Thumpers

I've read some posts from guys fishing Buchanan in the cooler .months using a thumper. Does anyone use this and does it work during the hotter summer months?

I use my thumper all year. Tim who designed the thumper uses his as well.

365 days a year..

Hard to believe it works, but it does. All those years of being told to be quiet and not make noise. What. You can beat on the bottom of the boat and it helps. WOW whodathunkit.

Every time I made thumping sounds dad would hit me with the boat paddle. We caught a lot of fish

See there. That vibration from paddle, to head, to feet was the first thumper. I'll bet the harder he hit you the more fish he caught.

Funny this topic should come up today… I’ve been using a thumper intermittently for two years. Originally, I was told they didn’t work in warm weather. Then I was told they didn’t work in less than 20 fow. I was preparing a post to say that I give up and thumpers don’t work. Then today happened. I was fishing with a couple of friends and we were in two boats. Our first stop we marked a lot of fish but they weren’t biting. After spending too much time begging them to bite, we moved to a new spot. Marked a few fish. Turned on the thumper and started slowly drifting over humps in 12-30 fow.. While I won’t give the thumper credit for bringing the fish to the boat, once we got on them, it definitely coaxed these into biting. My boat (with the thumper) caught 40 fish. The other boat (no thumper), 10-50’ away from us, caught 10. Our best action was in 15-20 fow (disproving the less than 20’ theory) and it was balls hot (disproving the cooler weather theory). After two years, I’m a believer.

You can use them in shallow water but I really turn the speed down quite a bit. I normally run 45-60 bpm but in shallow water, I will run closer to 15-20 bpm. If you find a school and start thumping and the school disappears, turn your speed down some…. Thumpers work and they are a good tool for your tool box. For me, they always attract fish but the fish may or may not bite and they may or may not stick around, but when they do stick and follow your boat, that will be an epic trip! This is a video we did last summer. We hit a couple of spots before we found a sticky school, then it was fish on!

Great tribute to thumping ! Has thermocline set in on big T ?

I recently made this video to show how tapping the boat floor or thumping brings fish under the boat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcKEzEJUITI&t=8s

Rebait is right. If you don't have a Thumper you can beat on the boat and they will come. I've seen this at PK many times.

My first thumper was a stick. I still have it in my garage…. Just gets old fast!

I started using a boat oar to thump about 25 years ago during the winter months. I built my first thumper 8 years ago. I was the first to market them in the USA. I continue to learn more from experience and many of my customers experimenting with their thumpers. I use my thumper every trip with all presentations all year round now. I was taught by a good friend a few years ago that thumping works in water as shallow as 10 ft. I’ve fished water that was 160 ft deep calling stripers up to our baits above the trees.
I also have customers using their thumpers to call crappie under the boat in deeper water on livescope.
I thump while trolling umbrella rigs 200 ft behind my boat up to 4.5 mph. I seldom change the speed. Normally 90 thumps per minute is a good speed. Occasionally I’ll slow it to about 60 per minute when fish don’t respond in certain days. I certainly don’t know all there is about it but I will continue to learn from folks.