us in let's do it let's get out there and see if we can catch some of those crayfish hunters to get a realistic crayfish lure for this scenario shallow clear cover strewn water the jig head is a start it's foundational the head needs to be of appropriate weight for the depth and speed that I plan to fish it a crayfish is essentially married to the substrate so the weight of the jig head should be enough to keep that jig glued to the bottom but not so heavy that it hangs up on every nook and cranny in that substrate the head also needs to be of a snag resistant design in this mixed cover strewn water the head I used was a Kalin's spot stalker jig head great design conical head it's a it's a stand up style but with the weight of a plastic in the back sometimes they can any stand up head can topple over a buoyant plastic really helps but I help it along even more by bending that hook up just get a bend in it that allows that bait to stand up a little bit more and be more stable in the standing position I also modify the weed guard just a little bit that pointy end I don't want poking a fish and potentially having it spit the lure but also after it's hooked I am little concerned that that pointed wire can stick a fish in the eye if it is sticking outside of the mouth next is the soft plastic bait that I chose to use a lot of options there and I'm not trying to sell you anything I'm not sponsored by anybody here but the new TRD cross Z from Z Man is a nice looking bait and being elastic plastic it is very very buoyant and it looked great in the water again there are a lot of options out there and you can trust me on this I've been a long time fly fisherman fly designer and I came up with a bunch of different crayfish patterns that worked very very well if you've got the context right that is you know what the fish are actually looking for it's surprising what you can actually get away with a really accurate representation may often be just gravy that said the closer to the real thing the better just realize how our lure looks in hand is only one and often biased parameter your fish will judge your presentation on so this jighead in little craw were the ones that I chose to go with just happens to be the one I chose and you'll see it and you may want to know what I chose to use okay let's take out throw it in the water hopefully in front of some crayfish munching baths I'm expecting if there's bass there they're gonna know just what this is and go for it all right we've lost a lot of shoreline here such shallow flat water ought to be darn careful when I move my line on the surface there's somebody munching on it and it is a bass yes oh come out of that stuff crayfish on terror oh come on hold hold baby oh yes all right hello there sweetie I wonder if you're the best that I was watching the other day hard to know there it is crayfish hunter very nice very nice a little tiny hook okay hon and the antennas sticking out of there nope crayfish are small here so there's alright there you go sweetie well it got a little tangled net that smart read all right yeehaw conversion now we'll see if this will climb over wood there is a fish that's bluegill I think they're blue gills grabbing the claws of my craw alright there's another one on it okay we know what the soup of the day is today in this pond this year probably every year all right over the word good good all right let that line lay watch it okay it's starting to sink already um I'm using lime because it's the most sensitive thing and I'm doing what's called stitching but bill Murphy's term and it's just pulling the craw along the bottom or any bait here's the thing very realistic crayfish once they know it's not food it's not food and even the bluegills will stop biting it how this shoreline vegetation makes this really tough and I took a bass here this is where I took that one on the spoon and I'm thinking that it's a nice little opening for best to penetrate the shallows get that line off the waterfall so call even though it's cloudy hi guys go falls watching my line there's one something all right crayfish eating bass Oh we'll get off of that oh there we go he's been caught before this year let's see if I can do a better job of unhooking let's get this camera down small bar little hook he's got a really torn maxillary and free max so he was ripped poor guy I try not to do that with my fish okay dark slop water bass on the inside we dead for crayfish there you go sleepy yeehaw okay what do you think folks pretty cool here's another heavy cover swap situation you wouldn't expect exactly you [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Nature of Fishing

Views: 13,387

Rating: 4.9390478 out of 5

Keywords: bass fishing, crayfish, crawfish, crawdads, jig, ned rig, fall fishing, fall bass fishing, jig fishing, match the hatch

Id: 0d6txylsEVI

Length: 22min 47sec (1367 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 08 2019