Posted by Walker Smith on Wed, Oct 24, 2012 @ 03:51 PM
Fall is froggin’ season, and these tips will lead to more heart-stopping blowups
by Walker Smith
You’ve been thinking about it all week. A single, solitary grass bed has engulfed your thoughts and inundated your mind throughout the workweek. You had to leave them biting last Sunday when it got dark. Instead of sleeping like the rest of your family, you remain awake, fervently flipping through fish picture after fish picture on your smart phone. Your eyes are bloodshot, your breathing is labored and you’re beginning to get the cold sweats. Surely it won’t hurt if you call in sick for just one day, right?
You inspect the thenar space between your thumb and index finger—it’s beginning to heal from last weekend’s slugfest on your home lake. You need a fix—something, anything—to get you to the weekend. Does it still smell like bass? Looking over your shoulder to make sure no one is looking, you sniff—nothing. Yeah, that’s right. You just smelled your hand in hopes of acquiring one last trace of the sweet smell of success. It’s okay. Don’t be embarrassed, and it’s totally okay to cry. It happens to me, too. You, my friend, have a case of fall frogitis.
If the mere thought of frog fishing doesn’t get your blood pumping and your heart palpitating, you may need to check your pulse. Catching big bass on a big worm, crankbait or jig is always fun, but nothing showcases the innate predatory instincts and ferocity of bass quite like frog fishing.
Terry and I recently had the opportunity to do a little frog fishing with FIRST pro Shaw Grigsby, and we were given great insight into some awesome frogging tips. Cutting his teeth on numerous Florida grass fisheries early in his career, Grigsby has developed some very unique techniques that will help you catch more fish and remedy your craving for the acrobatic, ferocious strikes that we all know and love.
A common misconception
When many anglers think about frog fishing, images of matted grass flood their minds. While the frog is, indeed, ideal for these types of areas, it is important to consider the unmatched versatility of a frog. Regardless of the water conditions or available cover, Grigsby never hesitates to throw his Strike King KVD Sexy Frog.
“I’ve had a lot of success throwing the Sexy Frog in places where most guys would tend to throw a Sexy Dawg or Spit-N-King,” Grigsby said. “You don’t need to have particular conditions for it to work. I’ll toss it around rocky points, under docks and even in clear, deep water.”
Differentiating your bait selection and presentation is essential to getting the most out of your fishing day. Because very few anglers take the time to throw a frog in areas free of grass, the residing bass are largely uneducated to the unique profile and action of the Sexy Frog. Any time you can present the bass with something they may not see very often, you have a substantial advantage over other anglers.
“Big bass get used to seeing the same old thing being thrown their way,” Grigsby said. “If you take a frog and throw it around some of the more inconspicuous areas of your fishery, you might surprise yourself and catch some really awesome fish.”
Customization
Perhaps one of the most advantageous traits of frogs is their ability to be tweaked and customized for several different situations. Sometimes a small, seemingly insignificant modification can make all of the difference in the world. Grigsby categorizes his Sexy Frogs into two separate groups—slop frogs and open water frogs.
“As the name suggests, I use my slop frogs in the nastiest, thickest stuff I can find,” Grigsby said. “I like to barely bend the hooks away from the body of the bait to help get a good hook in the fish, but I still want the hook points barely touching the frog to help me avoid hang-ups.”
With his open water frogs, Grigsby tends to get a little more creative when it comes to customization. Due to the absence of gnarly, snag-inducing cover, he bends the hooks upwards and away from the body of the frog to ensure a solid hookset. If the bass are keying in on a wide, erratic retrieve, he reaches for his scissors.
“The Sexy Frog is sweet bait and will walk right out of the package,” Grigsby said. “But if I’m looking for a really wide-walking presentation, I’ll trim about an inch off of just one leg of the frog and the bass will absolutely crush it!”
While trimming one leg of the frog works well, trimming both legs can, at times, be even better. When faced with stubborn bass and tough fishing conditions, Grigsby believes that the bass often prefer a smaller, more compact profile. For this reason, he will trim two inches from both legs, creating a less threatening presentation that will draw some really exciting strikes.
Finding the mother load
Whether we like to admit it or not, many of us have simply stumbled upon fish in areas that don’t make a bit of sense. While situations like that are a lot of fun, knowing the right things to look for can lead to more consistent success.
“Anytime I’m fishing cover with frogs, I’m always looking for a reason for them to be there,” Grigsby said. “Two of my favorite things to find are ditches and points. I idle around a lot, looking at my Lowrance to find ditches that allow big bass to easily migrate to and from deeper water. Grass points are great, too, because fish love to relate to irregularities in the grass.”
Holes in matted grass are also a big favorite for Grigsby. Although big areas of matted grass look like thick and uninhabitable labyrinths to us, bass use the underside of these mats as highways, constantly moving around and searching for the perfect ambush spot to attack unsuspecting prey. These holes create perfect feeding opportunities for big bass.
“Big bass love to sit on the edges of these holes, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike,” Grigsby said. “When you swim a Sexy Frog across these openings, bass can’t help themselves and will absolutely annihilate it.”
Retrieve styles
A common mistake among many bass anglers, including myself, is working a frog the same way in every situation. Depending upon the mood of the bass, Grigsby drastically changes his retrieve to get more bites.
“When the fish are really active, I will try to make my frog sound almost like a buzzbait,” Grigsby said. “I know it sounds crazy, but if you pop the Sexy Frog as fast as you can, it makes the same ‘clacking’ noise that a buzzbait emits. Using this retrieve, I can catch a lot of pressured fish that may be wise to a buzzbait or the normal cadence of a frog, but have never seen a combination of the two.”
