Welcome! to the ima Emailer ~ December 2008 Issue The IMA EMAILER brings you news from ima pros Fred Roumbanis, Michael Murphy, Bill Smith and ima pro staffers across the USA and worldwide. ima’s Year in Review and Going Forward Welcome to our year-end review where ima pros Michael Murphy and Captain Karl Bunch reflect upon where ima is now, and where ima’s headed product-wise. In terms of products, ima has designed, tested and released five bass lures in the USA within approximately the past 18 months. Although ima’s a company from Japan, these bass lures are made for North American bass anglers, and are not sold in Japan: Roumba wakebait Flit 120 jerkbait Shaker flat-sided shallow-running crankbait Skimmer topwater Rock ‘N Vibe lipless crank For 2009, four new ima bass lures are under development: Rattlin’ Roumba for spring time release Big Stik topwater for summer release Baby Flit 100 for autumn release Shaker shallow crankbait (release date not yet decided) With less than two years in the North American bass market, ima’s still in its infancy. It will take a little longer for ima to grow, that’s only normal, to get to the size that ima will eventually be. But there’s no doubt that ima’s off to a good start, and they’re here to stay. So check them out. They’re great baits. True, you may spend a little bit extra on ima, but you’re going to get what you pay for from ima. A good lure is the most vital piece of equipment that stands in between you and the fish you desire. You can buy any ima baits, and you’ll be able to rely on them with confidence. That’s ima’s commitment to you for now, and for the new year. Thank you. ima Roumba Where we are now – ima Roumba Wakebait / Shallow Crankbait Michael Murphy:  Places where the Roumba’s most advantageous are where you see a lot of shallow grass and overall, the Roumba’s really good when fish are shallow. There have been times I’ve caught fish with the Roumba by waking it in over 50 feet of water, but I think where the Roumba really shines is anytime when you’re anywhere shallow, and especially during the spawning season. That’s not to say the Roumba won’t work in the summer or fall – it does. But around the spawn when the fish are wanting to be in the shallows for a month or two, that’s when the Roumba really plays a role. The Roumba’s a good search tool when there are a lot of average size fish, say your 2-3 pounders. They may not always take the bait solidly but they will come up behind the Roumba and show themselves. So it’s a search tool, and it will tell you where a few of those 2-3 pound fish are, and they’ll go right back to a piece of cover, a log, or a stick-up. Some fish may have a bed that the Roumba pulled them away from… and they’ll go back into those spots. So you can pick up something else, a Texas-rigged worm or a Senko, and catch those relatively smaller fish that wouldn’t commit to the Roumba. That’s not to say you will not catch these 2-3 pounders on the Roumba. Yes, you will get a fair percentage of them – but not all of them will strike. What you’ll find different when it comes to bigger bass, is that you will pretty much stick the huge fish that come up on the Roumba. Usually, if you get around a big fish, it will commit. So the Roumba, if you throw it enough, it will definitely increase your chances to get those bigger fish, and in a tournament situation, the Roumba will get those good kicker fish you need these days. The Roumba has been proven to get that better grade of fish in shallow cover. Captain Karl Bunch:  The Roumba is designed primarily to be a topwater wakebait. Simply hold the rod tip at about ten or eleven o’clock and just a steady retrieve on a medium/heavy rod will give it a nice, wide wobbling wake. There’s no rattle, just a wake – and that’s what gets their attention. The neat thing about the Roumba, if you are searching a shoreline, trying to find fish, you can effectively and easily cover a shoreline by first making three casts with the rod tip up to use the Roumba as a surface-roiling wakebait. Then make the next three casts with the rod tip down, so it runs about a foot deep with a real wide wobble. Depending on the fishing line used and retrieve speed, with the rod tip held down, the Roumba gets anywhere from 12-18 inches deep, typically about a foot. The effectiveness of this is that there are times when bass just don’t want to come up and hit a topwater. There are times they’re down tight on the wood, in the shallow wood, and using the Roumba as a shallow crankbait, it will come through wood cover very well. It will also come through light or scattered vegetation very well. The beauty is you don’t have to constantly switch between one rod for topwater and another rod for shallow-cranking. You can just use one rod, and the Roumba saves you a lot of time, saves a lot of energy and let’s you effectively and quickly cover a shoreline using it as a search bait. When I am guiding clients, I’ve had many days when the weather conditions may have changed overnight, when we must hunt to find the fish, and I’ll just instruct my clients to to do the same thing – make three casts using the Roumba as a topwater wakebait and three casts with the rod tip down, using it as a shallow running crankbait. Used this way, the Roumba has found the fish for me and my clients quickly and effectively many, many times, resulting in successful, productive trips. ima Rattlin’ Roumba Where we’re headed -ima Rattlin’ Roumba. Spring 2009 Release. Captain Karl Bunch shows a bold new color named ‘Double Cheeseburger’ for stained or muddy water. Captain Karl Bunch:  The Rattlin’ Roumba will be available in the spring time, and it’s going to expand the Roumba’s effectiveness. A guy who fishes water that’s really stained or muddy and feels he needs the rattling noise to go along with the wake, the Rattlin’ Roumba will allow him to do that, and it’s going to come in a few new, brighter colors to give dirty water anglers even more confidence. So the Rattlin’ Roumba will have some brighter colors for dirty water, in conjunction with the rattling noise.   Michael Murphy:  The addition of the Rattlin’ Roumba is really going to help in those painful tournament situations when you may have fish located shallow, maybe even sight-fishing on beds, but then the water dingies up overnight, whether it be from rain, wind or whatever causes a dirtier water situation overnight. So you still know the fish are there, you just can’t see them or you need to alert them a little bit more to the lure’s presence. The regular Roumba may not be enough in dingy water. That’s where the Rattlin’ Roumba can definitely help you. The wake is still there, with the rattling noise to help them locate it better in dingier water. So you’ll have two options. The Rattlin’ Roumba will be good in dirty water, but that same rattling noise may be too much for clear water where you may do better with the original non-rattling model. ima Skimmer Where we are now – ima Skimmer Topwater Michael Murphy:  In comparison to the Roumba (which is ideal for heavy cover, shallow backwater areas), I consider the Skimmer as more of an open water baitfish type of topwater bait. I’m not saying the Skimmer won’t work in a backwater spot (and vice versa), but the Roumba is more apropos for a shallow, spawning situation or vegetation. The Skimmer and Roumba also move different, and the actions are different. The Roumba is more like a bluegill or frog type lure for shallow cover situation whereas the Skimmer is more of a shad or pelagic baitfish lure for open water. So I tend to use the Skimmer more on main lake points, over deeper water, around rocky, sandy or clay shorelines without much vegetation or cover. With the Roumba, you would probe and pry and dissect shallow cover whereas the Skimmer is more for open water, schooling bass, and suspended bass situations.   