First Topwater Bass, Bowfin Quest 2025
Friday morning May 2, 2025. Aquatic plant growth is barely started. We had some serious winter and ice cover. The Clinton River spillway was much lower than it's been in a long time and the Musky may not go to the the shallow spots I've found some recently. Only saw one bass strike at minnows on top. It was no fun having to fishing sub surface Musky flies in a difficult wind and chop.
Near by extra shallow marsh and creek delta was just sprouting a few lily pads. Cattail walls offered some protection from the wind but couldn't get a hit for hours. Up a very shallow, narrow channel, I switched to a painfully slow finesse presentation with a silent rubber leg foam diver, little 2 inch strips an a second's wait for the diver to pop back up. Got the first subtle take, Bluegill? Seconds later I tightened up on the first bass, Next subtle bite was a bigger one.
Later found the bass were eating behind some sheltered cat tail walls and finished with 5 for about 8 hooked.
At half dark, I saw the big black round head break the surface eating the Rubber Leg Diver. Got the last bass at 90% dark.
5 times I tried 3 louder flashier poppers before and after the fish had turned on, not a sniff. Fishing this place in the cold water of late fall, I found the bass would only shyly eat subtle presentations of the loud flashy poppers I was using. These Stealth Divers are based on my first surface predator pattern the "Marabou Diver". For a decade, It was my go to for Bass, Pike, Saltwater and also sometimes took Crappies and Bowfin.
Twice in the past 2 weeks, I went to a spawning concentration where Bowfin were all around me in about 1 foot of water. A 1/0 Black and Chartreuse version of the original Marabou Diver pattern is on the lower left took the only Bowfin I got to hit there.
I updated that Pattern by adding an Ice Dub clump between the slender Marabou tie down and the big foam head. This smooths out the silhouette, adds more flash and spreads out the Flashabou folded around the tail. Now, I can added a couple more Flashabou strands. Rubber legs are a new thing and the brown one second from the bottom left was the version I used today. The 4 legs were simply tied in X style in the head tie down wraps.
- Stealth Diver Recipe
- Hook: Various Short Shank hook Size 6 to 2/0. VMC 7356BN for #1 to 2/0
- Thread: 210 Nylon Fire Orange
- Tail: Long Full Soft Marabou
- Waist. Ice Dub Clump, center tied: Brown Olive, Black Peacock, Pearl etc
- Flash: Flashabou 4 or 5 long strands folded to each side of ice dub and tail
- Foam Plates: 2mm or 3mm rectangular strips cut to width = hook gap.
- It takes about 25 tight thread wraps to to secure them over a multi layered thread base. I beveled the ends but flipped them over this time thinking a more curved head would turn the nose down more on the twitches or strips.
- Rubber Legs: Optional. the easiest way is to center tie 2 long pieces in head wraps to make 4 legs in and X shape, more or less.