Mail From Japan! Will It Catch Minnesota Smallmouth?

good morning everyone i'm back at it again it's a beautiful september morning here in minnesota i love this time of year we start getting some cool overnight temperatures with that morning mist and it's some of the best fishing of the year too especially for smallmouth bass i'd say it's the best time to be throwing topwater the whole month of september so that's what we're gonna do today we'll go see if we can get into some topwater smallmouth action i have a topwater lure i'm gonna throw at them that was sent to me by a fellow named takeshi fukuhara all the way over in japan now he sent me this in the middle of winter so i did open it up and take a look already i just could not wait until summer i believe this is made by the handsome lure company it's called a pop slider and if i remember right takeshi said a friend of his custom paints these so you can see it's a top water popper type lure and i really dig the paint job on this thing it almost reminds me of peacock feathers so this lure made it halfway around the globe i'm gonna tie it on and we'll toss it at some minnesota smallmouth today i've got that pop slider tied on i decided i'd go with my six foot six medium heavy fast action st croix bass x rod today with 30 pound braid just because it's pretty much a one of a kind lure to me i can't just go down to the sporting goods store and buy another one so i want to minimize any chance of that thing breaking off this thing is a little bit bigger than the topwater lures that i typically throw at smallmouth it's about the same length as the super spook junior but it's definitely a little bit wider and as you can see here instead of treble hooks it has these double hooks and then a little spinner blade on the tail i think it should work it's only one way to find out though let's toss it out there and see if we get bit we had does have some pretty nice popping action to it oh look at that you can walk the dog with this lure too maybe that's where the slider part of the name comes in that's nice to know that thing walks pretty good actually well that's a good thing because right now early september the water's still i mean moderately warm those fish are most likely going to be pretty aggressive still and might prefer a faster moving lure so if i can walk that thing rather than just popping it that might actually help our chances of hooking into something i'm fairly confident if i put that lure in front of fish they're gonna hit it we just gotta find the fish out here usually when it gets as cold as it did last night i'll find them off of these points in the morning but you know the water temperature might be warm enough where they're still all up on the river so we're going to work our way up that way eventually i am going to hit these two points here real quick though we'll give them a couple casts at least oh you see that that was a big bass actually it was a beaver slapping his tail at me warning me not to come any closer he's got a lodge right over there not much action at the first couple points i hit point number three here usually holds something though some nice big boulders that extend out off in front of that point i'll throw that pop slider over there see if there's a big smallie hanging out i was just about to reel that thing in mr bass was like give me that come here bud there we go first one of the day on the pop slider all right we'll let him go and see if we can catch another i did find a couple back here in this slack water right around this point is where we start getting under the river current though so i think that's where we're gonna find the majority of the fish today that guy right about that point see if anybody's home oh somebody took a swipe at it got him [Music] nice nice little smallie on that pop slider [Music] um i think we're gonna find a lot of bass tucked up underneath these grassy banks today a lot of them have some hollow space underneath there those fish can sit underneath the grass get out of the current and wait for some food to come by that they can ambush okay nice fish just trying to swim right back underneath that grass there but i'm not gonna oh yeah that's a big one come here you hey hey wow look at that that is a tank small mouth right there just like i was saying we're gonna find a lot of fish tucked up underneath that grass there today i think and that's exactly where that one was wow what a nice fish we'll release them right back underneath that grass [Music] so right now i'm floating my way back downstream a little ways i did work my way up along that opposite bank pretty much to the bend up there i did find a few fish over in here but once i got to about there the weeds started growing in real thick along that bank and those bass definitely seem to like a clear view out in front of their hiding spot so i'm gonna float a little bit farther down and we'll work our way up along this side this side doesn't get quite as much sun exposure so i don't think those weeds are gonna be quite as thick and hopefully we'll find a few more smallies hanging out along that oh grass that one blasted it i didn't think he's all that big of a fish but he sure did hit that thing hard that's not a bad fish right there come here bud no funny business now nice off you go oh did you see that that was big whatever it was please be a bass i think it was nice molly all right you come back over here i'm going to drop my anchor so i don't go drifting too far downstream oh you've come here dude jeez that is the tank come here wow look at that smallie i'm gonna get him unhooked we might get a weight on this one we'll get a quick length and weight on this guy so he's 20. maybe just a hair shy of 20 but we'll call that a 20. i'm gonna let him hang out in my net for just a second i'll get my scale out we'll get a weight on that one i've got my scale zeroed out let's toss this fish on there and see what she weighs i'm curious to see this gotta be one of the fattest 20-inch smallmouth i've ever caught press hold right there five pounds even geez that's pretty heavy for a 20 inch fish but man look how thick that one is absolutely beautiful smallmouth well i think that's going to conclude today's trip out here to the river it's been about 45 minutes since i caught that big one and pretty slow going since then i got a couple little fish a little bit farther upstream but that was about all the action i had so my stomach's starting to rumble anyway i'm gonna head back to my truck go grab some lunch and then maybe hit a different spot this afternoon it's been an awesome morning out here though we caught some real nice mollies on that japanese pop slider so big thanks to takeshi for sending me that to try out on some minnesota smallies definitely got the job done out here this morning caught some quality fish on that guy so thank you takeshi and thanks to the rest of you for coming along with me i hope you enjoyed it i'll see you next time

Channel: NDYakAngler

Views: 146,627

Keywords: NDYakAngler, kayak, kayak fishing, fish, fishing, smallmouth, largemouth, bass, bass fishing, river, Japan, MN, Minnesota, mail, call, topwater, top, water, handsome, popslider, pop, slider

Id: LSs0eY-dR9E

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 22 2020