Chattahoochee Jig Smackdown: Kyle Welcher’s Raw Fishing Footage & StepbyStep Walk-Thru

Alright guys, so one of the things that you hear about in bass fishing the most is decision making. Decision making is one of the most important things and there's no doubt about that. Today we've got a couple decisions to make. Number one, do we take the Caymus CX20, do we take it out to a smaller local lake, or do we go right over there and take the bandit out, a luma crab bandit? See it hiding over there in the shadows? Do we take it or take the Caymus? I'm not sure. I'm undecided. I don't know. I've got some small little local places that bandit can squeeze in some places, the Caymus can't. But I really like fishing out of my big boat. I kind of like being dialed in with everything. So I'm trying to decide right now. Y'all leave a comment. Caymus or bandit? Which one of the two? Which I'm going to make a decision before I read the comments. But just trying to figure it out. I think I might go to the lake closest to me because some things are happening out there. I might be able to get on a jig bite. I like getting on a jig bite. The bluegill is shallow right now so I may be able to do that. But they may be spawning on a little river close to me and if they're spawning on that river that's a good time. Really good time. Caught almost 30 pounds there last year. Caught 28.5 with five in about three or four hours last year over there on that river. So maybe we should do that. I don't know. Let's check generation. See what the generation schedule is like. Let me see. This is going to be the telltale sign. If the generation schedule is exactly what I want it to be we may just have to bite the bullet and go in the bandit. Which ain't bad. They're not generating until four o'clock this evening which means it's going to be low and pretty. Let's go over there. Let's go do it. All right that sounds good to me. We're about to change everything. Put some stuff in the bandit. How about that? That's the boat that belongs back there. So if y'all have seen me fish out of this boat before. My aluminum craft bandit. Y'all know this is the first boat that I ever fished out of. This is my literal boat that I learned to fish out of. First one. So still got it. Will never get rid of that thing. Still love going out in this thing though. Like I fished a tournament out of it not long ago in one of our little small little local egg pot tournaments. Fished it out of that boat. I don't even feel like I'm at a disadvantage in that boat. Especially not if I'm not. If you're making a 30 mile run obviously that boat's a lot slower. Doesn't hold out the gas capacity. Can't really do it in that boat. But besides that I don't feel like a disadvantage fishing these small tournaments out of it. So I really like that boat. And today we're going to go to a place where I could put my big boat in. Just feel a little bit more safe and that boat can ride around a little bit more. So that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go hop in see if we catch a big one over there. This river has some really really big ones. So let's go. All right we're gonna check out the conditions here. We've got obviously very very low current. No current actually. But there's a tiny amount here all the time. Low water. Very low. You can see across over there. A lot of the banks out of the water. Right here you can see it. That's good. That's what we want. That's how I like fishing down here. Almost nobody else likes it when it's low. But I prefer it low. I don't catch them quite as good. But it's a lot more fun to be able to see them before you catch them. So that's what we got. We've got the hydrilla coming up. See a lot of grass around. Hydrilla up there. A lot of things working today. We'll see if we can catch them around some of them. Most important thing is this bad dude right here. Better put that in. And there's my weigh-in bag that I've been looking for everywhere I've been. Forgot that I fished that tournament out of this boat. Put my weigh-in bag in here. So if you've been fishing the smaller lookalike tournaments and let me borrow your bag, I appreciate it because mine's been in here. All right. Got a woman up there walking her dog in the car. She got his leash out the door and the dog running around. I don't know if I'm impressed because it's smart or if I'm disappointed. What we can do right here. So you see this is next level strategy. See I left just enough space over there to park the boat. So that's what we're gonna do. Move the rods over like clockwork. That's one thing about that four-stroke Mercury. Don't run it for a couple months. Cranks up in about three seconds. Should be plenty. First thing I'm gonna do is just kind of troll for a second and look. See if I see any on bed. See if I see bluegills. See if I see any cruising. Usually you can tell pretty quick kind of where the fish are located just by kind of trolling and looking. With the water being low you better see them if they're up there hanging around kind of on them first drops and stuff. So just gonna look for a minute and then I'll know if I need to fish deeper off the bank a little bit or if they're spawning. So hopefully we're not too late and there's some up there. It's crazy to me exactly where they can spawn because I mean dude they'll spawn so close to the current and almost in the current. A lot of times in the current and it's like how do the fry or the eggs just not get washed away but just any tiny tiny little current break. I mean a small rock small limb anything seem like it's just enough. Always surprises me though. Make a little move see what we can see up here. So we got a little bit more stained water than I would really like but hey the conditions are the conditions you just deal with. If I'm just gonna fish I like it to be about this color but I'm still holding on to the small chance there's some spawning but it is a small chance. Seems like an above average amount of grass this year but I don't usually fish over