Captain Karl Bunch:  The Skimmer one of the easiest small pencil type stickbaits you’ll ever throw. It doesn’t require a lot of technique, and it’s surprisingly effective on brackish water striped bass that share tidal water with largemouth and smallmouth as well. In fact, the Skimmer is gaining a strong following among ocean surfcasters ue to the Skimmer’s solid construction and because of the long distance casts that can be achieved (for its size). ima Big Stik Where we’re headed – ima Big Stik. Summer 2009 Release. The Big Stik is a through-wired hard plastic bait, and right now there are only limited prototypes available of the Big Stik. It’s going to be big on the West Coast for California’s trophy largemouth, and also in Texas and Mexico. It will be very effective for striped bass, either in freshwater or salt. Since it’s through-wired, a continuous length of heavy wire runs from the nose to tail, including the belly hanger. So it will be able to stand up to all your inshore saltwater battlers, big striped bass, bluefish, peacock bass, pike and musky too. ima Rock ‘N Vibe Where we are now – ima Rock ‘N Vibe Lipless Sinking Vibration Bait Captain Karl Bunch:  As a fishing guide, the Rock ‘N Vibe has become one of my best friends. This lipless crankbait works like a charm. It has good action at any retrieve speed. So anglers can’t fish it wrong. Anyone can use it very slow, medium speed or fast, and the Rock ‘N Vibe doesn’t lose its action. So when I have a guide trip, and fish are hitting the Rock ‘N Vibe, I know my clients are going to have a good day no matter how they use it! One of the things that is also amazing to me is that the Rock N Vibe can be fish it as a deep water, vertical jig or ‘blade bait’. This can be very effective around bridge pilings and stuff. Some of these places can be snaggy and filled with all kinds of man-made cover where you may get hung up a lot. So I’ll just throw some of my older, beat up and less expensive blade baits until I get to know the terrain and the cover in the area, and then I’ll throw the Rock ‘N Vibe in there tight around the bridge pilings and stuff, and it’s very effective. Michael Murphy:  The Rock ‘N Vibe lipless crankbait shines best when water is around 45-55 degrees. That ten degree spectrum is going to be in spring and fall, and it’s when you have a lot of baitfish movement. That’s the water temperature range when fish may be transitioning off a jerkbait bite (in spring) and when they are coming off a jerkbait bite, that’s a pretty good time to show them the Rock ‘N Vibe. This is the time when fish are going to get active in newly-growing grass, also starting to move up onto warming flats, and the Rock ‘N Vibe takes center stage at that time. Off deeper ledges or channel breaks in the summer, the Rock ‘N Vibe may also be used like a hard plastic jigging spoon – one that rattles – in the summer. But where it’s really going to shine is in spring and fall, when it’s just a little too warm for a good jerkbait bite, that’s Rock ‘N Vibe time. ima Flit 120 and Baby Flit 100 Where we are now – ima Flit 120 Jerkbait Where we’re headed – ima Baby Flit. Autumn 2009 Release. The Baby Flit will be 100mm long. Ima pro Michael Murphy is designer of the Flit jerkbait. Michael Murphy:  The Flit 120 is a bait that you can fish almost year round. Of course, when you get way up north, smallmouth country, there is not going to be any bad time to throw a Flit. If smallmouth are around, they will always eat a Flit. When you get into more southern areas, the Flit’s most effective in cooler spring, winter and fall months. But even in the summer, when the water’s warm, I’ve had some killer days when the wind comes up.   In summer, a lot of main lake fish usually stay either very deep or very shallow, and since the Flit 120′s working depth is about 6-8 feet deep, it’s not good for very shallow or very deep fish. It is going to hang up in shallow grass and scum – or it isn’t going to reach them when they sulk on the bottom in deeper water on windless summer days. But you can have some killer days with main lake fish on windy days. All the fish will all start schooling off wind-blown points and on top of any other underwater rises. These fish will tend to suspend up high in the water column. They’ll suspend no more than 10-12 foot deep off points, humps and any other bottom uprisings that are facing into the wind, with wind-generated current moving past. When the wind dies down, these fish will move back up too shallow or descend too deep for the Flit 120 to be effective. But while the wind blows, the fishing can be phenomenal with the Flit 120 for suspended fish on wind blown structure in summer. My most consistent and productive time of year, however, for the Flit 120 seems like its when the water is always at its cleanest and clearest in the early spring, before the spring rains come. At times when there are no algae blooms, not so much rain, that’s when the jerkbait bite can be best. Switching the conversation to the new Baby Flit 100 which will be released in 2009, I’ve found that when it is super cold water, fish don’t want a bigger profile jerkbait at that time. So the Baby Flit can be more effective in super cold water. And in those shallow, backwater areas, where the regular Flit 120 goes a little too deep and hangs up, I’ve found that the Baby Flit will stay just above the grass line, even a very grassy lake like Guntersville, Alabama.  The Baby Flit doesn’t go near as deep. Whereas the Flit 120 goes 6 to 8 feet deep, the Baby Flit goes 4 to 6. So it can stay right above that depth of grass; you won’t be hanging up as much, and it is a friendlier, smaller size of jerkbait that’s more acceptable at times when fish won’t commit to a bigger bait. The Baby Flit has one less hook, but they’re the same size hooks as on the Flit 120. Also, there isn’t a major weight difference, castability difference or any difference in the tackle you would use with either the Flit 120 or the Baby Flit. You can throw both of them on the exact same rod, same line and same set-up. You won’t have any problems to switch from the bigger Flit to the smaller one. As small as the Baby Flit is, it casts like a bullet. and since it has the same size and strength hooks as the Flit 120, you don’t need to treat it any differently, except it fishes a shallower depth and has a smaller baitfish profile. The only downside is, it seems so long to wait until autumn 2009 to get your hands on it! ima Shaker and Shad Where we are now – ima Shaker Flat-sided Crankbait in Captain Karl’s favorite color, Plemmons. Where we’re headed – a prototype of the ima Shad. Release Date Not Yet Decided You can consider the ima Shad to be pudgy but not fat. The top and bottom is rounded but it does have somewhat flattened sides. So it isn’t completely round. The biggest difference is the Shad’s going to be more of (but not