When making long casts to the edges of grass lines, Grigsby prefers a walking retrieve, giving the Sexy Frog the action of a hard, walking topwater bait like the Sexy Dawg. To achieve the most realistic retrieve, it is important to understand that you should never move the frog with your reel—only the sharp, downward twitches of the rod should move the bait, with the reel being used solely for retrieving slack line.
Importance of a good hookset and rod
There are many techniques in bass fishing that will allow anglers the chance to “get away” with using subpar equipment, but frog fishing is not one of them. With two huge hooks to drive into the mouth of a big bass, a good hookset and proper equipment is essential.
“A lot of people like to feel the fish before they set the hook with a frog, but I never do that,” Grigsby said. “If the fish is swimming towards you, you’ll never feel it. I generally give the fish half of a second after the blowup, and then I’ll really lay into them. The Sexy Frog has two beastly hooks on it and penetrating those hooks at the same time takes a huge hookset. For this reason, you always need to have your rod tip down when you work a frog, which minimizes your slack and puts you in a good position for a powerful, upwards hookset.”
To aid his monstrous hooksets, Grigsby uses a 7-foot, medium-heavy Quantum Tour Elite Dean Rojas Frog Rod. The rod’s fast tip allows him to cast like a rocket, while its backbone packs a huge punch.
“I come off my feet when I set the hook on a frog fish, and this rod gives me all of the power I could ever want,” Grigsby said. “A fast tip is necessary when I’m trying to skip the frog into thick cover, while it also helps me work the frog just the way I want to.”
Fall frog fishing is a great way to catch a lot of big fish, but it can certainly take some time to master. If you take the time to modify your frog correctly, find the right areas, experiment with different retrieves and get your hands on the right equipment, you’ll have a great time trying to curb your case of fall frogitis.
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Posted by Walker Smith on Mon, Oct 01, 2012 @ 08:00 AM
Three simple tips to increase your success when bass fishing this fall with frogs
by Walker Smith
It’s a cool fall morning—not too cold, but just brisk enough to break out your favorite fishing hoodie. You set the boat down at your favorite grass bed, take one-last swig of warm coffee and put down your trolling motor. Something just feels ‘right’ this morning. You fire your favorite frog to the edge of the shoreline grass and feel the braided line brush against your callused thumb.
Twitch, twitch. The grass begins to move as you tighten your grip on the rod. Your heart begins to beat out of your chest. Twitch, twitch. A massive wake slowly approaches the frog. You swallow hard at the lump in your throat and try to keep your cool. Twitch, twitch—BOOSH! You do your best to be patient and make certain the beast inhaled your frog. You wait for what seems like hours. As you feverishly reel your slack and come off the floor with a giant hookset… nothing. Absolutely nothing but air. Your frog comes whizzing by your ear, landing on the other side of the boat while managing to tangle everything from the trolling motor to your ears and ball cap in braided line.
About two years ago, this exact situation happened to me. Normally it’s not too big of a deal, but this time it cost me thousands of dollars in a high-pressure tournament situation. It was that moment when I knew something had to be done. As a result, I’ve started performing two simple frog modifications and one hookset adjustment that have dramatically increased my froggin’ success and eased my heartache.
Take pliers to it
It’s tough to take a set of pliers to a brand new frog, but I’m telling you—it’s worth it. My outright favorite frog is the Spro Dean Rojas Bronzeye Poppin’ Frog. While you can definitely catch some bigguns on it right out of the package, a very simple tweak can double your hookup ratio.
If you’ll notice, the hook point of most frogs barely touch the body of the bait. This miniscule contact point is meant to shield the hooks from thick cover, but can also impair your ability to get a good hook into the bass. I like to grab the bend of each hook with a sturdy set of pliers and slowly pull the hook points outwards and away from the body—not too much as to make the frog more prone to hang-ups, but about 1/16-inch. No more, no less.
While I’m sure it sounds like I’m splitting hairs by making such a small, 1/16-inch adjustment, you will stick more fish—period. I am as hard-headed as they come, but after my buddies pounded it into my skull enough, I finally tried it and have been hugely impressed by the results.
Give it a haircut
Yep, I’m giving you an excuse to let your “inner hair stylist” come out a bit. Many of today’s topwater frogs have living rubber legs attached to the back. These crazy things quiver and palpitate in the water even when the frog is at rest, producing some mammoth blow ups.
I’m a big proponent of differentiating your baits from the thousands of commonplace, everyday baits that fish see every day. Fish see a lot of frogs that walk, and they also see a lot of frogs that pop. If you combine those two actions, however, the fish probably haven’t seen a frog that pops as it walks! I’m starting to sound like Dr. Seuss…
To give your frog some awesome added action, simply stretch both legs out straight and trim about one inch of the living rubber off of just one of the legs. Make sure to discard of the excess rubber responsibly by not polluting the lake with it. The uneven leg lengths will allow your frog to walk back-and-forth with the slightest twitch of your rod tip, while remaining almost stationary. This is great when targeting small holes in thick grass, as you can work the frog in small areas for longer periods of time, giving the bass a better look at your bait.
Photo courtesy of Fishpaa.com
Swing up
As much as I hate to admit it, I still make this mistake from time-to-time—when it’s time to set the hook, I swing my rod to the side, not upwards. There is not a quicker way to miss a frog fish.
Think about it like this: When you set the hook to the side on a frog, the frontward-facing hooks don’t have anything to grab on to. Instead, you end up pulling the hooks away from the fish, instead of into the fish. Often, when I make this mistake, I lose my fish. In fact, I got so frustrated with losing frog fish, I completely quit throwing frogs in tournament situations for about a year.
