Post by cardnut on Jul 7, 2007 17:38:51 GMT -1
This is for anyone who may be interested on crawdads on Lake Allatoona...... I've studied them for about 2 years and decided to take what I've learned and ATTEMPT to write my first article...
A special thanks to T.Mike for his help and info on how to do this and I hope you guys and gals will enjoy it..........
The Crawdad Connection
By: Craig "CARDNUT" Baker
When I was a young boy, I learned very early that my grandfather was a fishing “guru”. He would take me down to the lake every chance he had just to share his love of fishing with me. He was a magician in catching bass and would jump up and down, shout, and turn bright red around his eyebrows every time he pulled a big bass out of the lake to show me. “Now listen to what I’m telling you son”, he would say in that moment of excitement. I knew a bass fishing lesson was underway as soon as those words came out of his mouth.
Now, being a grown man with my own children, a lot of those lessons I forgot a long time ago. There are still many I will never forget simply by the shear number of times I was taught the same lesson. But the best lesson he ever taught me was that “crawdads” catch a lot of bass and a lot of big ones. Now, I’ve heard several different names to this little lobster looking creature like “crayfish, mudbug, or yabbie”, but for me, crawdad is the name.
Crawdads are a bass magnet because it is one of the most important foods in a fish’s diet. It’s a bait that supplies the fish with a ton of nutritional value and they are fairly simple for a fish to catch. Those are two main factors that make a crawdad a dinner fit for a champion to a bass. In this article, I want to explore a little bit about the patterns and the color changes a crawdad goes through that hopefully will shed some light on why your catch rate goes up some days and goes down on others.
After extensive observation of crawdads I was catching in a trap on Lake Allatoona Georgia, I started to notice some very big changes that a crawdad goes through during certain times of the year. In the spring, summer, fall, and winter months, I noticed a lot of crawdads developing a color transition. By this I mean, the crawdads were turning different colors. Also, the biggest observation I started noticing was color changes to the types of water the crawdads were living in. I know that may sound crazy to some but I noticed a very distinct color change a crawdad would go through when clear water started to become stained or muddied.
In the spring months, crawdads started turning red, brown/red, and orange/red/brown. Some had yellow pinchers, some with orange pinchers, and some with brown pinchers, but the common link between all of them was the reddish tint to all of them. 80% of the crawdads that I caught with the reddish tint were caught out of shallow water. So sunlight and temperature of the water is a big issue in their color. Their sizes seemed to be very flexible as they were small, medium, and big in the bunch. Most of them were very aggressive during the spring and seemed to dart around in water more than I noticed them do in the colder months. I believe they are like this because it is their matting season.
The summer months were the easiest time for me to notice a distinct color pattern. The summer months produced good quantities of crawdads in the cage and most were a brown/yellow, green/brown, and yellow/light brown. Those that had the greenish tint to them looked exactly what green-pumpkin looks like on a lot of today’s soft plastic baits. The sizes of the crawdads were almost the same, about the size of a finesse jig “hint”. Some of the lighter colored craws came out of stained water and the green and brown colored craws came from around rocky banks or clear deep water “hint”.
Fall, fall, fall..... Think green, green, green….. I can’t count the numbers of crawdads I caught that were green-pumpkin, watermelon color, yellow/brown/green, and the occasional “wild” color like black/blue/purple/green…The yellow/brown/green craws came out of muddy water and the black/blue/purple/green came out of clear water “hint”. Sizes were varied but mostly medium to large.
The winter months were very hard to catch any of these guys but it was done during days a lot of sun was available and water temps were above 43 degrees. Days that the water temp dipped below 43, none were caught. Now this part gets very interesting. I caught black/blue, black, blue/yellow, and a few in the brown/light brown. The brown/light browns came out of dirty water around sandy banks and pea-gravel banks “hint”. The black/blue, black, blue/yellow came out of clear or slightly stained water around rock banks, and mud banks “hint”.