here much this late in the year actually. When I fish over here in the summer I always get here right about the time they start generating. I like it then and that should be a really good cast. So I found me one on bed right here. It's in that little hole right there. Like I said earlier I left my actual bed fishing rod that I keep rigged up for bed fishing. Left it at home by accident. So we're just kind of flipping an ace jig. This is actually a really good bait for bed fishing especially late in the year whenever the bluegill are up. You know this bass start guarding that that jig really sometimes will get them to react better than any other bait. But like I said I don't really use it a lot in tournaments just because I foul hook them a lot on it. So I'm about to just leave him because I can't see. The wind's blowing. I don't have power poles. You don't realize how much you need power poles till you fish when you do not have them and then you're like gosh them things are pretty dang important. Turns out which I never doubted that I use mine a ton. Even when you wouldn't think you know you would use them that much I still use them a bunch throughout the day. So I have to get used to them. Hard to not have them. I'll tell you that much. Let's go see if we can see one right here on this point. Oh there's a big one. I don't know what he was doing though. I think I see one right there. Yeah there's one on bed right there. Gosh look at that big giant one dude. I don't know what it's doing right here. So this fish is either guarding fry or on bed. And if it's on bed it's exceptionally catchable. If I can figure out where it's on bed at. It keeps going right there. Looks like it's close to four pounds probably. We got so much wind. Oh man look at her sitting right here. I think I found it. I'm gonna hit that thing. There's a good one. He got some messed up lips. Look at that old donk. He wouldn't have came off in 20 years. It's three pounder or bigger three and a quarter. So you can see right here I got kind of a bigger bulkier flapping trailer on there. It's actually a new trailer. Y'all see more of pretty soon. It's a new soft bait. Been catching them really really good on it though. Throwing on swim jig a lot. Been flipping it on a jig a decent amount. You know I'm just really trying to imitate bluegill. And I like that just aggressive fall when I'm really around bluegill and it's hot. So that's what we're doing. Just pitching up there to the little holes I think they might be spawning in. That's a nice one. That's some Sabine river practice right there you know. Just catching two to three pounders all day. If you do that on Sabine you'll make a lot of money. I feel like I had one bite at both of those casts right there. He got some air. Guess that was thanks to me. I gave him some air like that. When you want to fish a jig you want to make sure you hook them behind the lips. You see that's hooked. The hook's coming out right there in front of his eye. That's how you're going to land them. I think a lot of jigs get the same amount of bites. But I did put a thin cut skirt on this ace just so it did get it. I feel like it gets more bites like that. But that hook gap, that hook sticking up, that's what makes you land them. Having the right weed guard to get it in and out of cover. A really good hook gap so whenever you set the hook it starts to dig instantly. That's the thing about jig fishing. They all get a lot of bites. You want one that's going to put them in the boat. There we go. I think I got a little stretch of them right here. I took my bait. See I had him hooked good even though the jig was upside down. I hooked him down there in the bottom. That's a chunky one there. Nice one. He got caught not long ago by somebody. Said this river gets a lot of pressure. Not bad to be able to come out here and catch them. Flip an old jig though even after all the pressure. Got to cover y'all's eyes real quick while I get my bait out. Can't be showing this stuff just yet. Y'all see it very very soon. That's a really good crawl bait with a lot of action. Little green pumpkin blue in the back of a dunk. If that ain't a bluegill I don't know what it is. Up here around you know grass, wood, stuff like that. But I'm using a 7.6 and the main reason I'm using a 7.6 is these fish are in heavy cover and that's one really good reason. But it's also deeper than you would think. So I'm you know fishing the jig down in probably four to five feet of water and when I'm doing that I just want to make sure I've got a rod. Look a little one. I want to make sure I've got a rod that's going to take up the slack as fast as possible because what you don't want to have happen is be fish flipping a shorter rod and the fish gets you around the grass, around wood, around anything and you don't get the hook set all the way because whenever that lines around something it just takes some of that force away just because it's got resistance on stuff. So I want to make sure I've got a rod that's gonna giggle when I try to giggle you know that's what I'm looking for. Boy there's a wad right here. See that time it never made it to the bottom. I'll take all these on Sabine I'll go ahead and let you know. You can tell when you got the right bait because even though they get a lot of pressure when they think your bait's real they bite it. That'd be a good place for a big one right there. That's either a carp or the biggest bass I've ever caught in Alabama. If he bites. That was a carp because that is not what I saw unless that was the female up there hovering above. Little one. It's a chunky one there. That might actually be a little bitty tiny female. Not too tiny. I didn't mean to hurt his feelings. I also don't want to assume his gender but look like a female to me. It's pretty typical for them later in the year like we're at the tail end of the spawn for sure. It's pretty typical for them to be spawning deep you know almost deeper than you can see them a lot of times. I always kind of wonder how how