mop jiggin' variations

[jiggerjohn]

Hookup, Yep the ole reliable water bubble has been my main staple for years, and has been especially effective with the mop jig ! As you mention the weightless (waterless) bubble can be real good for trout and panfish -tho both seem able and eager to pull the float under. It is still my SECOND fav float, as the sleeker,smoother wooden plug-end seems much more efficient at nodding its rear up on those tougher, sip-n-hold days ! I had one day, in particular, early last year when crappies were shy and would alert me every so often by gently bouncing my water bubble (and proved I was too late for the set). I switched to "woodie" and saw it nod up during almost every slow retreive thereafter (and hooked most of em !)

 

[hookup]

JJ - nice, I'll give it a try. Use to be pretty good at shaping balsa.

 

[jiggerjohn]

Hookup -Happy New Year ! And got to thinkin, with your practiced abilities with shaping balsa (and probably the slightly heavier cedar wood as well), I'm thinking that you could carve up a very uniquely specialized shape for a "Woodie float" !!

 

[jiggerjohn]

Frank, You are, as always, spot-on concerning the unnatural aspects on lures dropping in to onlooking (often uplooking) fish! This is especially true of predators or simply "pacifists" seeing something squirmy ,slowly approaching, then just hanging there, suspended! Over the past few seasons, especially Spring and early summer, I've caught more good fish under my floats then I did with bottom bounced jigs -and usually the BEST fish ! Last year, in a very hard fished,crowded Pittsburgh park lake, I got tired of stocked trout, and decided to hunt for crappies -tho to be honest these were always on the small size. But particularly when I started fishing the mop jig below a float, I was amazed (so was everyone else!) to set into some very big slabs quite often, crappies that should have been native to Lake Erie and our large reservoirs! For 2022, assuming I can walk shorelines again (the knee and quad reattachment is coming along quite well, already!), I know exactly where these big crappies come to in May, and have just the woodie and mop for them to play with !

 

[jiggerjohn]

New layer of snow outside, and plenty of time to dabble with lure combinations (thanks to being hobbled with recent knee surgery!) and got to thinking of a MOP method that I'd played with last Autumn, but have yet to fully exploit. My experimentation with tying a single bright mop piece (or two) underneath a small SPINNERBAIT yielded action,vibration, and quiver that has tremendous potential ! I've tied at the neck of the smallest "Little JeweL" (see my post below on jewels in the shallows) and found a moplet just fits to the end of the hook shank, to give a small, easily biteable morsel, just right sized for bass, crappie, and trout. Yes, the small skirts on overhead spin lures do pull in lots of fish, but can't help but think that a mop body on its own would provide a superior, more easily accessible target !

 

[Hawnjigs]

You think there's any fish left in that "hard fished, crowded" lake section after "everyone else" observed your success ?

 

[jiggerjohn]

Hawnjigs, Fortunately, the hard fished local lake sees many "sit-n-wait" bait fishermen looking only for the stocked trout! They actually complain when they hook a crappie or a bass ! So in tossing my mop jigs, I can catch and release as many as 100 crappies per day with bare notice. However, I do hike into wooded areas where most old timers won't go (hope I can limp in there this season!!). Even at that I unbutton the lunker crappies, among the plentiful small ones, very quickly and discreetly! One time I brought home ONE big crappie to prove to my son (he's a cook, so I wanted one of his famous fish sandwiches!) that crappies of that size were there ;he scolded me for taking that one, and reminded me that these big breeders should not be touched!! But the big gals do seem especially fond of a chartreuse mop, so we'll continue to play.while letting them swim away!