Here on Lake Allatoona, the water is drawn down over a period of time that exposes a lot of shoreline that was once submerged by water. This draw down of the lake has times where the fish eat like there is no tomorrow and some days that you have to hit your knees and pray for a bite. The main reason for the feeding frenzy is a shift in the bait. The bait (shad, gizzards, bluegills, bream, yellow perch, and crawdads) are being pushed out into the main lake areas because of the receding creeks and water levels. The “no bite” days are during frontal conditions, fish gorging on baitfish, and etc. In my opinion, the “no bite” day is the best day to catch a fish of a lifetime using a crawdad imitation. You guessed it, the old jig & pig!! The jig & pig and crawdad imitations are almost exact replicas of a real life crawdad to a bass.
I know this is a lot of information to be soaking in so let’s tie all of this in to how we can use a jig & pig, jig & plastic trailer, and soft plastic craw imitations to load the boat with bass. The jig & pig and crawdad imitations are almost exact replicas of a real life crawdad to a bass. Crawdads have a lot going for it that other fish baits don’t. It is slow, it is fast, and it is very defensive if it is provoked. A bass, even if it is full to its eyeballs will eat a crawdad just because the color is right, the movement is right, and it is easy pickings. I have caught some 5lb, 6lb, and even 8lb bass that spit up 20+ shad into my live well the ate a jig with a mouth that full of bait already. Why? Because the jig had the right color, the right movement (including fall rate), and it looked natural. “Easy pickings” is what I like to call it. Using the info I gathered during the different seasons and the color of the water, I can determine what color the crawdads will be in that area and adjust the size to what the bass want to bite.
Size surely matters to catching bass. So does color and movement of the bait. The more lifelike you can make your bait, your odds of catching a big fish improves. Bass in the lethargic state will hit a jig on a “reaction strike” just like a fish that is roaming around looking for food. The fish that are roaming is like money in the bank if you can put the jig in front of them. All they see is a crawdad trying to get away, defensive, or even unexpected (easy pickings). On the other hand, lethargic bass are a little more difficult to catch. These fish will be normally suspended over a structure or sometimes suspended over open water. You can catch these fish on a reaction strike by swimming a jig or hopping a jig through the water in front of their face. The key to this is your depth. Even if I’m fishing deep or shallow, I use Triple Fish fluorocarbon line because it is the most sensitive line and has very little stretch for my hook sets. I also use this line to control my fall rate of my bait. I’m convinced that the slower the bait falls, the more bites you will get (natural looking). Fluorocarbon line sinks but I compensate that with a jig trailer that will slow the bait down. Now, there are times that a bass only wants the bait when it’s falling fast to the bottom. You have to experiment with this until you start getting bites.
Dragging a jig is a powerful tool in your arsenal. Dragging a jig looks like a crawdad trying to get out of dodge. It has the right movement, it looks natural, and it will produce reaction strikes even with the most lethargic bass. This type of fishing is usually done with a football type jig with a craw trailer. Let the bait hit the bottom. Let it sit for a few seconds and then just start dragging it along the bottom, keeping in contact with the bottom, hitting rocks, wood, shell beds, and etc. The best place to fish this style is on rock ledges, shell beds, rocky bottoms, and mud banks. The key is to make the bait look as natural as possible and dragging most certainly does. Refer to the top portion for color selection.
Fishing a jig like a texas rig is also a great tool to imitate a crawdad. Crawdads trying to flee make hard hops backwards away from predators. It is a defense mechanism that a crawdad uses to get away from danger. The hopping action on a jig looks very much like a crawdad trying to flee. Sometimes the trailer may need to be adjusted to present a smaller profile or a bigger profile. That is where “matching the hatch” of the crawdads in the area you are fishing will benefit you the most. Also, color is another factor. Matching the hatch also is matching the color of the crawdads in the area.
The last bit of info I can give to you is to make sure you stay in contact with the bottom and your bait at all times. Bass at times will hit a jig very aggressively and then there are times they will just suck it in and sit there. A bass will only hold the bait for so long before he realizes that the jig he just ate is not a real crawdad. Staying in contact with your jig at all time is critical. Any indication that a fish has hit your bait (lure stops falling, line twitches, line moving off, feeling like a wet sponge is on the jig), set the hook and set it hard.
If you use this info on them hard to get a bite days, I think you can catch more fish. Just remember that the more natural you can make your bait look to a bass, the better chance you have to catch him. Don’t be surprised if you set the hook on the biggest bass of you life because the crawdad (crawdad imitation) is surely a big bass catcher. Thank you grandpa for teaching me the “crawdad connection” long ago. Good luck and go catch a big-one!!
