Mumpys Jigs

Before I begin writing about Part II, let me tell a short story. Yesterday I took off work an hour early so I would be sure to be at the boat ramp on time to meet my fishing partner. I guess around 4:30 pm yesterday it was around 95ish degrees. I have about a 45 minute drive to the boat ramp so I give my dad a call to shoot the crap with him. The Conversation went like this. Dad: “What ya doin?” Me: “Heading to Eufaula to fish” Dad: “Boy you’re crazy, it’s hot as hell outside” Me: “That’s exactly why I am going. I want to fish those Ledges in 90 degree water so I can learn, if I can catch a fish today in these conditions, I can catch a fish on Saturday in better conditions” – See, I told you that was a short story. The point I am trying to get across is this. When I was in the Army, we always trained as we fought. Nothing has changed. If you are going to learn how to fish Ledges in 25′ of water in the 90 degree range, then damn it, you need to train as you fight. I agree, I could fish those same ledges at 10am on Saturday morning and probably learn what I learned yesterday, but that is Saturday and today is today. I want to be on the water!

In my quest to figure out this ledge fishing, I have been doing a lot of message board research and have been getting some awesome advice that I believe played a key role in yesterdays fishing trip. A fellow Tennessee Volunteer Fan Chris Hight gave me some very good advice yesterday, which I will break down into steps.

Step One: This is nothing short of what everyone has been saying thus far. Recon the area you are going to fish. It is funny how many things relate to Infantry tactics in the civilian life now that I am a civilian. We always taught that you will always do a reconnaissance of your objective and at a bare minimum a Map Reconnaissance. It is no different here, Recon your Objective and look for potential areas of interest. Chris gave me a special recon tip that I will share. Do your Map Reconnaissance with your GPS Map, they are more detailed than any map you’re going to purchase in the store. I cannot tell you how true this is, and advice that was taken yesterday evening.

Step Two: Go to the areas you have chosen, Idle your boat over these spots and monitor your Sonar. I want to add to this by saying, know your equipment. I can’t tell you how many fishermen out there have Sonar’s they have purchased, installed and basically just treated it like a plug and play computer. There is a very important feature on these Sonar’s called Greyline®. Greyline® lets you distinguish between strong and weak echoes. It “paints” gray on targets that are stronger than a preset value. This allows you to tell the difference between a hard and soft bottom. This helps distinguish weeds from trees on the bottom, or fish from structure. The important note out of that last step is this. Know your equipment so you can accurately decipher what it is showing you.

With all of that said, look for a good hard bottom, once you have found one of your chosen areas with a good hard bottom, look for a school of fish relating to a drop, hard bottom etc…

Step Three: Once you have found a school of fish, mark them with your GPS and continue to look at other areas of interest.

Step Four: Go back over the areas you found schools of fish and attempt to find them again, this is to see if they moved. – Chris told me, most schools won’t go far during the day. If the fish you had marked earlier is still there in the area throw out a buoy and start your final process.

Step Five: There are two steps here. Not only must you figure out which angle the Bass are preferring the bait, but you must also figure out which bait they prefer. I hope this tip helps some of you out because it’s something I’ve always followed and it really helps me a lot. Start fast and go slow. Basically, start with your faster baits such as Crankbaits and then work down from there until you find what they prefer. I am also very biased when it comes to baits, so it doesn’t take long before I’m tossing a Jig. To be fair and unbiased though, start off with a Crankbait, then go to a Jig and finally a Carolina Rig. The good thing about a Carolina rig is it helps you feel the bottom and translates what is down there to your finger tips.

So, there is basically the steps you need to take to become acquainted with Ledge fishing. Now, on to my trip yesterday and how I went about it. I followed the steps 1 – 5 basically to the “T”, except for one minor detail. After Step Four we tied on a couple of DD22 Crankbaits onto a couple of Catfish Rods with 50lb Test line. We cast these behind the boat, let out about 200′ of line and Idled our boat down the river, over the school and Trolled our Crankbaits through the School of Fish we found at 25′ deep.

1st Pass – A Spotted Bass about 3lb! I was delightfully surprised, I was happy that the technique worked, but I was very surprised that it worked so fast and on the very first pass. After the fish was landed, we went back to where we first began the first pass and started our second pass.

2nd Pass – A Spotted Bass about 3lb! Are you KIDDING ME? I never thought we would put in the work of steps 1-4 and then try my Trolling Technique and in Two Passes come out with Two SPOTS in the 3LB Range.  Chris also mentioned something to me yesterday that I really took advantage of and as you can see it paid off. Chris said, “Once you get that school biting, they will get fired up and it’s on!”

Time for STEP 5!

We went to where the school was and pointed the boat upriver and started tossing Jigs at them, and BAM! Carl hooks the largest bass of his life! No it’s not some 10lb Monster but as you can see, it also isn’t something to snub your nose at. I promise you this, there are plenty of people that would love to have that baby in their live wells come weigh in time.

Carl with a Eufaula Bass caught on a Black and Blue Mumpys Jig in 25' of water

After that fish, I told Carl, “Look, we have a spot, it’s marked, we know fish is here. Let’s go find some more spots!”

We took off to our other chosen areas of interest and were able to recon one other spot before the Rain from hell came and our evening of fishing was done. So, where does this take us for Part III of this series? Well, this weekend we are going back to Eufaula and fish our normal manner from 5am to 9am and from that point on we will Repeat Steps 1 – 5, with a slight twist in there, and hopefully come off the Lake this weekend with more spots and hopefully in the near future we will have enough spots marked that our Fishing through the summer is nothing more than routine.

I hope this write up helps anyone that was having trouble fishing Ledges and come back next week for Part III of this series.