entirely) a rounded body crankbait whereas the Shaker is a flat-sided crankbait. The Shad’s not going to run any deeper. Both are shallow-runners, although the Shad’s a slightly smaller bait than the Shaker. Captain Karl Bunch:  I use the Shaker a lot. Earlier I had talked using the Roumba as a shallow-running crankbait which gets about a foot deep. Some days you will find that’s not deep enough to get bites. So when there’s a need to go deeper, the Shaker is the bait I tie on. The Shaker runs 4-6 feet deep, depending on retrieve speed and line diameter (I like to use 10 lb test with it). It has lots of wobble, and surprisingly, it comes through the edges of grass lines a little bit better than many other cranks. The Shaker has such a wide wobble that it helps keep itself clean of grass and sheds debris. It also comes through wood pretty good, and it floats. So if you feel it hitting a limb, you can stop it, and it will float up so you can snake it over the limb and it won’t hang up. In terms of water clarity, I have fished the Shaker from clear to stained to muddy water, no problem. As the water gets muddier, I just throw on a brighter color. One of my favorite ‘go to’ colors is Plemmons. The Plemmons color seems to work in just about any water clarity.   Michael Murphy:  Earlier, I talked of using the Flit jerkbait in colder water, and I mentioned my preference for using the Rock ‘N Vibe when the water ranges between 45 to 55 degrees. That’s also close to the water temperature range when I prefer throwing the flat-sided ima Shaker. More precisely, the 50-60 degree range, both in spring and fall when the water’s in the fifties, is when I do best with the flat-sided Shaker. I typically use it when shad or any type of baitfish abound. Both the Shaker and the prototype ima Shad have computer-board lips. This is a lightweight, ultra thin lip material that creates a lot livelier action than other baits with a thicker, heavy plastic bill on them. In river systems, where there’s a lot of water current, the Shaker and Shad work especially well, since the light, thin lips let them produce superior lure action. Whenever there’s any water current, they mimic baitfish swimming in the current. Even little streams and creeks that you can’t get a boat into, where you wade, the shallow-running Shaker and ima Shad do well because the moving water just activates them. In these moving water situations, you don’t have to do a whole lot to do well with these two baits. The difference I’d say when it comes to the ima Shad prototype versus the Shaker, the Shad’s more of a rounder version, and that makes it even more of a summer type bait. So when the water is even warmer, say when the water temperature’s 55 to 65 or even up to 75, that rounder shape and the little different action makes the prototype ima Shad even more of a summer bait – especially in rivers or any water current situations. Well, there you have it! Those are our year-end reviews of the five ima hard baits available to you today, and previews of the four ima baits under development for 2009. Please Email Your Stories, Photos, Comments, Questions and Opinions to Us Please email us at info@imalures.com. Thank you. Thank You! For Reading the ima Emailer ima’s a big name in Japan where ima is known for its hardbaits.ima is now making a big name for itself in North American too, with the help of U.S. bass pros who have designed new ima hardbaits for the USA. In the past 14 months, we have produced 10 issues of the ima emailer, and you can access them here: November 2008: ima Pro Fred Roumbanis Makes Amistad Easy October 2008: ima Pro Michael Murphy Connects the Dots for Fall Fishing July 2008: Good News for ’09! ima Intros New Lures at ICAST for 2009 June 2008: ima Intros New Surface Skimmer and Vibrating Rock N Vibe May 2008: Designer Bill Smith Debuts Long-Awaited ima Shaker Crankbait March 2008: An Interview with Michael Murphy on Spring Fishing with the Flit February 2008: Fred Roumbanis to Unveil ima Boat and ima Baits in Bassmaster Classic January 2008: Introducing ima Pro Staffer Bill Smith November 2007: Introducing ima Pro Staffer Michael Murphy October 2007: Introducing ima Pro Staffer Fred Roumbanis Sign up! For the ima Emailer at: http://www.imalures.com/contest.php We’ll send you stories and tips. Thank you. Please visit our web site. See our products at: http://www.imalures.com

Welcome! to the ima Emailer ~ November 2008 Issue The IMA EMAILER brings you news from ima pros Fred Roumbanis, Michael Murphy, Bill Smith and ima pro staffers across the USA and worldwide. ima Pro Fred Roumbanis Makes Amistad Easy What does ima pro-staffer Fred Roumbanis do when he gets time off from his busy tournament schedule? You guessed it, Fred goes fishing! In this issue, Fred tells us all about one of the country’s hottest new trophy bass destinations – Lake Amistad which straddles the border between Texas and Mexico. Amistad has become one of the hottest big bass destinations for US anglers in recent years. Recently, Fred and Optimum Baits CEO Matt Paino headed down there to enjoy a Texas-style trophy bass fun fishing trip. They stayed at Byron Velvick’s Amistad Lake Resort. Matt Paino says, “We would like to include our appreciation and gratitude to Byron Velvick. We stayed at his Amistad Lake Resort. The accommodations were great and Byron made sure that we, like all his guests, had an enjoyable time at his resort. One day, Fred ran into engine troubles and Byron let us use his boat and really bailed us out.” Destination Amistad Since the Bassmaster Elite Tour first started stopping there only a couple of years ago, Amistad instantly became a hot destination for many anglers from across the country, and for those who have not been there yet or who are thinking to go there soon, I’d like to make this not only an ima story but also a destination piece, says Fred Roumbanis. I’ll talk primarily about ima baits but also include the other baits that I would typically use on Amistad, meaning swimbaits. So, I will give some information about those lures, but also the story’s meant to help you do well if you go to Amistad – and this kind of story’s called a ‘destination piece’. So here goes! Fred’s History on Amistad My history with Amistad is, the first time I went there in November 2005 was right after a Bassmaster championship, I swung by on my drive home and fished Amistad for about four hours and caught about fifty bass. Nothing over three pounds, but just tons of fish, and I was blown away with how awesome the lake was. So I was really excited to think I’d be coming back the next season in the spring when the big fish would be up and the Bassmaster Tour would officially stop there for the first time. What I’d heard was Amistad is an awesome springtime lake, big fish move up then in the clear water so you can see them, almost like in an aquarium. I was psyched! I had that whole winter to plan for how I would approach Amistad. I had been thinking about trying my California-style swimbait tactics on Amistad, and I thought maybe I would have that whole technique to myself there, which I pretty much did. Swimbaits were well-known of course in California (where I grew up), but still at that time, swimbaits were not widely used on the pro tours. Well, I finished second to Ish Monroe at that first Bassmaster Elite on Amistad in 2006, but in so doing, I