Advice fishing the Hudd

[Jean-Luc]

I picked up a hudd 68 this spring and managed to get multiple bites (not on beds), fishing it slow and fast but now that its summer I cant seem to get them to bite. I know how well this bait produces for people in the winter and spring but is it effective when its warmer? Should I be fishing it crazy slow like you do in the winter or something else? I just cant seem to figure them out. Any advice helps. Thanks!

[Secretly Beloved]

Hey I know for me it’s definitely a time of year thing. Mainly from winter to spring but with that said I did do well with a Rof 0 with a nail weight just under the surface in the beginning of summer with the color line. I find that in summer it’s mainly rats and surface baits that produce but that’s what I’ve found to work. 

[Mossypumpkin]

Some things just are the way they are. For me, it’s hudds and glides after spawn. They straight suck. Could I catch a glide fish in July? Yes. Could have caught 10 in that time on a wake or a crank tho. That being said, there’s one way you’ll still smash em on a hudd in summer and that flipping, pitching, skipping them around good cover. If you can get your hands on some, an OG 6” weedless hudd. They skip insanely well and are awesome for skipping docks. They also fall down thru grass and brush better than the 68 or 8”. I like pitching holes in eelgrass with them. Other than those methods, the hudds hang until October for me. 

[LUV-2-CATCH'EM]

I tend to mainly thrown them in the winter months but have had good success year round when night fishing...Typically docks with lights(Makes no sense to me)

 

Hope this helps!

[marc626]

As far as the rof 12, try pulling the lure as soon as it splashes down on top.

If not try the bottom. Both techniques do actually work.

[Jon P]

Love the 68, when I first got into swimbait fishing it was my crutch to catch anything. In the fall and spring it's pretty much just the ROF5 deep and slow, no more complex than that. In the summer I opt for the ROF12 fishing it shallower and faster. In the deeper water just yo-yoing and slow rolling it through the weeds like a spinnerbait works as well. Mind you that when I say "slow rolling" in the summer I mean just cranking to tick the weeds. In the spring and fall you're fishing it slowly enough to eat lunch between casts.

[Jean-Luc]

7 hours ago, Mossypumpkin said:

Some things just are the way they are. For me, it’s hudds and glides after spawn. They straight suck. Could I catch a glide fish in July? Yes. Could have caught 10 in that time on a wake or a crank tho. That being said, there’s one way you’ll still smash em on a hudd in summer and that flipping, pitching, skipping them around good cover. If you can get your hands on some, an OG 6” weedless hudd. They skip insanely well and are awesome for skipping docks. They also fall down thru grass and brush better than the 68 or 8”. I like pitching holes in eelgrass with them. Other than those methods, the hudds hang until October for me. 

I'm still learning the basics of what to throw each season since I started in December. Been only throwing glides and the hudd and haven't branched out yet. I do have a shellcracker so ill put in some good time on the water with it. Good tip on the 6inch weedless hudd, I'll look out for one.

[Rogervang]

Fishing hudds during summer is tough, but it still works. I usally bottom crawl them in deeper water and whenever I hit any kind of object, I give it a hard twitch and leave tension on the line just in case I have a nose heavy hudd. So itll fall balanced. Bite usually come from the fall or right when you start reeling. At night I just slow craw the bait just as it was winter. I feel that it takes them that extra second to feel the bait vs seeing the bait during the day. If you can get a hand on the OG hudd, dont hesitate to pick one or two up. 

[ricardo]

Summer hudd advice is cut off and throw somethin else

[SVT THUNDER]

I actually stumbled across a surface technique a few years ago with a rof 12 68 Special that I do better on than I do in cold water situations. Lake is full of grass. I keep a pile of rods rigged and when I’m fishing daily, I just leave some in my suv parked in the garage. I was fishing a slammer over a little ditch that has milfoil just under the surface. There’s only a 2’ drop, but it holds bass along the edge of the grass from Spring on. Chunk rock on the bottom of the ditch  

Bass were blowing up on the surface. But they wouldn’t eat a rat or a slammer. So I saw I had a 68 tied on and thought why not. I fired it out meaning to land it in the ditch so I wouldn’t crash into the grass. I made a cast a bit to far and instead of dragging back a Big G salad, I just started burning the bait back in. I noticed if I slowed it down a bit, it was bubbling and gurgling like a big buzz but just barely on the surface. Made another cast and did the same thing and it got smoked. I was a bit stunned but drug the bass in. Decent little fish in the high 3 to low 4 range. I caught another that evening doing that and since then, it’s become one of my go to surface presentations when they won’t eat a silent wake, noisy wake or big walking bait. 

I've actually never caught anything on a hud slow rolling on the bottom here. But I’ve caught enough bass in warm water doing that to keep one in my rotation. Just one of those things I accidentally found that works. 

