Neddin' for slabs ...

[uljersey]

Hit the mother lode of flatties yesterday. The bass bite has been sluggish out here as we've been stuck in a cool, cloudy/rainy pattern for what seems to be an eternity. I tried a variety of baits on my BFS rig with little success until I improvised a downsized ned rig using a beat up 1/16 oz ball jig with a sickle hook and a shortened ZMan turd bait. Once I tied that on it was lights out - they chomped on that all afternoon. Sometimes I just let it sit and other times I drug it painfully slow across the bottom. Had no problems hooking up as they were quite aggressive toward it. Many of the gills were in the 9" range and two of the crappie were 12" All in all it was a 30+ fish day, I had a blast. Hard to beat a criminally insane bluegill on light line. Had a couple of runt bass in the mix but they were outnumbered. Here's a few highlights ...

If that aint the ugliest bait you've ever seen







Here's one of the exceptions, he went for a DUEL 65mm jerkbait

[Trout Bloke]

Very nice! Beautiful fish!

[toddmc]

Sweet! Another good downsizing tip is to downsize your open drop shot hook to about a #4 and take the last inch and half or so of a straight tail Roboworm as your lure. I've done this a lot over the years to quickly make sure that multiple missed fish were not bass. The bluegill have less problem getting the smaller bait. It's now more easy to recognize panfish schools with our improved and bigger electronics. So, I don't do this much anymore.

[Bronzeye]

Ugly lure, handsome fish!

[Knotty]

It's amazing how you're getting gills, with their tiny mouths, on even a reduced size TRD.

It definitely has been a tough spring for bass here in NJ. Just doesn't want to warm up. But the panfish bite has been very good for me here in northern NJ, once I find the schools. Do you fish Trout Magnets ala Alphahawk? That's my go to technique, swapping out the TM for a Brewers Crappie Slider if the fish are more active. Jig heads from 1 to 1.6g. Have had days with 50+ crappie. Pickerel seem to pound these lures as well. I find it difficult on BFS, so usually use spinning.

[uljersey]

It's amazing how you're getting gills, with their tiny mouths, on even a reduced size TRD.

It definitely has been a tough spring for bass here in NJ. Just doesn't want to warm up. But the panfish bite has been very good for me here in northern NJ, once I find the schools. Do you fish Trout Magnets ala Alphahawk? That's my go to technique, swapping out the TM for a Brewers Crappie Slider if the fish are more active. Jig heads from 1 to 1.6g. Have had days with 50+ crappie. Pickerel seem to pound these lures as well. I find it difficult on BFS, so usually use spinning.

Another Crappie Slider fan I see Probably the most productive panfish plastic I've ever thrown. Solid black with the white glow tail is my color. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many fish I've caught on those things over the years. As for the Trout Magnets, no I've never fished them. Don't know why, just never have.

[Knotty]

Another Crappie Slider fan I see Probably the most productive panfish plastic I've ever thrown. Solid black with the white glow tail is my color. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many fish I've caught on those things over the years. As for the Trout Magnets, no I've never fished them. Don't know why, just never have.

I only started using the Sliders in '19. This winter to spring I've been using both and have noticed that when they won't hit the sliders, they will hit the Trout Magnets. Sliders, as I'm sure you've seen, do a better job of catching more bigger fish.

What jig heads do you use with your Sliders? I'd mostly been using them on round head jigs from less than a gram to about 1.6g. However, this year I got some of Brewer's Weedless Crappie Slider Double-Lite Wire Hook (1/16 oz). I lose a lot of them to pickerel but they come through cover and weeds better than normal jigs. Thinking about ordering their bulk pack.

[uljersey]

Another Crappie Slider fan I see Probably the most productive panfish plastic I've ever thrown. Solid black with the white glow tail is my color. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many fish I've caught on those things over the years. As for the Trout Magnets, no I've never fished them. Don't know why, just never have.

I only started using the Sliders in '19. This winter to spring I've been using both and have noticed that when they won't hit the sliders, they will hit the Trout Magnets. Sliders, as I'm sure you've seen, do a better job of catching more bigger fish.

What jig heads do you use with your Sliders? I'd mostly been using them on round head jigs from less than a gram to about 1.6g. However, this year I got some of Brewer's Weedless Crappie Slider Double-Lite Wire Hook (1/16 oz). I lose a lot of them to pickerel but they come through cover and weeds better than normal jigs. Thinking about ordering their bulk pack.

I had a bunch of these custom made some years back. 1/16 oz with a # 2 Matzuo black nickel sickle hook. I also got the exact same thing made in 1/32 oz as well with a # 4 hook. I use the 1/16 for the Crappie Sliders. The hook size is a bit large as compared to many commercial jig heads of the same size but that's what I wanted and honestly have had no issues with hookups. If anything it keeps the ridiculously small fish from hooking up (but not always) and I'm a huge fan of the fine wire keepers, which can be pinched down closer to the hook shank for an even lower profile when rigging ultra thin plastics.

[Knotty]

Cool. I have similar jigs, with the wire keeper, in sizes down to either 1/32 or 1g. My favorite type of keeper. Lead keepers just blow out many smaller plastics.

Hit a shallow, weedy, beaver pond today with Sliders and caught over a dozen pickerel. Wasn't thinking and went to the pond with my Finetail Area rod and a reel with 2# high viz flouro. Lost many jigs to snags but only lost one fish to a bite or break off, go figure. The pond is mostly lily pads but fortunately they were still small and I could get my jigs and pickerel through them most of the time.