actually brought swimbait fishing into the Bassmaster Elite series for the very first time. So that was a big deal for Amistad because not only did Bassmaster TV coverage of that event help Amistad become a hot new destination for big bass almost overnight, but it also become a destination for people to use big baits. That first tournament on Amistad in March 2006 was pretty amazing. I thought I did everything in the off-season to be ready for those big fish, and Bassmaster had definitely scheduled the best time for us to be in there. I was confident going in that I would break 100 pounds at Amistad, and I did with 101.13 for 4 days. I was catching 20 fish a day on a swimbait, all over 4 pounds, and culling 4′s to get 25 pound bags. The tournament came down to whether I’d get the one or two bites to make me a really big bag of fish. I caught so many quality fish the final day that my camera guy ran out of tape with about a 1/2 hour to go before weigh-in, and on my very last cast I hooked a nine-pounder. I actually touched and almost grabbed it before it bolted under the boat and got stuck in a tree and ended up losing the tournament for me. It’s funny but ‘losing’ the tournament meant I came in second place. Despite that, I definitely was prepared for that kind of fishing on Amistad. I grew up fishing the California Delta and Clear Lake. Those are two big bass factories where I had really cut my teeth in tournament fishing. So big fish have always been something that I have been prepared for, and I really prepared myself for what Amistad had potential for. I just got that one bad break and dropped that nine-pounder that cost me the win. I had to live with that throughout the season. I had some nightmares you know, awful nightmares. I could have easily kept that nine-pounder engaged and brought it up, but I decided to feed it some line off the spool by hand. I had thought I was in open water, and I did not realize my boat was sitting right on top of a tree. As you may be able to tell, that one mistake still haunts me. Early Morning Roumba One of my main things whenever I go to Amistad, I go there with the intention of fishing for big fish. So I want to throw big baits. Like with the ima baits, let’s take my Roumba topwater for instance. I didn’t just want to throw the solo Roumba. I wanted to big up the presence of that bait by adding a tail section of a swimbait to the back of it, attached by a HitchHiker screw wire coil clipped on the back split ring. This gets clipped to the split ring above the rear treble hook. What that does with the swimbait tail attached, it displaces more water on the surface, it kicks and gives the Roumba a bigger profile and presence. So we rigged the Roumbas like that on Amistad. In the mornings, they really ate the Roumba well. I mean we had a solid Roumba topwater bite to start each day. Most mornings, you can have until about 9 o’clock for this. So basically, you have about 2 to 2-1/2 hours of good topwater fishing in the mornings on Amistad. Look closely to see the swimbait tail that’s been attached by a wire clip to the end ring of this Roumba. The clip and swimbait tail swing independently above the tail treble hook. Midmorning Flit Some time around 9 o’clock each day, the fish tended to stop roaming and would begin to tuck up into the cover, especially if the sun poked out. So then we went with the ima Flit. It’s a three treble hook jerkbait, almost five inches long. So it’s a good-sized jerkbait, what they call a ’120′, and that’s just a little bigger than most other jerkbaits on the market. Once they headed into the cover, which was bushes, shrubs and several kinds of scrub trees, you could still pull them out of there with the Flit. You could jerk it around the bushes, and make them come out and attack it. We were not really pinpointing a certain type of bush or tree. It didn’t matter. However, I did seem to notice some of the bigger fish came off salt cedar trees. It seemed there were more bugs or insects in the salt cedars when they flooded, and probably because of that, more bluegills and baitfish were around them. Even more spider webs were obvious in the salt cedars, and those trees with more bugs had more baitfish and bigger bass in them. Life attracts life! When the fish tucked up into the cover after the morning topwater activity, the reason why we started to throw the Flit at them in the cover, is because of the way you can jerk the Flit around the bushes, it commands attention. It really shimmies when you work it. Then you let it suspend there for a second, and that truly antagonizes them. So the Flit moves real quick and erratically, and then it just sits there. And they come out and grab it. You can stop it right where you think is best, right in front of the bush where you think a bass is holed up. It’s not like something that’s swimming by, that’s only passing through. It stops and stays right in front of their bush. So it’s kind of like sitting there in their space, and they’re going to attack it for that reason. It triggers that reaction bite. These fish, they may not come out for something that’s moving past. If something just keeps going and passes by the bush, they’re not going to bother it. But as soon as the Flit stops and hangs around, that’s what makes them react on it. Matt Paino savors the moment with a nice midmorning Flit fish. Matt says, “My one most important comment may be, when preparing to come to Lake Amistad, plan on upscaling all your baits. If you are used to throwing a 4″ jerkbait (100mm or so), go bigger and tie on the 5″ (120mm) ima Flit, for example. The lake has a good mixture of bait, ranging in all sizes. There is big and small bait for bass to choose from. However, you’ll have better chances to catch the bigger fish at Amistad if you throw the little bit larger baits.” Early Afternoon Swimbait Bite In the afternoon, you may want to get out the swimbait. The swimbait we threw during this trip was a new one that Optimum came out with – the Baby Line Thru. It’s a five-inch swimbait and its got a really wide head to it. That big head gives it a little bigger presence in the water. It just makes it look like a big, easy baitfish to a bass. So the BLT was our swimbait of choice. You can check out the new Baby Line Thru at www.optimumbaits.com. Of course, you could catch swimbait fish early too, but after lunch was really when we’d use them. The bass at this time of day were deep in the thick grass. You’d want to cast the swimbait out and let it sink for a little bit, and get a slow roll down deeper usually on the inside grass lines. Where the grass is, an ideal depth for this is around 15-16 feet, so you want to slow roll that swimbait down through that, near the grass, near the tree tops, swimming in and out of the cover. The cool thing is, as the water level rose daily on us during this trip, the grass was almost like kelp. What I mean is, at low tide in the California Pacific ocean, kelp looks like a mat all balled up and lays over on the surface. Well, as the water rose on Amistad, the grass stood straight up. So you can actually work your swimbait through it a lot easier. It wasn’t really matted up or too dense, not too tight together. There was a lot of room in the grass for the swimbait to move through it pretty freely. So that’s where and when we were throwing the Optimum Baby Line Thru swimbaits