Salted or unsalted Watermelon Straight tail Worm mystery

[Arniston]

A couple of summers ago I had amazing results with SALTED worms...almost deadly with Florida species and normal largemouth in Inanda Dam with hardly no success with plain unsalted.

So I bought a packet of the watermelon straight tail type salted. Now this year not a thing.

This afternoon in our own private dam, I used an old one (the salt probably was washed off), I took 6 bass in under 30 minutes. Eventually, the worm broke up so I had to change for a new one...not a take at all.

This puzzles me and I wonder if there are any bass pundits here that can explain this or have had similar experiences.

I'm mainly a fly fisherman for trout, yellowfish, bass and sea but I do enjoy a quick change every now and again.

 

[VaalieBassman]

My opinion is that the "old" worm you used had a higher concentrate of salt in it (infused) as to the new ones. This makes it sink faster, yet makes it break quicker.

How are you using the worms? Texas rigged or Carolina etc. If using for instance a Texas rig then up the weight slightly to give the new worm a different fall rate and action.

The opposite could also be true....the new worms might have the higher salt concentrate and then use a smaller weight as above.

Are both the old and new worms similar in shape and action?

Hope it makes sense!

 

[Arniston]

Thank you Vaalie Bassman.

I use the Texas rig. The private dam is shallow. The worms were both salted, except the older one had probably lost it's saltiness because it had been used extensively at Inanda Dam a few days before without success.

I have used them with success on previous occassions and then recently with little success, except about 3 years ago, from a different batch.

I just think all fish can have strange preferences at times, bass can be easy at times and then other times very fussy.

I just thought the saltiness had nothing to do with flavour and were made for faster sinking. Obviously, it now appears, their senses do pick up sense of smell as do all fish. I saw a video with 2 bass fisherman on a boat , one using a salted and his buddy using an unsalted...they competed. The score was almost even but that was in USA.

Drawn the obvious conclusion is to try both and alternate.

In fly fishing for trout and bass...one fly will work 1 day, the next day the fish show no interest.

Fish can be very intriguing and do have memory and learn from negative experiences. What I've learn that most anglers regard largemouth bass as stupid...far be it...there are times when they can be as bloody-minded and unforgiving as a die-hard RSM veteran.