Fishing the pads on Iamonia

Olebiker · Post by **Olebiker** » July 16th, 2007, 8:05 am

After seeing pictures of the good fish being taken on Iamonia, I decided to give it a shot this weekend. I bought a spool of 40# test Power Pro and loaded it onto an old Ambassadeur 5000. This was my first experience with braided line, and I am pretty impressed. It cast beautifully and was easy to handle.

The water is getting awfully low and launching is getting tough, but there were several boats out there Saturday morning.

I tried fishing a buzzbait along the edges of the pads early, but got no takers. There were a lot of fish hitting in the open water, but they were random and I never could focus in on them. Anyone have any thoughts on how to target these fish?

Anyway, I started casting a white Zoom Horny Toad into the pads and caught several bass between 1 and 2 pounds. Those were the stoutest, healthiest looking bass I have seen in a long time.

This was my first experience with the toad and I was very surprised at the good strike/hook up ratio. I was expecting to miss a lot of strikes.

I did catch one jack fish (pickerel) about 18 inches long. That was pretty exciting.

I had been told that there is a good speck (crappie) population in the lake, so I trolled a red/white crappie tube and caught a few pretty quickly. I have never seen specks with that sort of gold coloration. I assume that this is due to the high tannin levels in the water? Does it affect the taste any?

I am excited about learning more about how to target the fish on Iamonia.

MrGreenJeans · Post by **MrGreenJeans** » July 16th, 2007, 10:57 am

With the water continually dropping, it is getting too hard to put my boat in there. I have been doing rain dances in my front yard every night to counter this but it does not really seem to be helping.

bballchrism · Post by **bballchrism** » July 16th, 2007, 11:05 am

sounds like a pretty good day, yah i am doing rain dances to

Olebiker · Post by **Olebiker** » July 16th, 2007, 11:19 am

MrGreenJeans wrote:With the water continually dropping, it is getting too hard to put my boat in there. I have been doing rain dances in my front yard every night to counter this but it does not really seem to be helping.

I'm going to wear my Teva sandals the next time I go so I can wade out to unload and load my little jon boat.

I meant to ask about this in my previous post. I kept having a problem with the toad getting hung up in the notch of the pads. Does anyone have a technique for avoiding this?

MrGreenJeans · Post by **MrGreenJeans** » July 16th, 2007, 12:36 pm

Olebiker wrote:
MrGreenJeans wrote:With the water continually dropping, it is getting too hard to put my boat in there. I have been doing rain dances in my front yard every night to counter this but it does not really seem to be helping.
I'm going to wear my Teva sandals the next time I go so I can wade out to unload and load my little jon boat.

I meant to ask about this in my previous post. I kept having a problem with the toad getting hung up in the notch of the pads. Does anyone have a technique for avoiding this?

Keep your rod tip up to try to minimize this (it is inevitable). When it does happen drop your rod tip and point it directly at the pad and pull toward you and it should pop out. It also helps to use the Zoom Horny toad hook with this bait to keep the frog from sliding down the hook when this does happen.

bballchrism · Post by **bballchrism** » July 16th, 2007, 1:02 pm

MrGreenJeans wrote:
Olebiker wrote:
MrGreenJeans wrote:With the water continually dropping, it is getting too hard to put my boat in there. I have been doing rain dances in my front yard every night to counter this but it does not really seem to be helping.
I'm going to wear my Teva sandals the next time I go so I can wade out to unload and load my little jon boat.

I meant to ask about this in my previous post. I kept having a problem with the toad getting hung up in the notch of the pads. Does anyone have a technique for avoiding this?

Keep your rod tip up to try to minimize this (it is inevitable). When it does happen drop your rod tip and point it directly at the pad and pull toward you and it should pop out. It also helps to use the Zoom Horny toad hook with this bait to keep the frog from sliding down the hook when this does happen.

thanks mrgreenjeans i wa wondering the same thing

grim reeler · Post by **grim reeler** » July 16th, 2007, 1:06 pm

Those hooks make a huge difference.

It looks like an oversized worm hook with a corkscrew attached to the eye. You screw the toad on first, then run the hook thru it.

Olebiker · Post by **Olebiker** » July 16th, 2007, 1:09 pm

MrGreenJeans wrote: Keep your rod tip up to try to minimize this (it is inevitable). When it does happen drop your rod tip and point it directly at the pad and pull toward you and it should pop out. It also helps to use the Zoom Horny toad hook with this bait to keep the frog from sliding down the hook when this does happen.

I used those hooks and was quite pleased at how well they worked. I caight five fish on that same bait until the pickerel ate the ends of the legs off it.

Post by **Redbelly** » July 16th, 2007, 9:03 pm

Those specs are good eating if you filet the skin away. Fried or baked with your favorite seasoning. Last summer I caught many big specs. We had one break an ultralight rod. Use ultralight 4# test, and work the pads with a jig as if bass fishing, a good summer pattern.

Reminds me to go this week.

Olebiker · Post by **Olebiker** » July 17th, 2007, 7:39 am

Redbelly wrote:Those specs are good eating if you filet the skin away. Fried or baked with your favorite seasoning. Last summer I caught many big specs. We had one break an ultralight rod. Use ultralight 4# test, and work the pads with a jig as if bass fishing, a good summer pattern.

Reminds me to go this week.

I caught the specs slow trolling in the deeper water. I marked a lot of fish in the deeper water on my depth finder. I may go out Saturday morning and bass fish for a while then dredge up a mess of specs for dinner. I think I still remember how to filet 'em.