in the afternoons. When you are throwing the swimbait, you will be able to get by with the lighter colored patterns (such as the BLT Sexy Shad) in the clear water, and then go to the darker swimbaits and your chartreuse ones (like the BLT Table Rock Shad) in the stained water to catch your fish. The nice thing about the Baby Line Thru when you hook a fish with it, the bait will slide up the line and not interfere with fighting a fish. Since the BLT slides up the line, a fish is not biting down on it for the entire fight, so that helps you catch a few more fish than usual on one bait. Yes! Baby Line Thru comes through in a big way for Matt! The Wind and the Rock N’ Vibe Also in the afternoons, or any time we were along a flooded treeline or a windy bank, we went with the ima Rock N’ Vibe lipless bait. Now that’s not a very big bait, but we went with that because a lot of the baitfish that we saw on Amistad this time were surprisingly tiny. So the Rock N’ Vibe’s a little loud, noisy bait that matched the hatch. Actually, we did really well with the Rock N’ Vibe. Any creek we found that had just a little bit of stain or streaks of mudlines or wind blowing against brush lines or treelines where you could stay off a ways with the Rock N’ Vibe and cast into it – we caught numerous fish that way. In many of these creeks, the water was high from recent flooding, so there’d be an outside treeline, and you’re not really near the flooded bank in these cases. So we were just staying ‘outside’. The trees were out in the flooded water, and you can see that in some of the photos. Fishing the treelines was outstanding with the lipless Rock ‘N’ Vibe. The backs of any creeks are places an angler can look for year-round action on Amistad. They’ll always be some shallow fish in the backs of the creeks. So you can go there anytime. With the Rock N’ Vibe in the wind, depending on the depth we were fishing, just cast out, and as soon as it hits the water start reeling. Give it a few jerks, kind of rip it back and forth. That bait, you can reel it slow and you can reel it fast, and it still is going to come in true without any trouble every time. So you can work it erratically. What I particularly like when its windy (which it was this trip), is if there’s any kind of a mudline formed from the wind pushing against a bank, any bank. Mudlines are awesome for throwing lipless crankbaits and it’s something I’ve always been successful at doing – fishing mudlines with a lipless bait. Fish can get under a mudline, and even though it looks like its muddy, actually under the water, under a mudline, it is really clear under there. So basically, the mud is only a film over the surface, which is like perfect cover to a fish. Best of all, its a kind of overhead cover that you can fish right through it with treble hook lures! It’s pretty amazing that most of the mud is floating around on the surface. Yet underneath it is real clear. Some great fish were landed on this trip courtesy of the ima Rock N’ Vibe. Late Afternoon Happy Hour And then in the late afternoons and evening hours, that was when everything just got awesome. The fish would come up, start schooling and start busting on bait. The nice thing about when they are busting like that, it seems you can catch them on just about anything you want at those moments – and indeed we did! We had all the rods ready on deck with the different ima baits. You can throw the Flit, the Skimmer, the Shaker, Rock N’ Vibe or Roumba, and pretty much catch fish on all those when they’re schooling and breaking on bait on the surface. It’s a good technique to rotate through the different ima lures at such times. After you catch one or two fish on one bait, switch up and throw another bait so you don’t give them too much of the same one. If you rotate lures, you can catch a couple more fish faster that way. The ima Skimmer proved perfect for late afternoon and evening topwater schooling action. Rod, Reel and Line Recommendations We had most models of ima baits and BLT swimbaits rigged on separate rods for the duration of our trip. As discussed throughout, we found times of day when and locations where one or another bait seemed better-suited to the situation. For a lake like Amistad with some pretty tough cover and equally tough fish, we fished everything on 15 pound test baitcasting tackle pretty much straight across the board. The Roumba and the Skimmer topwaters, we fished them on P-Line CXX. That’s a copolymer line and it floats. You want those baits to be on a line that can help keep them on the surface, yet won’t take away from the action. On the Flit suspending jerkbait, we liked it better on sinking fluorocarbon line. The Rock n Vibe really didn’t matter much. We fished it both on P-Line CXX and on fluorocarbon. Come on Down! When Matt and I were here, the lake was flooded, so fish were scattered into the newly-flooded water, but this is not as unusual as it sounds for lakes like Amistad. This far south and on other similar lakes in Mexico, they tend to have seasonal water level fluctuations, depending on the year. During this trip, we had some consistently strong winds. But even with all that, we had a pretty good trip. The water color on Amistad is usually pretty clear, and as the lake fluctuates up and down, there is always going to be some of the same kind of cover as we described in this article, brush, trees, grass, creeks and so on, either being flooded or exposed. Amistad is filled with grass, cover and brush, so the fishing areas just expand or contract as the water goes up or down, and the fish tend to adjust to that fairly well. If you ever get a chance to go there when the lake is low, spend as much time as possible looking over the entire place – and learning it. I think I have a pretty good memory and can remember certain things, obviously not everything, but then when the water comes up, I remember things like there’s a great ledge that should be coming up here, and then you can find it on the graph, and usually something like that, where the old shoreline used to be, you can throw out and catch a good fish on it right away. As the water level rises, you have to really think in your mind and get a handle on where was that old shoreline. Cause that old shoreline is what those bigger fish become accustomed to, and a lot of those bigger fish like to stay on it. They can be very territorial, and they like to kind of stay on some of those older shorelines, even when a good amount of new water has risen over them. Now you know, many of the bigger fish are going to live deep there, that’s just their nature. So keep that in mind at Amistad. If you go to Amistad, of course there won’t be the same conditions we faced, but you should hopefully still be able to try some of the ima lures and tactics described in this trip report. Everything we’ve described is a typical day starting with a couple of hours of topwater, and then the fish stop roaming or chasing, pull into the cover, and once the sun peaks overhead after noon, you can go deeper down off the grasslines, and then find the schools up top toward the end of the day. A guy can go down there most any day of the year, spring, summer, fall, and being it’s so far south, the climate stays warm, so there isn’t that much of a winter. You can pretty much follow the plan I’ve given you here and catch fish all year round. The