Kentucky Afield Outdoors: The Jitterbug Caught Night Bass Prior To World War II And Still Does Today
July 7, 2010
FRANKFORT, Ky. – I bought my first Arbogast Jitterbug at the Western Auto in downtown Bardstown well before my 10th birthday. I had no idea about what made a good color choice, so I bought the one that looked the coolest to me at the time: a model with a silver/gray back and white belly. It was the first lure I ever bought with my own money.
I threw that thing on small lakes and ponds with nary a whiff from a bass. I loved its action and followed the directions on the Jitterbug’s packaging: reel the lure in a few feet, let it sit still, repeat.
A cousin is a Dominican sister, stationed at St. Catherine near Springfield for many years of my youth. This gave me access to fish their small lakes and I attacked with my new lure. No strikes from bass, as usual. Toward the end of the day, I grew frustrated and launched a huge rainbow cast, trying to throw it as far as I could.
A power line running about 1 o’clock over my head grabbed the Jitterbug and I watched in horror as it looped around the cables over and over again. I lost my first lure without it catching a fish. That Jitterbug may still be hanging from those wires.
A while later I learned the basics of fishing the Heddon River Runt and the old Knight Tube worms on the many distillery lakes around Bardstown. My brother, Dad and I enjoyed a summer evening fishing on one of those lakes. My brother threw his new black Jitterbug along weed lines just before dark. The commotion from largemouth bass plastering the Jitterbug made Dad and me envious. He caught some good bass that night and lost a big one in the weeds. It was tough to move a big bass from weeds with a Zebco 404 mounted on a whippy fiberglass rod, but my opinion about the Jitterbug changed forever.
The time of day was the difference between my brother’s success with this odd looking lure and my frustration with it. The Jitterbug isn’t a daytime lure; it is the best night bass topwater lure of all time, especially for small lakes and ponds.
Lure inventor Fred Arbogast tinkered in his basement shop with the business end of a spoon and a piece of broom handle back during the Great Depression. The spoon inspired the Jitterbug’s unusual concave lip that produced a highly effective gurgling sound and erratic wobble on the retrieve. No other lure looks or sounds like a Jitterbug since it hit the market in 1937.
Summer nights are the best time to fish Jitterbugs. Black is the only color to throw. It is Jitterbug time when the sun’s fallen so low that you struggle to tie a knot without the help of a flashlight. Tie that last daytime knot to a black Jitterbug.
This lure isn’t a weedless plastic frog you can sling thoughtlessly into the teeth of the vegetation ringing a farm pond or small lake in the darkness. The treble hooks on the Jitterbug impale themselves on any log, lilly pad or strand of coontail they contact.
Study the water before sunset and decide likely casting lanes. Paralleling a weedbed with the Jitterbug draws vicious strikes, but you can catch many huge bass fishing the middle of the pond. The popping, gurgling sound of the Jitterbug draws bass from far away to smash it.
Although the literature promotes a stop-and-go retrieve with the Jitterbug, a straight retrieve often works better. You want the Jitterbug to settle into an annoying rhythm as you work it. The steady irritating sound from the lure drives bass nuts. Hold on to your rod tightly as largemouth bass usually try and savage the lure. The strike is often violent.
The stop-and-go retrieve in which you reel the Jitterbug a few feet, let it rest till the ripples settle out and repeat, works best on nights when the fish aren’t aggressive. Try the steady retrieve first. Move to the stop-and-go if the steady retrieve fails. Resist the temptation to set the hook when you hear the strike or you may have a Jitterbug and its treble hooks flying at your head in the dark. Wait until you feel the weight of the fish before driving the hooks home.
The 3/8-ounce size Jitterbug is a good all-around choice for ponds and small lakes. Cast the lure on a 7-foot medium action spinning rod spooled with 10- to 12-pound test line. Spinning equipment is much easier to deal with at night than baitcasting equipment. Throw the 5/8-ounce Jitterbug if you prefer a baitcasting rod. The slightly longer jointed Jitterbug produces more action and works better on windy nights or in the secluded coves of reservoirs.
The Jitterbug also drives stream smallmouth crazy. Work the ¼-ounce black model at dusk above and below riffles with 45-degree casts. Retrieve the Jitterbug fast enough to keep the gurgle going. The stream current tricks you into thinking you are reeling quickly enough, but often the Jitterbug isn’t making any commotion at all, just bobbing downstream. Speed up if you don’t feel any wobbling through your rod on the retrieve.
Stream smallmouth attempt to kill the Jitterbug with a vicious strike or gently slurp the lure and pull it under the surface. Keep on your toes. Set the hook if you feel any weird resistance. Large stream smallmouth bass often strike the Jitterbug gently.
Tie on the venerable Jitterbug this summer and enjoy some of the most exciting fishing on the planet. It drove bass insane before World War II and still does today.
Crossbow good option for some hunters | Tulsa World
July 7, 2010
Read Kelly Bostian’s blog
THE COMING archery season will mark the first for Oklahoma in which a crossbow, previously legal only for handicapped or elderly hunters, will be a legal weapon for any hunter.
This spring, Oklahoma became the 14th state in the nation to roll crossbows into the column for legal means, and North Carolina is close to becoming No. 15.