My confidence was quickly regained, however, when I started training myself to set the hook in an upward motion. To be honest, it was pretty awkward at first, but it became second nature in no time. With an upward hookset, you allow the plastic body of the frog to compress against the top of the bass’ mouth, giving the hooks a chance to do what they do best—puncture flesh. When the hooks penetrate on an upright hookset, they pierce the hard, bony flesh at the top of the fish’s mouth, therefore ensuring a rock-solid connection between you and the bass.
Fall is froggin’ season, and you can bet that the Wired2Fish crew is looking forward to bringing you many more frog fishing tips as the bite heats up. While there are numerous nuances to frog fishing, these quick tips are sure to get you started on your fall froggin’ endeavors.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Wed, Sep 05, 2012 @ 02:23 PM
How Terry “Big Show” Scroggins approaches aquatic vegetation
By Alan McGuckin
Terry “Big Show” Scroggins just finished the 2012 Bassmaster Elite Series season ranked third overall in the Toyota Tundra Angler of the Year points, and few anglers in the world fish aquatic vegetation more effectively than Scroggins.
He’s won more than $1.5 million in his fairly short professional career, and he graciously provided the following simplified tips for picking apart the weeds more proficiently.
Find the haystack in the hayfield, before you look for the needle.
“A lot of fishermen become immediately overwhelmed by a lake full of vegetation. But really, it’s as simple as finding something different or unique among several other acres of aquatic vegetation,” said Scroggins, a former autobody technician. “Focus on finding the pocket, focus on finding a point, focus on finding an isolated floating mat of hyacinths amid several acres of hydrilla or milfoil. The point is, look for something that sticks out, or something unique."
Try using a much bigger weight.
“Nobody likes to pick weeds off their lure after every cast, but a lot of that aggravation can be avoided if you’ll use a super heavy 11/2-ounce weight to rocket your lure through the pads or grass beds, as well as when pulling the lure back up through it on the retrieve. A weight that big scares a lot of anglers. I even see some Elite Series anglers trying to fish with weights in the weeds that are way too small, but I’m telling ya’ – go big!”
Going big applies to hook, line and fishing rods too.
“I use 65-pound braid, tied to a 6/0 hook on a heavy action fishing rod at least 7-foot long nearly all the time when I’m pitching the grass. Heavy braid is a must for fishing around weeds for three reasons. First, if you’re using that huge 1 1/2-ounce weight, like you should be, you’ll need heavy line paired to your heavy weight. Secondly, you need plenty of pulling power to free the bass from the weedbed once you get a bite. And thirdly, if you do get snagged, braid makes pulling free a whole lot faster and easier.”
Frogs above and tiny craws below.
“If I had two lures for the rest of my life to fish vegetation, it’d be a Yum Big Show Craw and a Booyah Pad Crasher frog. In other words, one lure for on top of the weeds (frog), and another lure for beneath them (craw),” said Scroggins. “It’s really, really important to use a small compact craw. For starters, most of the critters that live around matted vegetation like grass shrimp and sunfish are small, so you’re matching the hatch, and secondly, you can get a 3.5-inch bait in and out of the weeds a heck of a lot easier than a big bait like a creature bait.”
Need convinced you can catch ‘em in the salad?
“Plan a trip to Guntersville, Ala. around Halloween if your confidence for fishing vegetation needs a boost. You’ll have plenty of new fishing friends around you. It’s a very popular reservoir, but the first time a 4-pounder bust through the weeds to eat your frog, or as the locals like to call it – “the cheese” – your confidence will soar,” said Scroggins, reliving sweet memories of autumn days gone by on the northern Alabama fishery.
Have a ribeye with your salad.
“Whether you’ve been casting a frog or pitching a craw, after a long day of fishing the salad you’re gonna need to eat. I’d recommend a big old nasty ribeye soaked in teriyaki. In less than 20 minutes you can fire up the grill and have your steaks thoroughly marinated in teriyaki. Cook it for ten minutes total. Five minutes on one side. Five on the other. And you’re good to go,” concludes Scroggins, who shares all his favorite lures and recipes at a cool site http://bigshowscroggins.com/.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Fri, Jul 06, 2012 @ 01:00 PM
Christmas shopping in July.
That's how I always feel when I'm thinking about heading to ICAST. The ICAST 2102 show finds itself back in Orlando this year. Bring on the humidity, afternoon showers, blazing temperatures, good food, good friends and loads of new fishing tackle.
At Wired2Fish, we're fortunate that many brands allow us to test products way in advance of manufacturing or release at ICAST. Over the years we've been able to tweak some products before release to the public so brands wouldn't run into "gotchas" after production.
This year we've had a lot of products in our hands for months but gave our word that we wouldn't let any proverbial cats out of the bag so to speak. The nice thing is we've already had some real fishing experiences with the products most will see for the first time next week.
That's sort of the point to us in covering new tackle. It's not just what's new, but sorting through the fluff from press release materials to get down to why an angler needs this bait or that line. Obviously the manufacturers have spent a lot of time trying to make products better for anglers. We would be remiss to just say here's the new stuff and not tell you what we like about it.
We also want you to feel more like you're at the show this year so we're going to shoot a lot more hands on video and photos of the products so you have some sense of reference and can get a good feel about the products before you look to buy them later this fall.
This Year's Buzz
Folks like to quantify the show each year based on the new offerings -- "The Year of the Swimbait," "The Year of the Low-Profile Reel," "The Year of the Frog" or "The Year of the Umbrella Rigs." The truth is fishing tackle like any manufactured category of products have trends. Lighter, lower, wider, stronger are all key phrases you see repeated over and over in press releases from year to year and probably lead to the categorizing of each show.