awesome ima baits and swimbaits we discussed, those were our best choices, and I’d say they’re my perennial choices for this lake. I’m pretty sure I’ll be packing more of the same great baits the next time I journey there. If you go to Amistad, I hope you can pretty much follow this story and try some of the lures, tactics and types of spots we fished, as they should have a chance to work most anytime there. Like Matt and I, you may catch a lot of fish and some good ones. We hope you have a great time. Where We Stayed “We stayed at Byron Velvick’s Amistad Lake Resort. It just so happens Rick Clunn (center) was there teaching a class in bass fishing. So it was good to spend a little off season time hanging with a guy like that,” says Fred. Thank You! For Reading the ima Emailer ima’s a big name in Japan where ima is known for its hardbaits.ima is now making a big name for itself in North American too, with the help of U.S. bass pros who have designed new ima hardbaits for the USA. Sign up! For the ima Emailer at: http://www.imalures.com/contest.php We’ll send you stories and tips. Thank you. Please visit our web site. See our products at: http://www.imalures.com

Welcome! to the ima EMAILER ~ October 2008 Issue The IMA EMAILER brings you news from ima pros Michael Murphy, Fred Roumbanis, Bill Smith and ima pro staffers across the USA and worldwide. ima Pro Michael Murphy Connects the Dots for Fall Fishing As children, we probably all have played with connect-the-dots books. Each page starts as a puzzle, and by connecting the dots, a pattern appears. Fall fishing can be the same way, puzzling at first, but by connecting the different parts, successful patterns emerge. The Drawdown Connection The first factor I’d like to discuss for the fall time of year is drawdown on drawdown lakes. Most common occurrences from my knowledge of drawdown lakes are from Missouri east to North Carolina, south to South Carolina, back across to Texas and about everything in between. In other words, the Midwest and Southeast, (with the exception of Florida). However, I presume a lake could be drawn down most anywhere there’s a way to do that and a reason. What causes the drawdowns, if you are not familiar with it, these lakes tend to be the result of damming so they’re actually reservoirs or man-made waters, not original natural lakes. The annual late season drawdowns on them are man-made too – and usually scheduled to take place after the summer recreational water use season is over – but while it is still decent weather for people who live around the lake to perform dock/ramp/retaining wall repair and so on. Also to lower the water level to prepare for spring rains to keep areas from flooding. In natural lakes, drawdowns are less common unless there is a dam of some sort that was put on a natural lake after the fact so that the water level can be controlled in much in the same way. Why I’ve mentioned this is that drawdown lakes especially as you get toward Kentucky and farther south, you have a big crayfish move that coincides with when the drawdowns start. The Crayfish Connection In drawdown lakes or most any typical lake, crayfish generally live in water that’s 10-12 feet deep or less. On most lakes, they’re going to be in that opportune depth range. In clearer lakes, they may exist deeper as well, down to 20-30 feet. In anticipation of winter coming, crayfish start to move into areas where they can burrow, and usually that starts around the drawdown. When I say crayfish move, it’s not up or down. It’s sideways. They’re moving from a harder bottom to a softer bottom. Typically, they’re not changing depths, although survival instinct may tell them to go a little bit deeper if the water level falls too quickly. The kind of move they make can be from sand to clay, sand to silt, from rock to clay – from a hard bottom, including sand in the category of a hard bottom to a softer bottom where they can build a winter home that will last till spring without collapsing in on them. In the south, it can be water temperatures around 70 degrees when crayfish start to move. The farther south you go, the more it’s going to be like around 70, maybe even 75 when the crayfish start to migrate from summer feeding to winter burrowing locations. Once you get so far south, it just doesn’t happen. The farther south you go, the less likely the crayfish are to burrow and go dormant, just like the largemouth. The more likely they are to stay out year round. For example in Florida, Lake Okeechobee, there are crayfish that probably don’t burrow at all just because it stays warm most of the year. As you get way south, that whole low metabolism/hibernation phase of winter gets skipped. In the north, water temperatures around 65 to 60 trigger the crayfish movement. At the extreme north range, those crayfish being totally different species, probably don’t burrow at all because they’re more of a year-round rock-dwelling species. A lot of it is they’re just selective to the different environments. There’s just not a lot of clay for them to burrow on rocky lakes up north. The farther north you go, the less softer bottoms there are, and the more rock there is in general. So there are more rock-dwelling species of crayfish that stay out year-round. They don’t have a lot of clay to burrow in like the other clay-dwelling species. Where we see the most variety of clay-dwelling crayfish is in the middle belt where you have an overlapping ranges of different clay-burrowing species – Missouri, northern Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, SC, NC, that whole belt right through there we see a lot more diversity of crayfish species. The clay-dwellers are usually like a reddish or a black/red shad color or a brown/orange pumpkin because they are clay-dwelling and burrowing species, but up north, those color crayfish are less likely to be common. Green pumpkin or dark browns are more common crayfish color up north. Up north the gold shiners and alewives are present. Down south, gizzard shad. That’s how the forage changes just going north and south. It’s more than just temperature that triggers the crayfish move, but a combination of the tilt of the earth toward the sun and the length of day, as the days get shorter. The most obvious indicator or gauge we have of the days’ shortening is water temperature because as the day gets shorter, there is less UV and less sun hitting the lake heating the water, so it doesn’t stay heated up as long as in summer. It doesn’t have that retained higher temperature. So the dropping of water temperature is a reflection of the shortening of the day. Factor that with a lake that may have draw down, these are all indicators to crayfish that the time of winter is coming closer and that’s when they’ll be triggered to move. Again, it could be closer to 60 degrees up north when the crayfish start to trigger to move, around 65 degrees through the middle of the country, and say 70 at the southern end. Across the entire country, we’re mostly talking of a falling water temperature from 70 to 60, give or take a few degrees, that triggers the crayfish move. The Lake Location Connection A lot of your lakes that have drawdown, they do not have a whole lot of aquatic vegetation rimming the shoreline just because of the fluctuating water level. Any grass that gets seeded each summer, gets dried up during the ensuing