Hotspotoutdoors

Ok here is the story. I fish the missisippi heavily above the paper mill dam in brainerd. Every year we know what to use for northerns (spinnerbaits) but this year they arent hitting them at all. But what i am noticing is that when we crappie fish with either white grubs or white tubes. we get a good bite going on crappies and then they stop all of a sudden and then we start getting huge northerns hitting our little plastics. We got lucky bringing in a seven pounder by hooking him in the cheek but everythng else is getting bit off or just plain coming off. WHY are they keying up on our little plastics and not our larger lures and what can I doto start getting these northerns to hit on something and have a chance landing it? one thought was to go to a lrger 4 inch bass tube or three inch grub or a kalin mongambo grub and swimming that through. ANy other suggestions?

Switch to using a higher lb test fluorocarbon leader to prevent biteoffs.

I used triple fish brand 100% fluorocarbon line and use back to back uni knots to tie on some leader material, using in 25lb last year, 20lb this year. I've never had a bite off. Lighter test might work very well also.

I've actually been fishing northerns with soft plastics almost exclusively this year (until they went deep and I started using cranks). Northerns really love soft plastics even more at times than 'traditional' pike-y lures, and I believe they give a better impression of an actual food item than triggering a reaction or anger strike with flash, wobble, and pulsations.

The fact is that soft plastics give the impression of 'food' to visual predators, and pike will gobble them up if they are hungry.

wont the higher pound line or flurocarbon mess with the action of the 1 and half inch atomic tube?

mainbutter is giving good advice. the same question came up on earlier post regarding walley. there is no "reason" why the pike hit your small plastics other than it was there in my opinion. my largest pike[23pounds] was caught while fishing for crappies. wierd how that works. smaller test florocarbon like mainbutter said is tougher than your conventional line. more expensive too. all you can do is try it. if it affects your action live with bite offs. good luck.

I'd switch to either 15 or 20 lb fluoro and try that. I wouldn't necessarily upsize tube size either. Sometimes they just want something smaller.

i went out and bought some 15lb flurocarbon to make some leaders. hopefully it wont mess up the action of the crappie tube

I run into the same problem up north. I catch Northerns on everyting. Like reinhard1 said. They were there and so was bait. I have found small northerns will bite on anything. While big northern do not mind gulping down an easy meal. If i increase my retrieve the bigger ones keep away, it does not make sense for them to waist energy on a small meal.

some posts bring back memories. talking about slow retrieves. i dont know how many out there that remember strip-ons. they kind of had their own bite proof design. we used suckers and when available smelt to troll with them and they were trolled just fast enough to keep the spinner going. i still have 4 of them still in their original package, and one ready to go. i'm going to rig one up with some of the new plastics minnows. old with the new. good luck.