Every Spring I make sure to slip in a couple of sunfish trips. There’s a special lake that puts out a bunch of big fish and it never disappoints. They were very finicky on the couple of days I fished for them. A small dropshot that held the bait a foot off the bottom and directly in their face was key!

Fishing was tough as we faced high winds and choppy water. Add in the post spawn funk of the smallies and we had to work for every bite. Using the Humminbird 360 made it much easier to see the cover in front of us out in 10-15’ of water. The Ultrex did it’s magic by holding the boat all day and letting our focus be solely on each cast. Ended the day with 30+ smallmouth and it was mostly due to the electronics.

The spawn funk has parted ways and some really good fishing is happening right now. Covering water with topwater and swim jigs is resulting in numbers of fish and size of fish. One of my favorite lures year round is a swim jig with a grub trailer. If you’re on the water and the fishing is tough, tie one on and cover some water. I’ve been using a 7’2” Megabass Daemos rod and an All Terrain Tackle swim jig.

Just got my hands on the new freestyle 6" perch and this thing is going to crush the fish! I've already have two rods rigged with them, in two different ways. One is with a weighted belly hook that will be weedless and used up in the shallow, thicker cover. This will get into all the places a open hook will not work. On the other rod, I have one rigged with a 1/2oz swimbait head that will be used out in deeper, open water. Every offshore spot I fish, the first thing that will be fired out is the freestyle with the jig head. Rolling this through the deep structure first thing will create a great chance and nabbing the biggest fish on the spot. The weedless version will be used by docks, reeds, cattails, cabbage, etc. What a great one two punch!!!