This year though rather than lumping the new tackle into a category we'd rather just focus on what's cool we hear coming out of each camp.
Berkley
There Havoc soft baits released a few new shapes for this year's show, namely the Pit Boss Chunk for jig trailers and the Rocket Craw which has already helped David Dudley win an FLW Tour event this season.
But they really went to town on beefing up their lines. Several of their most popular lines, namely Trilene XT and XL have been reformulated and repackaged in smaller spools. They offer a couple new monofilaments aimed directly for spinning applications and casting applications.
They have a slick new castable umbrella rig call the Schoolie Rig. It comes packaged by itself or in a great all in one kit with 5 swimbaits, 5 jigheads and the rig. This year will no doubt see a lot of new players in the castable umbrella rig market.
St. Croix
St. Croix has some amazing new designs to their Legend Xtreme Rods. We've been playing with the new medium-heavy power Legend Xreme. The obvious new feature is the all new Xtreme-Skin handles that are very comfortable, light and surprisingly very sensitive. The handles look cool and serve the function of repelling dirt, water and fish slime so they are easily cleaned after each trip to look like new again. The rods feature a new FRS technology that makes a smaller but tougher blank without adding any weight.
Abu Garcia
Yes. We've been putting the new third generation Abu Garcia Revos through the paces as well. We love em. We're not even trying to smooth it over. The reels are lighter, lower profile, cosmetically appealing, and fish extremely well. The Revo S, SX, STX, Premier, Winch and MGX are all astounding reels that will please a lot of anglers this fall. We'll have a lot more about them next week.
Big Bite Baits
They came out with the new Coontail worm that you've probably seen featured in some of our videos this early summer and in a few photos. They also are releasing a new Buzzing Warmouth and a smaller Cane Thumper. Stay tuned for more on those.
Megabass
The now famous albeit difficult to always find stateside Japanese manufacturer is releasing a bunch of new products at ICAST. The Knuckle 60 square bill crankbait, the 110 Square Lipped jerkbait, The Spark Shad soft swimbait, and a frog/creature bait called the Para Bug. We're excited to see these baits, get our hands on them and share them with you all.
Rapala
Rapala has a new line of balsa baits called the BX Minnows that we're pretty excited to check out. There is a jointed BX Swimmer and the straight BX Minnow. They feature balsa encased in copolymer shell that makes them very durable yet super erratic. We've played with the BX Minnow and it looks pretty sick in the water.
Snagproof
We're excited to get our hands on the new Ish's Poppin' Phattie. It's a uniquely shaped frog that has cupped sides to the pointed mouth. It should be a dynamite addition to our frog collection.
Spro
There are new sizes of popular lines coming out of the Spro camp this year. The long awaited Little John Baby DD 60 and the new Fat Papa 55 Medium deep runner both look to be solid additions to already proven lines.
Yum
We got our hands on a bunch of their new plastics already including the Craw Chunk, Mighty Craw, Lil SuzEE and the Yumphibian, not to mention several new castable umbrella rigs to accompany their very popular YUMBrella. Their Flash Mob and Flash Mob Ultralight will be big hits and their mini version for panfish and white bass will be a hit we're sure as well. The Craw Chunk is an awesome crawfish trailer with flapping claws that comes in two sizes. The Mighty Craw will be a killer punch bait or finesse bait alike. The lil Suzee gives them a finesse swimbait in that niche and the Yumphibian looks to be a very viable option for a creature bait for flipping and Carolina rigs.
VMC Hooks
VMC is making a big splash this year at the show we've heard. We've already seen their new offset widegap worm hooks as well as the Rugby Jig designed and approved by Mike Iaconelli. Their new resin encased eyelets will eliminate the problems with line cuts and knots sneaking through the hook eye anymore. They are said to be releasing a flipping hook, offset worm hook, heavy duty worm hook, wide gap hook, heavy duty wide gap, heavy duty swimbait and weighted swimbait hooks as well as a new trailer hook and a new wide gap spinshot hook.
Lots to share from the VMC camp this season.
Sunline
Sunline is offering a new braid and a new finesse fluorocarbon at this year's show. The new braid is the SX1 that was designed with input from Brent Ehrler and Aaron Martens for those applications like drop shots that need a light sinking braid. The new FC Finesse fluorocarbon will also be made for situations like leaders on drop shot or shaky heads. We've tested some preproduction spools and love them both.
Shimano
They are said to be offering a new Calcutta D reel and a new Crucial Castable Umbrella rig rod at this years show and we'll probably see a few new reels that they've kept under tight wraps.
G.Loomis
They have a new GLX Crankbait Series debuting at the show as well as new GLX Flipping rods. WE're anxious to get our hands on these as they are said to be 35% stronger with brand new reel seat designs.
Ima
Ima is introducing a new floating jerkbait/wakebait and a mid depth crankbait called the PinJack 200 that we're anxious to see and test.
Gamakatsu
The Swivel Shot should come back at this show and be released finally and they are also offering a new Short Shank EWG Treble in regular and 2X Strong versions. We should also see their Alien shaky heads and the G-Finesse Wacky Head.
Eco Pro
Eco Pro Tungsten is coming out with a bunch of new stuff at the show we've heard. We've seen their new castable umbrella rig that is modifiable called the Roll Tide Rig. But we also hear they've got three new jigs, two new jig heads, a punch weight with skirt collar and maybe some other stuff as well. This will be a fun booth to visit because we're pretty OCD when it comes to terminal tackle.
