Everglades (The Marshlands) 1/19/24

[Capt. BassinLou]

Conditions:
Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous
Wind: Calm
Skies: Overcast (Drizzling Rain)
Temps: Lower 70's
Water clarity: Clear
Water level: slightly down with current
Fishing time: 0645-1230
Bass Boated: 16
Top 5 bass: 10 lbs
Productive baits: spinnerbait, swimbait, swimjig

I was pumped to fish the Marshlands this morning. Arrived at 0 dark thirty and launched in the dark!
I headed straight to the area I fished last week that yielded me those nice bass.

Started with a swimbait. Nothing. Spinnerbait, nothing! Hmmm,, 1 hour into the trip and not one bass to be caught or seen.

Fished the swimjig. Nothing! Switched to frog, quickly put it away.

 0930 rolled around, and I had 0 bass in the basshunter. I had to make some decisions. Stay the course or change areas. I changed areas.

Fortunately, I did. Over 3 hrs into the trip, I landed my first bass. A little baby bass. On the spinnerbait. Lol!! Shortly after, I caught my first 2 lbr. On a swimbait. The bass began to come alive but kept biting short on the swimbait.



Switched back to the swimjig, and the bite was on. Had a bite on almost every cast!



The swimjig frenzy lasted about 30 min and then switched back to a spinnerbait.

Caught a few more bass here and there. Once the rain moved in, the conditions changed, and so did the bite.



Unfortunately, I had to get going. Boated 16 bass, the biggest was just shy of 3lbs.

Not the outing I was anticipating, but I'm happy I managed to put a pattern together.

Thanks for reading!

[FlatsNBay]

Sounds like a fun day once you got going. Gotta love the swim jig!

[big g]

Good job Lou, that's the way to figure out a pattern and a location.  Great job again!

[Capt. BassinLou]

Sounds like a fun day once you got going. Gotta love the swim jig!

Thank you Steve. The swimjig is very fun and and effective bait for sure!

[Capt. BassinLou]

Good job Lou, that's the way to figure out a pattern and a location.  Great job again!

Thank you George, appreciate the kind words!

[FlatsNBay]

How was your hook up ratio with the swim jig compared to a Swimbait? Did you notice any difference?

I remembered interviewing a couple of pros for an article and was surprised that none of them liked to use a weedless Swimbait because of a pooter hookup ratio. All chose to use a swim jig instead.

[Capt. BassinLou]

How was your hook up ratio with the swim jig compared to a Swimbait? Did you notice any difference?

I remembered interviewing a couple of pros for an article and was surprised that none of them liked to use a weedless Swimbait because of a pooter hookup ratio. All chose to use a swim jig instead.

Great question, I was literally editing that as we speak on my video. Too funny!!

I had a much better hook up ratio with the swimjig yesterday versus the swimbait.

The bass struck the swimbait short most of the time but inhaled the swimjig.

[Donald Garner]

Lou, tks for sharing the trip with us.  Congrats on the catching and tks for sharing those pictures with us also.