For the last couple of years I have been fishing Muskies in the Midwest. There seems to be a lot of crossover between Muskies and Trophy Largemouth fishing for what I have experienced. One thing that the Muskie guys do when there is high pressure and no wind is to burn bucktails (inline spinners) to create a reaction strike from the fish. If you are using a standard, steady retrieve, all you are going to get most of the time is a follow (sound familiar?). When I say burn... I mean crank as absolutely fast as you can. The fish have no problem turning and eating the bait as I have seen it first hand.

During the post spawn, I have had some success on swimbait largemouths putting a little speed on the baits but I haven't tried burning them. Has anyone tried or had any success really getting on it and burning baits? It seems in So. Cal... no wind is really tough fishing. You can still get the fish to follow but rairly commit. There have been exceptions but the vast majority of the time the fishing is really tough. Northern Cal is somewhat different where lakes up there actually bite better in the flat calm, high skies. What are yout thoughts on this. Let me know what you have experienced.

I have experienced this with smallmouth in particular. There have been many occasions where I had to burn my swimbait to trigger strikes. A slower retrieve would get follows or completely ignored, while reeling as fast as I could reel would get my arm broken.

I haven't tried this much for largemouth but it sounds like I need to experiment with this more often.

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I know burning huds works for muskies, anyway. I throw 16 rate of fall huds for muskies and as soon as they hit the water I start burning them in, breaking the surface with the tail of the bait every ten feet or so. I also continually rip them to get them to turn on their side flashing the white sides of the bait downward. I've caught muskies in mid to upper thirty degree water temperatures even, and they still always seem to come on hot and heavy behind the bait and I usually catch them on a figure eight. But I have yet to catch a bass on a hudd, so I'm not sure that it is the best way to fish them for bass. Some of the muskie waters I fish have phenomenal bass in them, and though I've caught them on a lot of muskie baits, I have never caught one on a huddleston. I could try to slow roll one sometime, but I don't seem to have the patience for some reason:-) But definitely not for lack of throwing them. Sometimes for days even.

This is a Matt Peters / Cameron Smith question right here :)

For me the answer is that burning baits has not worked well for me at all. When Cam got my head all souped up a few years ago to try it I went around to quite a few different lakes and tried it (much like I tried deadsticking when you got my head souped up on it Mark :) ).

The result was catching a whole lot of nothing. I burned Eagles and Hudds over places where I knew fish could see it and they did not react to it. I don't know if it's a water temperature thing (like water up here is colder and fish are less likely to bomb fast moving topwater) or if it is some other intangible. I did try burning baits quite a bit during the hottest summer months.

The only fish I can think of in the last 8 years that ate a burned bait for me was a 4 pounder at Clear Lake that ate the original Castaic Baby Bass hardbait as I was burning the bait in because I thought I was fouled up in weeds. Clear Lake bass love deflection though, so it may have been the fact that I was burning my bait through weeds and getting good deflection that really triggered that bite.

Anyway, I hope everyone goes out and burns the heck out of their lures in Nor-cal to see if works :)

Two things:

1) I confess I'm a changed man on burning trout baits. That was the way to get bit on San Vicente and I got a few fish out of Perris, but that was all about the Eagle. You had to burn that bait, although I did catch a couple slow rolling. Bottom line, I don't subscribe to burning anymore. I've found slow/steady slow rolling and attention to swim much more important. Honestly, the Huddleston just opened that all up. My bigbait fishing changed dramatically when I got onboard with the Hudd. I still fish with a ROF 5 and ROF 12/16 rigged on my deck. I find the ROF 5 will get bit in certain calm conditions, when fished relatively fast (not waked, but pretty good pace). ROF 12/16 I'm fishing out deeper trying to get the bait to swim as close to the bottom or structure as possible.

2) Triple Trout. Without a doubt, Triple Trout can be burned and catches fish. I spent 4 solid months on the 8" Triple Trout in preparation for the Clarks Hill FLW. Now, I don't want to get off track about when to not throw and when to throw swimbaits in tournaments (save for other post on this forum)...But understand, with the exception of the tournament itself (even in the 4 days of official practice) I was on solid fish, every time I committed to it. My summer was basically a study in covering water and fishing fast. I fished a Loomis 965, 400 TE Calcutta, 25# P-Line, 8" Triple Trout in Chartruese Shad/Herring/Light Trout/Bone...There was a local mantra that you can fish your bait too fast on Clark Hill...so, that encouraged me. My first breakthru day was during a club event with a local who put me in the right water and they ate up the TT. I had 5 fish for about 12 pounds before noon, from the back of the boat...late June. I would basically fish it like a buzzbait...already on the reel before it hit the water. I actually felt like I could grasp how Van Dam or Dean Rojas cover water when they are on a reaction bite/practice mode. It was profound, really. You can wake the Triple Trout pretty damn well, but you have to have the right gear (400 TE reel, IMO) and a medium rod. You can lob the bait a mile and cover some serious ground. You boat about 80% of your bites too. I use Owner 1/0 Stingers in front and #1 in back with Hyperwire rings of course. I'm on the Triple Trout for the non-trout eater bite. I'm trying to validate it right now on Okeechobee (and Kissimmee and Istokpoga) to no avail right now. That's a whole other conversation, but I would pick the Triple Trout to go after fish on the Delta or Clear Lake for example. The only other bait I've consistently caught fish on the the non trout eaters was the 9" MS Slammer (Otay, before they stocked trout) and the Rat baits. I've caught a couple Hudd fish on non trout fed lakes, but haven't explored it to my satisfaction by a long shot.

Bottom line: Burning, not a great way to catch trophy trout eaters. Good way to catch solid tournament fish though. You just have to know when to put it down (ie, the first winter storm blows thru Clarks Hill!!!)

Don't knock burning until you've committed to it, and something I plan to explore a lot in 2009.



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BigBait Fishing in the South

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The best numbers day I ever had on a swimbait was with a burned 6 in. Triple Trout at New Melones (whether or not a 6 in. TT is a "real" swimbait or not is another story)I landed 8 fish and lost another 5. None of the fish were bigger than 3 pounds and the smallest fish I caught was a 8 inch redeye. I caught a few decent 4 pound type fish on the Delta burning the TT as well. I don't believe that burning a bait is your best bet for trophy type fish, as the big girls are more of ambush type eaters and not willing to move form there ambush spots to chase a fast moving bait.

Lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what have-yous

I have caught a bunch on the burn or wake. I also make the hudd break surface so that it makes a "L" turn. Many hits are like peacock bass hits. The best I have done for size was two 8's back to back with the burn. My best numbers day was on a burn also. 17 fish in all, 6 big fish slow and 11 others on the burn. All fish on the burn were around 4 up to 8 lbs mostly. Not one DD on the burn for me.

Don.

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Nothing like fishing!