Damiki
The Korean based manufacturer has been bringing lots of cool tackle to the market each of the last few years and this year sounds like much more of the same. We've not got to see any of the new products yet but we here there is a big 11-inch Air Mega Miki II worm, a deep diving narrow bodied crankbait called the Abyss 90 plus a new creature flipping bait and a soft bodied swimbait for umbrella rigs or on a single jighead. We've already got a note to swing by and see their new stuff.
That's just some of the stuff we've played with or heard about leading up to next week's show so stay tuned to wired2Fish next week. We're going to be bringing hourly blogs and videos from the show highlighting ALL the cool fishing tackle we find. We're tasking a force of guys at the show this year to make sure we cover it all for you so keep it locked on Wired2Fish starting next Tuesday night and the NEW PRODUCT SHOWCASE from Orlando and Wednesday morning from the ICAST show floor.
Christmas in July is upon us.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Wed, Jun 27, 2012 @ 08:00 AM
Ever gone to a body of water and felt like finding bass was going to be like finding a needle in a stack of needles? That feeling comes over every angler now and again, especially when you've been toiling in a sea of seemingly similar cover without so much as a sniff. You start to lose your focus and lose sight of what it is you're really searching for in a large area. It's not just a bite but it's those irregularities or regularities as the case may be that the fish are relating to.
We talked recently with Elite Series pro James Niggemeyer about how he dissects a field of standing timber and stumps and finds the few trees or areas that the bass are using in those big fields of cover. The same principles can be applied to grass, boat docks, laydowns and more.
While fishing in Northern Minnesota recently, we were able to use cover reading skills to quickly blow through fisheries and figure out how to catch better quality fish quickly. That for us is really where fishing gets fun. Sure it's fun to set the hook and catch bass, but after we find a few fish, our minds start spinning calculations on other places like this where we might find more bass doing the same thing. Because duplicating what you find in one area in another is the essence of pattern fishing. What bait, what location and what type of cover are all part of the puzzle.
But reading cover is as much gut feeling sometimes as it is process of elimination. That's because seeing where the fish are ambushing bait is only part of the puzzle. Knowing what bait they want to ambush is the other. So sifting through the cover and figuring out a few different baits that cover the water effectively can put you on the bass a lot faster.
With hotter than average temperatures through much of the country and low water levels on a lot of fisheries this spring, the grass and vegetation has come on like gang busters. Grass grass everywhere and not a blade to mow. Even if you don't like to fish grass, it's undeniable how much it helps a fishery even on those places that don't have grass.
Pencil reeds, water willows, hydrilla, coontail, cabbage, milfoil, lily pads and more all offer the bass an ecosystem to hunt forage. Microorganisms, insects, larvae, shrimp, minnows, larger baitfish, bluegills, crawfish and more all make their home in vegetation and in turn draw predators closer.
Part of reading cover is breaking it into manageable pieces and attacking aspects of it so that when you do start getting bites, you can understand what you've found and apply it all over the fishery.
While on our trip to Minnesota, we were fishing on a small lake covered in pencil reeds and lily pads. It looked perfect for several baits and techniques. The grass for the most part was spread out and sporadic. But as we plowed through the fields throwing several different lures, I started to develop a pattern. The pencil reeds that clumped up and were a little thicker offered a hard target for a bass to lie behind.
I was throwing a swim jig and reeling it pretty fast to cover water quickly. The swim jig is a different sort of lure in that it draws strikes because of its speed as much as its looks. As I would fire it out over pencil reeds, as it drew in close to a cluster of reeds the line would snap tight and the fight had begun. We also started to find that if you could find where the pencil reeds pointed out or thinned closer to the bank you got strikes. Pencil reeds the furthest out in the lake also held fish. So it became easier and easier to pick your casts and target bass you couldn't see like an eagle does.
In a perfect world it always works like that, but the truth is our bass in the south are extremely pressured. And pressure moves fish around. So identifying small nuances within the cover can be the key to finding bass. Do you hear or see the presence of food around the cover. Are there signs in the cover that bass have been feeding like bubbles, blow holes through mats, popping sounds of bluegills feeding under pads. All can be clues to feeding areas.
Same principles can be applied to manmade structure. You'll start to figure out bass are on the up current side of a dock with the shade angling across it. Or they are on the back poles of a standing dock. Or they are only on the docks with a certain bottom or a certain depth. That makes breaking down the lake and the cover faster.
The biggest thing anglers have to learn is to not just go into cover laden areas and just blind cast around. Try to think of it as dissecting the area and every cast could be one that spooks a would be catch. So before you plow through the cover, work from the outside in. Look for irregularities and places where a bass could come out of hiding and attack forage.
Take a laydown for instance. If you go casting to the back of the log first, you run the risk of spooking the fish before you have a chance to catch it. Instead you can start on the outside limbs with quiet presentations and keep working into the cover and down the log. A lot of times multiple precise casts to a big laydown can yield limits of bass. Major tournaments have been won with this approach.
Look at every piece of cover or area covered in fish holding habitat as not random. The bass are there for a reason so target points in the grass, or pockets and cuts in the grass. Focus on making accurate quiet casts and letting your lures enter the strike zone without alarming the bass.
The more you can break down cover, the faster you can find and outsmart the bass. And in bass fishing, finding the best fish the fastest is often where the best memories are formed.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Wed, Jun 20, 2012 @ 12:42 PM
Water surges and sprays out from the branches. The bush shakes and rattles as if two beavers were fighting over it. The braid pings and plucks like a guitar string under the strain of a huge bass being wrestled out of the shallow cover. There's an adrenaline rush that comes with close quarters combat and fishing skinny water. The bass has nowhere to go but up ... and stark raving mad upon being hooked in the mouth.