Dedicated to my grandfather Mr. James Long.
A special thanks to T.Mike for his help and info on how to do this and I hope you guys and gals will enjoy it..........
The Crawdad Connection
By: Craig "CARDNUT" Baker
When I was a young boy, I learned very early that my grandfather was a fishing “guru”. He would take me down to the lake every chance he had just to share his love of fishing with me. He was a magician in catching bass and would jump up and down, shout, and turn bright red around his eyebrows every time he pulled a big bass out of the lake to show me. “Now listen to what I’m telling you son”, he would say in that moment of excitement. I knew a bass fishing lesson was underway as soon as those words came out of his mouth.
Now, being a grown man with my own children, a lot of those lessons I forgot a long time ago. There are still many I will never forget simply by the shear number of times I was taught the same lesson. But the best lesson he ever taught me was that “crawdads” catch a lot of bass and a lot of big ones. Now, I’ve heard several different names to this little lobster looking creature like “crayfish, mudbug, or yabbie”, but for me, crawdad is the name.
Crawdads are a bass magnet because it is one of the most important foods in a fish’s diet. It’s a bait that supplies the fish with a ton of nutritional value and they are fairly simple for a fish to catch. Those are two main factors that make a crawdad a dinner fit for a champion to a bass. In this article, I want to explore a little bit about the patterns and the color changes a crawdad goes through that hopefully will shed some light on why your catch rate goes up some days and goes down on others.
After extensive observation of crawdads I was catching in a trap on Lake Allatoona Georgia, I started to notice some very big changes that a crawdad goes through during certain times of the year. In the spring, summer, fall, and winter months, I noticed a lot of crawdads developing a color transition. By this I mean, the crawdads were turning different colors. Also, the biggest observation I started noticing was color changes to the types of water the crawdads were living in. I know that may sound crazy to some but I noticed a very distinct color change a crawdad would go through when clear water started to become stained or muddied.
In the spring months, crawdads started turning red, brown/red, and orange/red/brown. Some had yellow pinchers, some with orange pinchers, and some with brown pinchers, but the common link between all of them was the reddish tint to all of them. 80% of the crawdads that I caught with the reddish tint were caught out of shallow water. So sunlight and temperature of the water is a big issue in their color. Their sizes seemed to be very flexible as they were small, medium, and big in the bunch. Most of them were very aggressive during the spring and seemed to dart around in water more than I noticed them do in the colder months. I believe they are like this because it is their matting season.
The summer months were the easiest time for me to notice a distinct color pattern. The summer months produced good quantities of crawdads in the cage and most were a brown/yellow, green/brown, and yellow/light brown. Those that had the greenish tint to them looked exactly what green-pumpkin looks like on a lot of today’s soft plastic baits. The sizes of the crawdads were almost the same, about the size of a finesse jig “hint”. Some of the lighter colored craws came out of stained water and the green and brown colored craws came from around rocky banks or clear deep water “hint”.
Fall, fall, fall..... Think green, green, green….. I can’t count the numbers of crawdads I caught that were green-pumpkin, watermelon color, yellow/brown/green, and the occasional “wild” color like black/blue/purple/green…The yellow/brown/green craws came out of muddy water and the black/blue/purple/green came out of clear water “hint”. Sizes were varied but mostly medium to large.
The winter months were very hard to catch any of these guys but it was done during days a lot of sun was available and water temps were above 43 degrees. Days that the water temp dipped below 43, none were caught. Now this part gets very interesting. I caught black/blue, black, blue/yellow, and a few in the brown/light brown. The brown/light browns came out of dirty water around sandy banks and pea-gravel banks “hint”. The black/blue, black, blue/yellow came out of clear or slightly stained water around rock banks, and mud banks “hint”.
Here on Lake Allatoona, the water is drawn down over a period of time that exposes a lot of shoreline that was once submerged by water. This draw down of the lake has times where the fish eat like there is no tomorrow and some days that you have to hit your knees and pray for a bite. The main reason for the feeding frenzy is a shift in the bait. The bait (shad, gizzards, bluegills, bream, yellow perch, and crawdads) are being pushed out into the main lake areas because of the receding creeks and water levels. The “no bite” days are during frontal conditions, fish gorging on baitfish, and etc. In my opinion, the “no bite” day is the best day to catch a fish of a lifetime using a crawdad imitation. You guessed it, the old jig & pig!! The jig & pig and crawdad imitations are almost exact replicas of a real life crawdad to a bass.