drawdown. What happens is the harder bottom areas, especially in drawdown lakes, weedy stuff that was able to provide habitat during the summer, the aquatic plants that got rooted to rocks or to hard bottom becomes the preferred crayfish habitat for a few months – until late fall (coinciding with drawdown) which gets the crayfish population migrating into nearby burrowing areas of softer bottom. So our main locus for finding fishing hotspots is to focus on bottom substrate composition in lieu of vegetation on drawdown lakes. The thing about drawdown too, what makes it so good is as the shoreline recedes, you can more clearly see the substrate which would normally be underwater or hidden by shoreline vegetation. What we are looking for are the transition zones from hard to soft substrate and especially the areas where hard and soft substrate mix or overlap. The transition zones in a lot of cases are along the sides of points. Points are typically extensions of shallowing portions of channel swings or some sort of shoreline edge connection to the main lake. There’s often some sort of transitional substrate zone going down the sides of points – those are usually areas that have the rock to clay transition. The harder, outer tips of the points gradually transition down the sides, and give way to the softer, sediment-filled back pockets. Some points do, some points don’t. The typical rule of thumb is that the slope of the bank above the water is typically the slope of the bank below the water. So if you see a flatter bank transitioning to a steeper bank, those areas are always good to look at. Those sharp slopes could signal underwater channel bends or swings, but a lot of guys miss them since much of the transition zone is underwater and can’t be seen except on electronics. Where you want to be is in the transition zone, that ten to fifteen yards into each stretch of hard and soft and including the mixture in between. That’s going to be where a lot of fish are setting up in that area. The fish can detect the craws there, and those bottom transition areas are what the fish are going to be interested in. If you are good at reading your graph, you’ll see a double echo or a thinner bottom line (a harder ping) over the hard bottom, and a thicker bottom line (or softer ping) on softer bottoms. If at all possible, you can use any clues from what appears on the shoreline as a visual guide to get you into the transition zone, along with your electronics. The most obvious places with sharp slope changes are of course, emergent points. This time of year I like the shorter points, the ones that are not as long and tapered. The steeper-looking points can be best and in some cases, even rounded points. Those are usually the areas that the fish are going to winter up on. They’ll get onto the long, gradually-tapered points, but it seems more in the spring and summer months. Right now, during the drawdown and crayfish move, focus on finding the substrate transition zones down the sides of the points, and focus more on your shorter points. This time of year, the bass are naturally attracted to such areas because that’s where the crayfish move is happening. The ima Skimmer Topwater Connection You’ll know you are in the right areas around this time of year, you may find bass with their noses scuffed up from rooting in the rocks for craws. Also when fish are feeding heavily on crayfish, you can feel their stomachs and the hard edges of the crushed-up crayfish can feel like gravel in their stomachs. Those are good areas where you want to be. A lot of guys are going to try to match the hatch with crayfish jigs or soft craw baits and so on. Matching the hatch is great to do especially in a tournament or on a day when the fishing is slow or the fishing is tough, then matching the hatch is good to do. When things slow down on tougher days, you may need to fish slow-moving bottom contact baits. But this time of year, most days you don’t have to do that because fish are typically concentrated, the competition is high, and they are very, very aggressive. So despite the prevalence of crayfish which serves to aggregate bass in these areas, the real thing you’ve got to remember is a lot of fishing is just: covering water, keeping the bait in the strike zones to which fish will commit (surface, mid-depth and/or bottom) and throwing baits that don’t necessarily match any hatch but are nevertheless effective both in their action and have the right sound for a given area. And that’s where the ima Skimmer (surface strike zone) and the ima Flit jerkbait (mid-depth strike zone) I think are very, very successful. Keep in mind too that there are many baitfish running down the sides of points into the small run-off areas and sedimented, sun-warmed pockets that often exist at the shallow ends. Use a run and gun technique. Look for those specific areas and look for the sides of the points where deep water butts up right next to it. Tune in to those transitions and just go after it. You could hit eight or nine of these areas with nothing and in the next one, load the boat. You can cover water much more quickly this time of year by using things like the ima Skimmer topwater stickbait especially when that surface water is still warmer than 65 degrees. If it’s a little windier, the ima Roumba grabs more of the surface and throws a more visible wake on windier days. But most days, the Skimmer’s what I use this time of year when the water remains warm enough for bass to commit to a surface strike. A lot of people put the Skimmer in the category of other walking baits. I think the Skimmer is much different. It’s kind of in its own category. It looks like other walking baits, but it doesn’t push water, it cuts through the water. To see the design of this bait, the body cross-section is a teardrop shape. And in fact the water will flow over its back and will create a swirl right behind it every time you jerk it, which a lot of baits won’t do that. Other walking baits will push water and splash but the Skimmer is one that actually creates a swirl behind it. If you look at the Skimmer on videos or when you are first working it, you’ll mistakenly think that fish are swirling at it – and that’s what it does, it creates the idea, the impression that there’s a fish trying to eat it. So a fish is more likely to become competitive when it thinks another fish is there (but really is not there). So it will see the surface swirl – and try to get the Skimmer before another fish gets it. That’s the beauty of this bait – that boil, that swirl behind the Skimmer. If you’d like to see the Skimmer in action, there are ten short video clips that show the Skimmer’s action at ima Skimmer Also, people have got to remember that the preferred temperature range of the largemouth bass metabolism is roughly 72 degrees. With a 72 degree surface temperature, 20 feet down might be 60 degrees. So fish are obviously going to be active on the surface and chase for bait when the surface layer of water isn’t far from 72 degrees. And that’s when topwaters like the ima Skimmer are really effective – when the surface water temperature is anywhere above 65 degrees or so. The Baitfish Connection The late fall season is Mother Nature’s way of giving one last opportunity for bass to get a lot of fat in them, necessary to produce their eggs over winter. The high protein of the