much sunlight the eggs actually need and I'm sure there's good light penetration out there and even in like 10 feet of water we got a little bit of dinch you know but there's got to be a fair amount of light penetration a little bit deeper than you can see. I ain't no real smart man but I think I'll go down that stretch again. Just seen a very large one. Oh he missed it. Gosh freaking big and missed it. Oh my goodness. That was like a five pounder. Just missed it. I mean he obviously was not trying to get it because he missed it by two feet. Reacted to it. My goodness that was a pig. There was like 10 feet away there was one that size. I don't know if that was the same fish but I'd just seen one that was probably between five and six and that one came up and got it and it was probably five at least maybe maybe close to six. Came up. Hope y'all saw that because that was awesome. I'd throw it up in there and swim it out to the edge then drop it if that's how they want to play it. Even though this is a jig and it's a slower bait if you're pitching it and dragging it it still to me feels like most of the bites are reaction bites. That's why they get it before it goes to the bottom. They see it coming in. It comes in their lane where they're guarding you know whether it be they're on bed whether it be they're just set up in ambush points whatever the case may be. When it goes into their line of sight they get it on the way to the bottom a lot of times and I feel like that's a reaction strike. Just as soon as they see it they go get it you know. That's like a lot of these I've caught today I've been flipping it up there to the edge of the stuff and it'll be falling and I actually see my line jump or I'll let it go to the bottom and it'll just start easing off real slow and I feel like those ones that bite on the fall that's going to be a reaction bite most of the time and those ones that bite on the bottom they're gonna be either getting it out of their bed or kind of pinning it to the bottom coming up a little bit slower. So it's a lot of times why I feel like whenever you're pitching a jig whenever the bait's falling you get that real aggressive thump. When it's on bottom sometimes you do and sometimes you don't you know so I feel like it's really a reaction strike whenever it's falling. That's why the bite's so much more aggressive. That's why a lot of times they get it really really good like that. Same thing with like a swim jig you know that's obviously a reaction bite but they eat that bait really really deep a lot of times. Some places where they get a lot of pressure you still won't hook them great on a swim jig like we were just on a lake and you know I didn't hook them super great. There's a giant one dude. Is that a bass? Is that a bass? That may have been a carp right there. I never got a good look at him. It was kind of deep. This started off as a oh man I just got nailed. Started off as a very frustrating day trying to fish in the area that the wind was pounding and we made a little adjustment got out of the wind and even though it's a not as good of an area just a lot easier to fish it officially. That's got to be a carp. I hope it ain't though. Gotta be a carp right there. Yep but anyways this didn't turn into a fun day. We've caught I mean the last 30 minutes we've caught a lot of them you know. Only been out here probably an hour and I don't know 15 minutes maybe. First 30 minutes was terrible. Caught that one off bed visually and then uh got really tough. There's a really nice fry garter over there though. I've said that a few times now but probably close to a four pounder if not a little over four fry garter. It's a really really nice one. Really really nice one. There's one up there sitting. That one's on bed I believe. I put my bait in there pretty quietly but still he spooked off and not really big enough to justify sitting on. Also not a hundred percent sure he's on bed. So I just fished behind myself. Never had a bite. Caught like five or six at least coming down through there. There's one on bed right there. See but I haven't got up here close like this and actually looked see if I could see him. I just kind of flipped down through here. Let me get up here and see if I can see him tucked up in here. Locked down a little bit more. This one's not big but jig bites jig bite you know what I'm saying. He's not bad. I wonder if that's that one that I caught earlier. Three and a quarter. Can't remember exactly where he was. He was somewhere around here. I cut my legs. Gotta cover y'all's eyes again. Look at that. Ain't that a little bluegill. He got at that time headed out. He's a little bit deeper especially in this dingy water. He may be a little bigger than I think. Thought he was a two. Now I'm thinking he might be like a two and three quarter. Dang it. I hit him a little bit that time but my trailer was pulled down. So you can see he's just grabbing the legs of it because he took my legs off the first one. Just had some breaking news in the case of trying to catch his bass. Female just swam in there. I just can't see good enough. We got shade, clouds, wind. Can't hold the boat. If I was in a tournament I'd probably stay there till I caught that one. Well I'm just out here trying to have fun and that's aggravating to me. Man he just got aggressive on it and I pulled it away from him. I think I need it about right there. I'll let him turn around. Get right. I can see him just poking his little head out. Finally messed up a little bit. Got him. Long skinny one. It's a good one. Two and three quarter probably. He finally ate it good enough where I could get a little hook in him. There's a bigger one. It's been swimming around right here. I think I was parked on top of his bed but I didn't see him well until I saw him swimming around right there. So there he is right there. See where he goes. There's a nice one. It's three something there. Three and a half maybe. Chunky one. Love catching them on the jig. On the old jig. It's weird man when