I know this is a lot of information to be soaking in so let’s tie all of this in to how we can use a jig & pig, jig & plastic trailer, and soft plastic craw imitations to load the boat with bass. The jig & pig and crawdad imitations are almost exact replicas of a real life crawdad to a bass. Crawdads have a lot going for it that other fish baits don’t. It is slow, it is fast, and it is very defensive if it is provoked. A bass, even if it is full to its eyeballs will eat a crawdad just because the color is right, the movement is right, and it is easy pickings. I have caught some 5lb, 6lb, and even 8lb bass that spit up 20+ shad into my live well the ate a jig with a mouth that full of bait already. Why? Because the jig had the right color, the right movement (including fall rate), and it looked natural. “Easy pickings” is what I like to call it. Using the info I gathered during the different seasons and the color of the water, I can determine what color the crawdads will be in that area and adjust the size to what the bass want to bite.
Size surely matters to catching bass. So does color and movement of the bait. The more lifelike you can make your bait, your odds of catching a big fish improves. Bass in the lethargic state will hit a jig on a “reaction strike” just like a fish that is roaming around looking for food. The fish that are roaming is like money in the bank if you can put the jig in front of them. All they see is a crawdad trying to get away, defensive, or even unexpected (easy pickings). On the other hand, lethargic bass are a little more difficult to catch. These fish will be normally suspended over a structure or sometimes suspended over open water. You can catch these fish on a reaction strike by swimming a jig or hopping a jig through the water in front of their face. The key to this is your depth. Even if I’m fishing deep or shallow, I use Triple Fish fluorocarbon line because it is the most sensitive line and has very little stretch for my hook sets. I also use this line to control my fall rate of my bait. I’m convinced that the slower the bait falls, the more bites you will get (natural looking). Fluorocarbon line sinks but I compensate that with a jig trailer that will slow the bait down. Now, there are times that a bass only wants the bait when it’s falling fast to the bottom. You have to experiment with this until you start getting bites.
Dragging a jig is a powerful tool in your arsenal. Dragging a jig looks like a crawdad trying to get out of dodge. It has the right movement, it looks natural, and it will produce reaction strikes even with the most lethargic bass. This type of fishing is usually done with a football type jig with a craw trailer. Let the bait hit the bottom. Let it sit for a few seconds and then just start dragging it along the bottom, keeping in contact with the bottom, hitting rocks, wood, shell beds, and etc. The best place to fish this style is on rock ledges, shell beds, rocky bottoms, and mud banks. The key is to make the bait look as natural as possible and dragging most certainly does. Refer to the top portion for color selection.
Fishing a jig like a texas rig is also a great tool to imitate a crawdad. Crawdads trying to flee make hard hops backwards away from predators. It is a defense mechanism that a crawdad uses to get away from danger. The hopping action on a jig looks very much like a crawdad trying to flee. Sometimes the trailer may need to be adjusted to present a smaller profile or a bigger profile. That is where “matching the hatch” of the crawdads in the area you are fishing will benefit you the most. Also, color is another factor. Matching the hatch also is matching the color of the crawdads in the area.
The last bit of info I can give to you is to make sure you stay in contact with the bottom and your bait at all times. Bass at times will hit a jig very aggressively and then there are times they will just suck it in and sit there. A bass will only hold the bait for so long before he realizes that the jig he just ate is not a real crawdad. Staying in contact with your jig at all time is critical. Any indication that a fish has hit your bait (lure stops falling, line twitches, line moving off, feeling like a wet sponge is on the jig), set the hook and set it hard.
If you use this info on them hard to get a bite days, I think you can catch more fish. Just remember that the more natural you can make your bait look to a bass, the better chance you have to catch him. Don’t be surprised if you set the hook on the biggest bass of you life because the crawdad (crawdad imitation) is surely a big bass catcher. Thank you grandpa for teaching me the “crawdad connection” long ago. Good luck and go catch a big-one!!
Dedicated to my grandfather Mr. James Long.