We love to fish shallow, but it seems like many lakes only allow for shallow fishing for a very small window. But what we've learned over the years visiting hundreds of fisheries is that there are bass shallow all year. In the coldest of water to the sweltering heat of midsummer in the south we've found sizeable bass feeding in shallow water. The fact is not all bass make the same migrations and often as bass grow larger they break away from the groups and take up residence in much smaller zones.
There are windows in the midsummer where a bunch of bass suddenly seem to "reappear" in shallow water. There is probably some scientific explanation as to oxygen content, forage movements, current and new vegetation, etc. As an angler it's nice to understand these things to better "predict" behavior and pattern bass. But it's more important to know that these things do in fact happen.
The other part of the equation is there are just bass that live shallow. Sure there may be much larger and better populations of bass migrating offshore and staying in the cooler deeper waters but being savvy about location and approach will yield shallow water success. Look at guys like George Cochran and younger anglers like Ott Defoe who have literally carved names for themselves in professional fishing with a "stick shallow" mind frame.
That's not to say an angler will go fish shallow in 100 degree temperatures and catch fish like Defoe and Cochran do. These guys have spent decades learning where to look, learning how to approach shallow fish and how to get their baits in places most others haven't quite made it.
Where to start
Current. Shade. Cover. Forage -- four variables you should always be looking for in shallow water. Current and shade will keep the water comfortable enough for bass to stay shallow. While cover and forage are the dinner table and the dinner. A bass is hanging out just trying to beat the heat in his cool crib with a little breeze (current) blowing on him. Then a Big Mac comes swimming by and suddenly he's got an impulse for a big hamburger (shad) in cool crib on a summer day.
Obviously different scenarios offer some good shallow fishing in the summer. It can be a shady bank with over hanging trees, a row of docks shading the waters below, or a current break that has cooler water running by making an ambush point for the bass. But maybe the most effective shallow cover is grass. Hydrilla, coontail, milfoil, pencil reeds and other forms of aquatic vegetation grow, canopy up and offer bass a shallow, shaded area to feed.
Another place where shallow fishing can get real good in the hot days of the year is where fresh rains are running into the lake. Often it gets much cooler when it rains and the water dumping into the lake can be a lot cooler than the water around it and that often has a tendency to congregate forage and create a new feeding zone.
We've had some banner days fishing runoff areas after substantial rains in the summer. A lot of times the lake level will rise and there will be some new shallow cover and lots of new food washed into the water to attract forage and predators alike.
Probably one of the best approaches though is to find areas where the water necks down and the bass have little option other than feeding shallow. The backs of long creeks, way up a river on an impoundment, or just a narrower section of a body of water can make finding shallow bass a lot easier. Sure you can find shallow bass in other places, but when you limit the options, narrow the search area and put more of the odds in your favor, finding the bass gets a lot faster and a lot easier.
Sometimes finding those shallow cover laden areas right on the edges of deep water can be the ticket. The bass may sit out deep and when they feel like a little snack, the turn and run up to the kitchen (shallow cover) and grab themselves a snack.
Tips on tackle
Water clarity can determine the approach to fishing shallow water bass in the dog days of summer. Clear shallow water often dictates a stealthy finesse approach where muddy, dirty skinny water leads to more reaction oriented bass. Sometimes it's a mix of things. But one thing that is for certain, is fishing shallow targets requires pinpoint accuracy and an attention to quiet entry landing beyond where you think the bass might be and sneaking into his zone. Or sometimes it's putting it quietly right on his head.
Several lures will work for shallow bass but we've found a few especially effective for snaring bass out of inches of water. A soft plastic pitch bait is hard to beat for isolated pieces of cover. Depending on water clarity, we'll often go with a 3/8 ounce Eco Pro tungsten bullet weight, a 4/0 or 5/0 straight-shank Grip Pin Extreme Mustad hook and one of our favorite plastic flipping baits like a Zoom Brush Hog, Strike King Rage Craw, Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver, or Berkley Havoc Pit Boss.
We'll move stealthily with the trolling motor on 20 or 30 and pitch quietly into bass holding cover. Line size should still be pretty significant if the cover is heavy, even if the water is clear. The thicker the cover the more it masks your line.
If that's not working, we'll work a hollow-bodied frog around. A frog can be thrown up on the bank and just eased it into the water without it hanging most of the time. Anglers can be real crafty with a frog. Fire it way up under over hangs and cover that blocks most presentations. You can skip it under and around things you normally wouldn't throw other lures over and around. But best of all, it just flat catches big ones. I stick with proven frogs like Spro and Snagproof most of the times. But there are a lot of new frogs on the market like Booyah Pad Crasher, Jackall Iobee and Koppers Live Target frogs that look good too.
There are always times when a square-billed crankbait or a spinnerbait are going to work well, but a swim jig gets overlooked. What I like about a swim jig in shallow water is that you can wind the bait at a screaming pace and bulge a little water and really get a bass to react. You can wind it faster than a crankbait or a spinnerbait because of their resistance and in shallow hot weather, that screaming pace can be an unbelievable attractor for big bass. A big 6-pound bass can swim a lot faster than we give them credit for and speed is often a characteristic of forage that often wills bass to bite. They see a baitfish running for its life and they just nail it.
I like a swim jig with a planing surface like the Booyah Swim Jig or the All-Terrain Swim jig most of the time but will change up to a Boss Swim Jig or a Taylor Man's Swim Jig if I'm pulling it through vegetation. I put a bulky trailer on it like a Yum Wooly Bullee or a Yum F2 Money Craw when I want to imitate bluegills or something like a Zoom Swimming Fluke when I want it to mimic a shad more.