you see them. You see a few which I didn't know he just flipped down through here like I did the other stretch where I caught him. I kind of just got up here and looked for him. It was a pretty one. Super chunky one. Pulled him all the way out that grass. That's why you want that 7.6. You got more just feel like you got more control over them you know. I see one right over in there. Got to my legs. Got another little one. They like the old jig up there in them holes. That's for sure. So if y'all are curious on the entire setup we got a 8.3 to 1 gear ratio Concept C from 13 Fishing. We got a 7 foot 6 medium heavy rod from 13 Fishing. This is 22 pound Sunline Shooter. Just I mean that's plenty. Plenty of strength. It's got the same diameter as most brands 20 but a little bit more strength at 22. So that's why I use it. It's my number one flipping line. Y'all hear it all the time if y'all watch my videos. I use 22 a ton. This rod phenomenal. Real. Love the whole setup. It's my favorite rod to be fishing with especially in tournaments because y'all know I like flipping. I like frogging. That's what I want to be doing. See I just trolled down through here earlier looking. I wasn't flipping. Should have just been flipping them down through here because they biting the jig. This is a Untamed Tackle ace jig half ounce dunk color. Probably my all-time favorite color and the reason the reason it's called dunk is because my rookie season on the elites I was designing this jig and I went to Guntersville and I caught like a six and a half pounder on it on Guntersville and in the video I that fish said dunk and this was a color I've thrown so from there on out this was dunk and they still dunking it to this very day. I've got one more stretch I'd like to go hit but I don't think I'm gonna have time. I hadn't caught a big one today. It's pretty typical for them not generating you know unless you see one up there on bed that's a big one and you get it a bite pretty standard not really to catch a lot of big ones they're not generating but I have caught you know three or four in that three pound or bigger range and then quite a few twos. I did have a couple big ones one big one bite and there's a skittish big one right back behind us we better go check on one more time before we go see if we can catch her because she's a nice one. I mean it feels like there's nobody else in the entire world when you're fishing a place like this. No boats, no ripples, no people, no waves, fish bite like they do like they supposed to do. Oh about fell in so that male's acting a little bit like that female's close. He had it good that time. Looked like he had it good that time. Little pretty one. He has a big female with him but she only appeared twice. I've seen her twice. I'd like to see her again. I'd like to hold her. Cannot believe we have not caught a spot. I did have one bite my jig while I was reeling it you know it was like it was a 13 incher. He's fat though but he just got the legs and I didn't I didn't give him time to get it. Spotted bass have a small mouth. When I see them eat it a lot of times I tend to pull it away from them and I can't help it. I just do. It's not like I don't know better. If they catch me off guard I just whack miss them. Eating a jig so good I'll throw something else how about that. Seems like it's jig flipping time to me you know every single year seems like I catch them on a jig pre-spawn really really well. Then there's a little bit of a lull on it for some reason while they're spawning you know it's just kind of my fault probably that I don't throw it that much but it seems towards the tail end of the spawn and around the bluegill and they start getting up there shallow a lot and that starts to be the predominant forage. Started catching one again I pick it up every year in June I seem to pick it back up and catch them really good on it so we're a little bit ahead of June right now we're you know five days away from June it's close enough in my book if they're eating it I don't care what time of year it is I'm gonna throw that sucker. Such a fun bait to fish too hard to beat a jig bite. Well how about that not done yet we're gonna look a couple more places where I've caught some really big ones one of the biggest ones I've ever caught off bed here I caught right over here off the tip of this point so I'm gonna go over here and look right now but uh been pretty fun you know I don't live close to a lake that the elites will probably ever go to Lake Eufaula we went to but I'm not super close to that I've always lived you know an hour and 15 minutes from there but it's pretty cool to live close to places like this I grew up fishing this river system didn't fish this exact stretch of river whenever I was very young but fished below it fished above it stuff like that but been fishing here now since I was I mean probably 12 years 13 years something like that maybe longer but really cool to live close to a place like this I mean check this out just beautiful almost looks like it's just untouched river you know no houses no development it's gonna change a little bit in the next couple years but just super blessed to live close to something like this it's awesome got the boat back back at home you know I'm the only person that fishes over there on that river very often at all that would leave when they start generating literally the last 10 minutes I was fishing the water came up about a foot and we was about 45 minutes away from some really really good fishing but I went over there with the intention of catching them a certain way and I caught them like that caught them really good caught them all on the untamed tackle ace jig almost all of them and had a good time caught some off bed everything but left right at the peak fishing time in most people's opinion but hey that's not how I wanted to catch them so out there fun fishing trying to have a good time I wanted to catch them where I could see them and that's what we did so appreciate you guys watching we out