by Eric Dulin
“That’s what we are looking for,” Wes said, pointing at his graph. The carpet of shad that we had seen for the past few minutes had changed.
Instead of a solid mass, there was a distinctive cookie-shaped “bite” in the solid black mass with the tell-tale arcs of a couple of larger fish inside the bitemark. This was a clear sign of fish feeding on shad and the shad fleeing the predators. “Let’s get some baits down.” Quickly, and expertly, Wes Cambell from Bend a Rod Guide Service baited up our rods so that we could drop them in the water. Then he did something I had never seen before. He picked up a stick and rapidly started tapping on the bottom of his boat. Noting my quizzical expression, he simply said, “Watch the graph.” Slowly at first, then faster and faster, more fish began to appear on the graph. A large school of hybrids and sand bass built up under the shad. Almost immediately, we began to get bites. Wes sat his stick down to unhook the fish and rebait the poles. Just as suddenly as they appeared, the fish on the graph began to disappear. Once he resumed tapping, they reappeared again. After about the third time observing this phenomenon, as he set his stick down to help bait a pole, I said, “Give me the stick!” This was my first introduction to fishing using a thumper.
I learned two things that day. First, thumping is an incredibly effective technique for attracting fish to your boat. Second, thumping with a manual “generation one” thumper was very difficult, especially if you were trying to fish and thump at the same time. I was very excited about the thumper and checked out the existing models that were available. Although there were several thumpers on the market, they cost more than I wanted to spend. Eventually, I was able to contact Tim Pham who had posted a video about thumpers on YouTube, and he helped me build my first thumper. Tim lived in Austin, but came up to Dallas to deliver my thumper motor and go hybrid fishing with me on Lake Lewisville. I had a splasher at the time, but had not used a thumper since my experience with Wes. We went to one of the mid-lake humps at Lake Lewisville and started thumping for a few minutes. When no fish showed up after ten minutes, we made a short move to the next hump. This time, when we spot locked and turned on the thumper, the fish began to respond almost immediately! The front rod bent until the tip touched the water as a nice hybrid inhaled the shad and headed for the bottom. After a short fight, we were able to net him and put him in the cooler … fish number one. Within another minute or two, another rod bent again with a nice hybrid. We caught a couple more hybrids before the bite slowed. “Turn up the thumper,” Tim said, “not too much, just enough to change the beat a little bit.” I reached down and slightly adjusted the dial. Within seconds, another pole bent. “I have used my thumper at Lake Buchanan, and now at Lewisville, with the same result. “When you change the frequency of the thumps, you can trigger a bite”, said Tim. We repeated this pattern, adjusting the tempo a few minutes later. Again, we hooked a fish immediately after adjusting the speed. We quickly limited out on our ten fish limit of hybrids. Since we had finished in about an hour and had a few shad left, we invited a nearby boat to tie off on ours and take advantage of the thumper. We only had a handful of shad, but they were able to catch a nice sand bass before using up the remaining bait.
This was my first experience using an automatic thumper. It was truly eye-opening, and it taught me a couple of other key concepts. First, it will not make fish appear if they are not there, so look for structure with a few fish around it and then turn on the thumper. Second, if the fish don’t respond in ten minutes, or if the fish show on the graph but don’t bite, then move to another spot! Tim’s video is available here… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCVDlEG5dSA
What is the difference between a splasher and a thumper? If you have ever seen a splasher, it is basically a trolling motor that uses a propeller that has cupped faces instead of blades on it. The splasher strikes the water with those cups and makes a splashing sound like striper feeding on bait on the surface of the water. The splashing imitates shad trying to escape and jumping out of the water. When the striper are feeding on top, the splasher is a great tool to attract them to your boat.
Most of the time, and especially in the winter, the striper are not feeding on top, and instead are feeding on schools of shad deep in the water. The thumper imitates the commotion of striped bass, hybrids, sand bass, and even catfish schooling and attacking schools of bait fish such as shad deeper in the water.
Some people believe the thumper also imitates the sound created by the machines in the hatcheries that dispense fish food to feed the fish. I am not sure if one or both theories are true, however, I can say that when you turn on the thumper, fish will come to investigate, and when they are hungry, they will bite!
The most effective way I have found to use a thumper is to look for structure where predatory fish are likely to be feeding on baitfish. Normally, from spring through fall, I look for the edges of flats where creek beds connect to main river channels or points off the main river channel. I usually look for a couple of fish on the graph and spot lock at the edge of the flat. I prefer to drop down three or four baits before I turn on my thumper. For fish feeding in thirty to forty feet of water, I typically run my thumper from sixty to ninety beats per minute. I will set a timer and look at my graph. In some cases, fish will begin to show up in as little as six seconds and will either school under the boat or drift in and out. I use a ten-minute timer as a guide. If the fish show up and bite within ten minutes, then I will stay and fish. Otherwise, it’s time to move on.
Sometimes, fish either don’t respond, or respond but don’t bite. In that case, I will move to another location. If the fish show up, bite, then stop biting, I will normally move after the first or second timer goes off. In the best case, the fish will swarm under the boat and actively feed. This is an incredibly chaotic, but incredibly fun experience with multiple fish getting hooked simultaneously and catching limits of forty to sixty fish within one to two hours.
You can fish with the same techniques using a thumper as you would without one. I prefer live bait fishing with shad. However, you can also slab, or throw swimbaits or other lures. The thumper will bring the fish to the boat. You simply must decide the best technique to use to catch them when they show up. Thumpers are incredibly effective in the wintertime when deadsticking. I fished with Wes again on Lake Lewisville when I delivered his thumper to him. We were deadsticking and drifting from sixty down to thirty foot depths and had so many fish under the boat that the graph was showing a false bottom. You can check out that video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpscVmK6_EU.
Tim had used a thumper for several years before I built mine. After realizing how effective the thumper was at catching hybrids and sand bass on Lake Lewisville, I decided to try striper fishing on Lake Texoma. Again, I had the same results. I was able to attract fish to my boat, and when hungry fish were present, I was able to catch them. I went from being a below-average fisherman who was skunked half the time, to hardly ever getting skunked and catching limits over half of the time.
After about six months of using my thumper and taking my friends fishing and catching tons of fish, I decided to produce, and sell the Thump’em Up Fishing Thumper. I have a corporate job, however, my thumper business allows me to do the things I really enjoy in life. I started building and selling thumpers and also traveled the country to fish with customers and guides who use my thumpers in different states and in different fishing conditions. I also became a licensed guide primarily to help new thumper customers learn how to fish with their thumpers.
That was five years ago and since then, I have sold over fourteen hundred thumpers to customers in over half of the United States. I have many professional guides that use the thumper, and it has also been featured on Father and Son Outdoors on the Pursuit Channel as well as multiple YouTube channels and other social media platforms. The advantage of the Thump’em Up Fishing Thumper is its cost-effectiveness, its powerful motor that can go incredibly fast or very slow, and the one-pound hammer, which creates a lot of vibrations. I sell my thumper on eBay, Amazon, and at my website www.thumpemupfishing.com. I am not just a salesperson though; I am a fisherman at heart. My YouTube channel, Thumpem’up Fishing Channel has over one hundred videos posted, many of which are designed to help fishermen and women catch more fish using the thumper and includes videos on catching bait, keeping bait alive, catching fish, cleaning fish, and even a few recipes.
Feel free to reach out to me at info@thumpemupfishing.com if you have any questions about thumpers or want to learn more!