[Jean-Luc]

32 minutes ago, SVT THUNDER said:

I actually stumbled across a surface technique a few years ago with a rof 12 68 Special that I do better on than I do in cold water situations. Lake is full of grass. I keep a pile of rods rigged and when I’m fishing daily, I just leave some in my suv parked in the garage. I was fishing a slammer over a little ditch that has milfoil just under the surface. There’s only a 2’ drop, but it holds bass along the edge of the grass from Spring on. Chunk rock on the bottom of the ditch  

Bass were blowing up on the surface. But they wouldn’t eat a rat or a slammer. So I saw I had a 68 tied on and thought why not. I fired it out meaning to land it in the ditch so I wouldn’t crash into the grass. I made a cast a bit to far and instead of dragging back a Big G salad, I just started burning the bait back in. I noticed if I slowed it down a bit, it was bubbling and gurgling like a big buzz but just barely on the surface. Made another cast and did the same thing and it got smoked. I was a bit stunned but drug the bass in. Decent little fish in the high 3 to low 4 range. I caught another that evening doing that and since then, it’s become one of my go to surface presentations when they won’t eat a silent wake, noisy wake or big walking bait. 

I've actually never caught anything on a hud slow rolling on the bottom here. But I’ve caught enough bass in warm water doing that to keep one in my rotation. Just one of those things I accidentally found that works. 

I have a weedless 68 ROF 12, do you think that would work ok if I fish it by the surface or do you think a jig hook one is needed? I do have a ROF 5 jig hook but not ROF 12.

[SVT THUNDER]

1 hour ago, Jean-Luc said:

I have a weedless 68 ROF 12, do you think that would work ok if I fish it by the surface or do you think a jig hook one is needed? I do have a ROF 5 jig hook but not ROF 12.

I’ve never tried it with a weedless oddly enough. Mine are jig hooks. But give that weedless a try. You’ll know if it’s working simply by the look and sound on the surface. 

With the jighook, I can pretty much set the hook once they hit it. They usually smash it when fished that way and I don’t think I’ve ever caught one under 3 doing that. So they eat it. But any weedless swimbaits I throw, I wait until I feel the fish before I set. More like I do when frog fishing. But that’s probably something you already knew. Just thought I’d throw that out there anyway. 

If it works, please let me know. I have a lot of places here that are simply too thick in areas for the jig hook. But there are open pockets in the grass that would be ideal for a weedless worked that way. 

[marc626]

On 6/30/2021 at 8:52 PM, SVT THUNDER said:

I’ve never tried it with a weedless oddly enough. Mine are jig hooks. But give that weedless a try. You’ll know if it’s working simply by the look and sound on the surface. 

With the jighook, I can pretty much set the hook once they hit it. They usually smash it when fished that way and I don’t think I’ve ever caught one under 3 doing that. So they eat it. But any weedless swimbaits I throw, I wait until I feel the fish before I set. More like I do when frog fishing. But that’s probably something you already knew. Just thought I’d throw that out there anyway. 

If it works, please let me know. I have a lot of places here that are simply too thick in areas for the jig hook. But there are open pockets in the grass that would be ideal for a weedless worked that way. 

I stuck this hog years ago on a 95 degree day, fishing from shore and the lake at that time of the year was heavy with fresh and decomposing grass, the waters edge was looking skinny back then. I was fishing conventionally with lipless crankbaits, flyline senkos and topwaters as I normally do during the summer months. This fish is the reason why I started putting a couple of hours more fishing time instead of taking off after have caught a couple of bucks. When the wind with light surface chop starts to show, the sun pulls high and the water clears up. Man throw any weedless hudd in the the thick of the grass and lanes in between grass transitions. Look for openings in the grass. Use at least 20lb. test because of snags and grass. Throw the lure and wait until the line sinks all of the way to the bottom. The bucket mouth weighed just under 8 lbs. my second to largest with a hudd. caught in the summer of 2012. I posted a report on swimbait nation back then. I did mention splashdown lure retrieve now this. Also try the 1000 countdown. On splashdown, one-one thousand, two-one thousand, however deep you want the lure. This tech. also works with hudds and small gliders. So try the middle. Why not try the weedless technique when the weather is nice and warm, and when the fish are active and not "hibernating" during winter...so to speak. If there are openings in the grass then I would try.

 

[FishDr]

I sometimes use Hudds as a follow-up bait during the day.  If I get a big blowup on a wakebait like a 9 or 12" Slammer or Baby Possum but don't hook up, sometimes I wait a couple of minutes for the fish to reposition and then instead of going back over with the big noisy bait again, I change my angle some and then run an ROF5 Hudd over the area where the fish struck.  That quieter, subtle action can be killer one the fish has gotten put on high alert because of the more raucous wakebait.

[bigpoppabass]

Summer is regular Hudd time. ROF 0 time on an ste rig. Great night bait too....or rof 12 fished like jig near structure on a cast drop and bottom shake...These are classic techniques. ....I have always felt that the 68 has way too much action. Fish have to be fired up to hit em. It's very design violates all of the vortex principles Ken got a patent for. In other words, it is unnatural and was a way to get peeps more interested in the 6 inch baits which had less impressively looking vortex action due to the smaller tails on em.