Adapt to a different style.

It's time to throw away your style of fishing en route for a new one. I myself am a plastic guy, I love fishing slow, using plastic craws, hog style baits, and finesse style wacky rigging. But when the fish are biting other things, it's time to adapt to a different style.

Although I own a handful of hard baits, I normally don't fish them as much as I should. I probably should though! The past outings I've been sticking to shallow cranks, mainly flatside cranks such as the Jackall Bling 55, and the Jackall MC/60 SR. Turns out it was a good choice as even my friend was able to catch one on a crank the other day. This is by far my biggest fish of the year, and my biggest fish on a hard bait. I think I'll be cranking a bit more often!

My gear for today..

A few Jackall Poison Heritage Rods paired with Shimano Reels, with my new Jackall Tournament Cap (must be a lucky cap).

5lb 1oz Crankbait fish

Rod: Jackall Poison Heritage HC-610SR "Master Stroke"
Reel: Shimano Core 100Mg
Lure: Jackall MC/60 SR "Table Rock Shad"

Another Shot of my fish

Jackall MC/60 SR "Table Rock Shad"

Jackall Bling 55

Nothing Special...

>Rod: Jackall Poison Heritage VCM-CAST68
Reel: Shimano Curado 200E5
Lure: Jackall Bling 55

New Lures

Jackall Pine Shrimp 4.5"

Four casts later...

3lbs 8oz

Rod: Jackall Poison Heritage HC-68MH "Hyper Approach
Reel: Shimano Core 50Mg
Lure: Jackall Pine Shrimp 4.5"

Spinnerbait with a dressed trailer hook

Jackall Pro Takuma Hata uses a Zappu Tinsel Hook as a trailer for his spinnerbaits for great results.

Match the Hatch. Well Sorta

I have my own approach when it comes to the old saying "Match the Hatch". While I do believe that matching the hatch increases your chance at catching fish, I believe however that you should NOT match it exactly.

My approach to matching the hatch is slightly different; I tend to match the hatch in terms of size, but not in color. Think of it this way, when a school of shad are being attacked by a hungry bass every single shad in the school look the same. It's difficult to single out just one shad of the thousands in the school. Let's say there are 100 marbles in a jar, 99 of the marbles are silver, but just one is slightly off. Imagine how hard it is to find that marble, but imagine now that out of the 100 marbles, only one is purple. It is now easy to visually see that marble.

The pond today was full of shad and the bass were on the chew, I recently bought a few packs of the Fish Arrow Flash J lures and was tossing them into the school and around it. I had colors that matched the shad perfectly, but I threw out one that had a purple back. This allows the bass to single out this lure out of the hundreds of shad swimming in the school. Despite the color, it matched so well that the shad swam with my lure, while my lure flashed just like the school. Did my theory work? I fished for 30 minutes.

2lbs 2oz

Rod: Jackall Poison Heritage HS-66UL-IW "Super Inch Wacky"
Reel: Shimano Stradic Ci4 1000
Lure: Fish Arrow Flash J 4" Purple Weenie/Silver