No Tedium With a TDM

I threw to a pocket this morning, and Wham! a small, keeper bass smacked it. I then threw to a point, and Wham! another small, keeper bass knocked the fire out of it. At this point, I thought I might be in for a super day, but as it turned out, I was only in for an OK day. It was two hours later before I finally hit another fish.

As I learned, though, fishing the TDM isn't about the number of topwater strikes--it's the quality of the strikes that you get. For example, I tossed the bait over the top of a small stand of grass at the mouth of an indention in the Albright's shoreline, and I noticed a small swat just as the bait touched down. So I "burped" the TDM (that's the sound the bait makes) ever so slightly, and the water erupted when the 2-4 pictured above nailed it with a head-shaking leap.

I went about another 200 yards before a cast to another point yielded the same kind of explosive strike. The fish this time was a 3-6 (pictured left).

At day's end, I had boated two more bass--both weighing 1-3--that, like the others, gave me a little show when they hit.

My only other fish of the day was an ever-so-tiny yellow perch that was a little too close when he decided to take a swipe at my flat-sided crankbait. It was another one of those times when I was having trouble deciding which was bigger: the lure or the fish.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, the TDM I'm talking about here is the Team Daiwa Mouthwasher (see photo right)--and, no, this is not my INT bait. This "big boy" (weighing about a half-ounce) is out of production, but I've had a few for several years and have caught a fair number of fish with them--just not very recently.

The reason I picked it up in the first place this week is because I read an article about this bait the other day, in which the author said it makes a good fall fish-getter. Reckon that author knew what he was talking about, 'cause I sure got my money's worth--both Wednesday and today.