If the water is clear, a floating wacky rigged worm can be absolutely deadly. I'll take a Zoom Trick Worm and rig it on an Eagle Claw Wide Gap Wacky Hook with a split ring to hold the hook on the worm a little better, rigged wacky right through the middle of the worm. Then just skip it around twitch next to cover where bass can hide. It's deadly around docks, stumps, bushes and other shallow cover when the water is a little too clear for bigger bulkier baits.
Fishing shallow is about stealth and opportunity. Don't waste time seining banks until you get a bite or two. Move fast, hitting the obvious stuff while focusing on putting your lures where you think others haven't reached. Often it's just about putting the bait on the nose of the bass where they've not seen one. Get off the beaten path and find that skinny water way up the river and seek out the likely ambush or current and shade cooled banks to increase the odds.
We all love to fish shallow, and in the summer it might just be the way to find fish all the others have missed.
Other shallow water articles you might like:
Be a Shallow Water Angler
Summer Turns to Fall | The Science behind the seasons
Wacky Rigging for Pressured Shallow Bass
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Tue, Jun 19, 2012 @ 08:00 AM
Minnesota is a top fishing destination that much of the country never thinks about. I know being from the south, the idea of fishing in the north never really entered my mind much until I visited places like Lake Erie and Lake Champlain to see how amazing the fishing was. Minnesota was the same unknown place to me for a long time, but recently we got to see how amazing fishing can be up north and how lucky anglers that call Minnesota home are to have so many diverse fisheries.
Minnesota, known as the land of 10,000 lakes, has more water than many regions of the country. Granted most of the lakes are not very large, ranging from 100 acres to several miles in length. And there are some much larger fisheries throughout the state. But in Grand Rapids, where Wired2Fish headquarters happen to be located, there are some 1,000 bodies of water inside the county. So it's the perfect microcosm of the fishing in the state for our Visit Fish research.
We decided to sample several different lakes in the county as well as spend some time on the headwaters of the Mighty Mississippi River.
The Mississippi River in northern Minnesota is a far cry from the Mississippi River we know down south in Arkansas and Louisiana. It's filled with small rapids, clear water, lots of dense rice, cabbage and other vegetation and full of fish. Just goofing around behind the office, we tangled with several northern pike and bass on a variety of bass lures. But it was the small lakes that really turned us into fans of Minnesota fishing.
We fished several lakes over the span of a few days including Pokegama, Loon, Rice, Reilly, and Mille Lacs. It's amazing how diverse and different each lake was from the next. But even more fun was how quickly you can pattern the lakes, study the cover, and figure out the fish in a short amount of time.
However, the biggest draw for me being that I live on one of the most crowded lakes in the south (Kentucky Lake) was the lack of angling pressure we experienced. One of the lakes we saw no other boats, one lake we had one other boat besides us, one lake had two boats but they were both after panfish and we were after bass. Even the bigger lakes like Mille Lacs were easy to find huge areas of water to yourself with no angling pressure and lots of active fish.
Scott and Marty spent some time with us chasing bass early in the week before chasing walleye at the end of the week, and we were able to use a lot of our cover-reading skills to quickly assess and conquer each fishery in short order.
The amount of vegetation was astounding on the lakes. Cabbage grass grew out a bit deeper then it usually transitioned to rice or pencil reeds as you moved shallower. The waters on all the lakes we fished were very clear. The Mississippi River was clear but had a real tannic color to it. So the cover was easy to see as were a few bedding bass.
Probably the thing we enjoyed the most was having a small body of water to ourselves and honing our fish-finding, cover-reading and patterning skills. These are the types of fisheries that can take an average angler to a great angler quickly, because you can really learn to read the water, assess the mood of the fish and their position and then choose the best lures to attack them.
For us we found the bass readily willing to chase jigs out deep and shallow active lures like swim jigs, hollow-bodied frogs and soft swimming jerkbaits like Zoom Swimming Flukes. Obviously spinnerbaits and other lures could work here but we were assessing the calm clear waters and bright skies and wanted to be a little more subtle in our tempting of bass.
Our first lake, we got on the water around 5:30 p.m. That seems late until you realize it doesn't get dark this time of year until nearly 10 p.m. because we were so far north. So that gave us a solid 4 hours of fishing. Todd and Jason chased bass shallow while Scott and Terry searched for them out deep. Todd was able to get several bass chasing with a Zoom Swimming Super Fluke while Jason followed up behind him pitching a Strike King Rodent in the pencil reeds. Several times a bass would swirl on the fluke and miss it and a quick pitch of the Rodent would hook them up just about every time.
Meanwhile Terry on his first cast caught a nice keeper bass in about 18 feet of water off a sunken island. Terry and Scott went on to boat a pile of bass on football jigs with Strike King Rage Craw and Zoom Super Chunk trailers. Their best fish went 4 1/2 pounds.
Todd and I switched up to swim jigs after figuring out the best bass were on the points of pencil reeds that had deep water right up against them. We ran to the best looking point on the lake and started jamming the bass with swim jigs. We caught several bass in the 3- to 4-pound range.
The water is ultra clear in these fisheries, but because of the cover we had to use braid for much of the shallow fishing. The fish didn't seem to mind because we were moving the baits fast and seining the area for active fish. Todd fished his Flukes on 30-pound Berkley Nanofil while Jason fished with 65-pound Sunline FX2 braid. It's nice to be able to power fish shallow in clear water with heavy braid.