crayfish is only one part of the banquet. The other part is the high protein of the prevalent baitfish that are migrating down the sides of these very same points making their way to the backs. The deal is a concentration of everything on the sides of these short points or transition zones from deep hard bottom to shallow soft bottom. You’re having areas that are just packed full of options for the bass. There are baitfish moving, crayfish moving. It’s just a cornucopia of plenty for bass before going into winter hibernation. Just before their metabolism decreases, they are putting on weight for next year’s spawn. They’re having one last good feed right now before winter and then they’ve got one good feed as things warm up in the spring to recharge strength before the spawn. When we get closer to 60 degrees in most areas, except way north where it’s probably more like the 60 to 55 range, once you get close to that temperature, that’s an indicator in my book that the crayfish for the most part, a lot of the crayfish are done burrowing. As you get closer to the 60 degree range in the middle and south of the country, from Missouri east to North Carolina, south to South Carolina, back across to Texas and about everything in between, a lot of those crayfish will be burrowed as you get closer to 60. So the bass will tend to shift more toward the baitfish bite, and those baitfish will tend to suspend in the deeper water, especially as the water gets colder, and this is all relative to water color of course. As the surface temperature. tapers down to 60, now those fish are forced to not go to where their preferred temperature is or where they feel most comfortable but where the food is. The crayfish are burrowed or no longer a forage option at this water temperature. So the forage base at this point shifts to suspended baitfish in relatively deeper water. The ima Flit Jerkbait Connection If they’re no longer eating the Skimmer topwater, as the water gets closer to 60, they’re going to start turning on the deeper-running Ima Flit jerkbait. With a 60 degree surface temperature, it could be 50 to 55 degrees around 15-20 feet deep so the bass at that point are already getting into the lethargic winter stage. They’ve got to slow down, are less likely to commit to the surface because not only are they more lethargic, but they are also sitting in deeper water. So you’ve got to get down more to them. You’ve got to get down to that 6-8 foot range and meet them halfway with something that’s closer to the strike zone – and that’s where the Flit comes into play. The Rod, Reel and Retrieve Connection A guy could get away with the same type rod for both the ima Skimmer topwater surface walking bait and the ima Flit jerkbait. And the way to work both is with the same walking motion. Keep the rod tip below waist high and just work the rod with the short twitching downward motion to where you can get both the Skimmer and Flit to have side-to-side darting actions on every downward rod stroke – known as ‘walking the dog.’ The only difference is, of course, the Skimmer dances on the surface whereas the Flit dives 6-8 feet, and as the water gets colder, add more pauses to your retrieve with the Flit jerkbait. My rule of thumb for selecting a topwater/jerkbait rod for a bass boater is that I typically recommend a rod that can point straight down when you’re up on the bow of the boat, to where the rod tip does not slash the water on the downstroke. Now, the ideal rod length is relative to your height. One must remember I am 6’5″ so what is comfortable for me may not be comfortable for a guy who’s 6′ tall or 5′ 6″. The Fenwick Elite Series Pitchin’ Stick I most often use only comes in one length, 6’9″. The model number is ECPS69MH-F. I like this rod for jerkbaits and topwaters. Another one I also like is the Fenwick Techna AV 7’0″ MH, Model AVC70MHF. It is extremely light and sensitive with a good tip action. As I say, I like where the rod tip is still out of the water on the downstroke. So for a guy who’s 5’6″ or shorter, you may want a 6′ rod. Anglers approximately 6 feet tall may want a 6-1/2″ foot long rod. You want it just short enough to where you are not slashing your rod tip into the water every time you work the bait. As I say, you work both the Skimmer and Flit nearly the same - with a walking motion. Whether it be on the surface or 6-8 feet down, it is the same rod motion, the same twitch motion and what I’m comfortable with using is a 6.3:1 gear ratio reel, which is the most common gear ratio for baitcasters. The only difference is I use 12 lb mono for the Skimmer topwater which floats. When you go to fluorocarbon, it will sink and it will disrupt the action of the Skimmer. With the Flit jerkbait, yes, you can get away with 12 lb mono too – but I am a bigger fan of 10 lb test fluorocarbon which sinks. So when I go to a jerkbait, I lean more toward fluorocarbon just because of the sinking factor that helps me to obtain that deeper range, thereby getting down there a little closer to the fish. So I prefer the same rod action for both the Skimmer and Flit, rod length matched to your height, and a 6.3:1 gear ratio. I’m using an Abu-Garcia Revo personally, and in my case I use the Fenwick Elite and Techna AV series rod. But most important point for you here is you’ll be much better off to just match the rod length you use to your height. The objective being that the tip won’t hit the water surface on the downstroke. For the guys who are fishing off the bank (and there are many, many more of them than fish off of boats), whenever you are fishing from the bank always go for the longer rod. That’s why we see surf fishing rods along the coast that are 8-9 feet long. That’s why fly rods are typically 7-8 feet. The same thing applies to bass fishing from the bank. Use the longest rod you can get away with. For bass fishing, that mostly means a 7 footer. If you can use a 7′ rod without casting into trees, I say go for it, regardless of your height. If there’s a lot of overhanging shoreline cover, you may have to go to a shorted rod – but go with the longest rod you can get away with, in order to make longer casts. On the bank, there’s a lot of noise – footsteps on the bank, snapping a stick you step on, that can be picked up by fish and is associated with predation – bass are more wary of noises coming down the bank because that’s where many predators come down to the waterline. So bass are more naturally wary of noises coming from the bank rather than noise coming from a boat. Working a Skimmer or Flit from shore, keep you rod tip down near the water level, kind of down on an angle instead of straight down. Well, we’ve made a lot of different connections today to try to make the puzzle of late fall fishing patterns seem clearer. Thank you for reading along. I hope you get out there this weekend and connect on your own with the ima Skimmer and Ima Flit.  - Michael  www.MichaelMurphyFishing.com Thank You! For Reading the ima EMAILER ima’s a big name in Japan where ima is known for its hardbaits.ima is now making a big name for itself in North American too, with the help of U.S. bass pros who have designed new ima hardbaits for the USA. Sign up! For the ima emailer at: http://www.imalures.com/contest.php We’ll send you stories and tips. Thank you. Please visit our web site. See our products at: http://www.imalures.com