Under the new Oklahoma law, crossbows can be used in any season when it is legal to use other forms of archery equipment. That means some hunters may be out there this summer looking to purchase a new crossbow for the season to come.
So what should we expect from this change? Daniel James Hendricks, CEO of the American Crossbow Federation and editor/publisher of Horizontal Bowhunter magazine, said it will have an impact, but probably a small one. He has dedicated the past 15 years of his life to the crossbow controversy.
“It’s just another kind of bow and arrow,” he said. “Regardless of what some people will call it, what they’ll tell you, it’s a short-range weapon that gives you one more way to help control the deer population and to get more people out into the woods.” Click Link Below for Full Story!
via Crossbow good option for some hunters | Tulsa World.
Trout, smallmouth thrive in streams to the north – Sports | The Columbia Daily Tribune
July 7, 2010
BY SPENCER E. TURNER Special to the Tribune
I grew up in northern Wisconsin fishing mostly lakes, yet one of my earliest memories is fishing with my parents on one of Wisconsin’s driftless streams southwest of La Crosse. Mom and I fished with cane poles and indigenous wigglers (worms). Dad used a fly rod.
The stream, as my memory recalls 65 years later, was populated with bluegills, bullheads and that occasional largemouth bass — not smallmouth bass or trout.
That’s all changed. Landowners learned better farming practices. Streams cooled and cleaned themselves of silt and soil eroded from nearby hills. Fisheries and wildlife agencies in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa learned the resource’s value, and conservation groups like Trout Unlimited help restore the streams.
The driftless area is located in southwest Wisconsin, northeast Iowa and southeast Minnesota. It’s an area that missed the last two glacial ice epics, 9 million and 12 million years past, leaving the topography intact with rolling hills, deeply dissected valleys and fertile soils. Each valley supports a productive stream with brook trout in the headwaters and smallmouth bass in the main stems.
The streams all flow to the Mississippi River and now support some of the best trout and smallmouth bass fishing in the nation. And they’re all within an easy drive of Columbia. Hook a turn north on Highway 63, and you’re just a few hundred miles away. Leave in the morning, and fishing could be in your plans by late afternoon. Click Link Below For Full Story!
Illinois’ New State-Record Bow Kill- Illinois Game & Fish
July 7, 2010
Chris Kiernan shares the story behind the biggest non-typical whitetail ever killed with a bow in Illinois. The “Big Non-Typical,” as Kiernan had been calling the buck for nearly a year before he shot it, net scored 268 1/8 Pope & Young points.(July 2010)
By Chris Kiernan
It was mid-November 2008 in Kendall County. I was headed into my stand for an afternoon hunt when I caught sight of a big buck chasing a doe out in the field in front of me. I grabbed my binoculars to get a better look. The doe stopped about 30 yards in front of me and the big buck was just 10 yards behind her. He had a great frame – wide with good mass and long points. I also noticed he had a lot of junk on both sides of his antlers. He was an absolute giant!
After getting a good look at a giant non-typical buck in early October, Chris Kiernan determined that he would stay on the outskirts of the area until deer activity increased in order to lessen the risk of bumping the buck. He stayed out of the heart of the area until Nov. 1, when he would end up killing the new Illinois state-record non-typical bow kill.
I ranged him and got ready for the shot. I drew the bow and concentrated on the big buck’s chest. As I settled the pin behind his front leg, I noticed an over-hanging branch. That branch was just too close to what I thought the arrow’s trajectory would be so I let the bow down. The doe bolted and the big buck resumed the chase. From that day on, he was known as the “Big Non-Typical.” This was my first encounter with him and after a few sightings in 2008 — but no shots — he vanished. I hunted through the last day of the season but wasn’t able to get an arrow in the Big Non-Typical. Click Link Below for Full Story!
via Illinois’ New State-Record Bow Kill.
Black bears regain foothold in Wisconsin after 100-year absence- Wisconsin State Journal
July 1, 2010
By RON SEELY | rseely@madison.com
BARABOO — In the deep summer green of a hardwood stand in Devil’s Lake State Park, Bill Ishmael puts on his reading glasses and stares closely at the bark of a slender tree. Up and down the trunk run parallel gouges and scars. In several places the bark is punctured by deep holes.
“We’ll put this one down as a hit,” said Ishmael, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources.
The pronouncement, coupled with the damage to the tree bark, immediately causes one to become more attentive. Suddenly, the forest feels different. It becomes wilder, deeper, stranger. More mysterious and maybe just a little scarier.
All because this woods may now be home to a black bear.
This spring has marked the beginning of a new era in how the DNR thinks of black bears in southern Wisconsin. With multiple bear sightings coming to the agency every day, including numerous reports of sows with cubs, DNR wildlife experts now believe southern Wisconsin is home to its own population of black bears for the first time since the late 1800s.
And this week saw the beginning of efforts to scientifically gather data on the fledgling population as Ishmael and Becky Roth, also a DNR wildlife biologist, conducted the first bear bait station surveys undertaken in southern Wisconsin.
“This year was just crazy compared to the last two years,” said Roth of bear sightings. Click Link Below for Full Story!
via Black bears regain foothold in Wisconsin after 100-year absence.
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