The next day we got to hit a few lakes. We hit one in the morning and found the bass to be extremely shallow past the cabbage and the pencil reeds and all the way up under overhanging trees along the bank in inches of water. We boated a bunch of nice bass on Flukes, swim jigs, Spro Popping Frogs and some flipping baits. It was a fun afternoon with a lot of bass caught, some to 5 pounds.
Then that evening we headed over to one of Scott and Todd's favorite lakes just a couple miles from the office and we got on the water pretty late around 6:30pm. The lake was lined with pencil reads, lily pads and some coontail. As we worked around to our first area, I saw the scattered clumps of pencil reeds as perfect ambush points for bass on a swim jig. I picked up an All-Terrain Swim jig with a Missile Baits Twin Turbo trailer and on my first cast boated a 3 1/2 pounder.
It's hard not to grin like a little kid when fishing starts making that much sense. It was like any place I thought a bass should be, there was. The obvious places with cover and depth and active forage were holding bass. They hadn't been picked over by tons of other anglers and boats. It was almost like these bass hadn't seen a lure in months.
Over the course of three hours, we laid the wood to the bass, boating lots of nice bass including our final bass of the night, a 5-pounder that ate a black Spro Popping Frog right at the boat at darn near dark. It was just such an awesome experience to have a several mile long lake all to ourselves and be able to read the water and the cover effectively and efficiently and put a lot of bass in the boat on a variety of different baits.
The bass fishing in this part of northern Minnesota is awesome. The walleye fishing is just as good, if not better at times. Scott and Marty went out testing some new walleye crankbaits from Bandit and had some banner days of walleye fishing about 90 minutes from the office.
Todd has been whacking the big smallmouths around beds the last couple of weeks on a variety of soft plastics like Hag's Tornados and black reaper type baits. To see more photos from our research, visit our Wired2Fish Facebook Page and the Minnesota Photo Gallery.
Grand Rapids puts you in the heart of some great fishing in Northern Minnesota. There are plenty of places to stay, lots of places to eat and more fishing than you can stand. You can find more information about the area at visitgrandrapids.com. You really owe it to yourself to get away on a fishing trip like this and be reminded of what fishing was once like on quiet, calm fisheries with just nothing but you and the fish.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Fri, Apr 27, 2012 @ 12:01 AM
Tournament fishing revolves around decisions and changing with the conditions
By Shaye Baker (photos by Ricky Baker)
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Tue, Mar 20, 2012 @ 08:30 AM
By Terry Brown
Frog fishing is a favorite among bass anglers everywhere. Big sticks, heavy braid and heavy cover means big explosions and big fish. A new froggy craze that we call “finesse froggin’” has cast a new tempting offering into frog fishing. It’s braided line and heavy cover, only with small frogs, a mini variety that get more bites on tough days. Great for farm ponds too, the minis are making believers out of frog experts everywhere. This new frogs are both cute and mean at the same time.
Even though small frogs, like the ones found in grandpa’s tackle box, have been around for years, the new amphibian wave is about life-like infant frogs that look just like their big brothers but with stout hooks, great skirted legs and the same action of the bigger models too, just smaller. Great for open water, docks or under overhanging trees the little hoppers can get more bites, and when they do the fish inhale it.
Several companies have created new mini-frogs to round out their lineups. They are Spro, Koppers and EVOLVE.
- Spro - Dean Rojas Bronzeye Baby Popper - modeled after the original Bronzeye Poppin’ Frog, the mini version has some of the same walking, chugging and floating characteristics as the larger model but works even better on finicky bass. Even though it’s small, it still casts like a missile and lands upright on every cast. We like the chugging noise of this little Popper. It’s a bit more subtle than its big brother and spits a small amount of water forward when pulled. It is 2 inches long and weighs ¼ ounce. The Baby Popper retails for 7.99. Click here to see other color options.
- Koppers LIVETARGET - LIVETARGET Hollow Body 45T Frog adds real life features, great paint jobs and realistic look to a small 1 3/4-inch body that weighs 1/4 ounce. It also casts well and walks, glides and scoots like its big brother. The keeled belly combined with anatomical lifelike features work well, the nose points ups, and the 45T can be worked on the surface or dead-sticked. We especially like the molded front legs and 3D eyes of this bait. It retails for $9.49. Click here to see some color options and purchase.
- EVOLVE - Pond Doctor - a relative newcomer to frogging, the Evolve Pond Doctor also has some great paint schemes and a closed cavity hollow body has a narrow profile with a bit more pointed nose. The belly is lifelike, contains rattles and it’s designed for slop and open water alike. It is 2 inches long and weighs 1/4 ounce. It retails for $6.49. View color options and purchase here.
Adding a mini-frog to your arsenal adds more diversity to your frogging and gives you the opportunity to add bites on tough pressured days.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Thu, Dec 22, 2011 @ 10:15 AM
It's Christmas time and of course that means sharing time with family but it also means there is going to be some gift exchanging going on. We get asked all the time what folks should buy for the fishing significant other. That's what started us doing the Wired2Fish Wishlists.
But we don't like to lead people astray and tell them to buy something just because it's new. We like to have held the lure, coat or rod in our hand before saying whether someone should give it as a gift to someone they care about.
It's impossible for us to review all the new tackle that comes out between ICAST and Christmas but we sure make an effort to. A lot of stuff will be coming in reviews over the next few months, tackle on these lists and not. But these are a few items that if we were buying some last minute Christmas gifts we might look for. We've provided links below to all our wishlists and in each wishlist is hopefully a link to each product and where you can buy it. Obviously a few things are not available yet so we did the best we could with that.
For those that missed our 2012 Wishlists, here are the links to each one:
Reels
Rods
Apparel
Terminal Tackle and Accessories
Sunglasses
Lures
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