Posted by Jason Sealock on Fri, Mar 30, 2012 @ 09:30 AM
Posted by Jason Sealock on Tue, Mar 27, 2012 @ 09:00 AM
My wife loves those crime dramas on television where the quirky but brilliant detectives with inept social skills pick apart people’s behaviors to back track through a possible scenario to solve murder mysteries. The skill is often called profiling, the act of figuring out the type of people capable of a crime based on a history or pattern of behavior or actions.
Experience and history in bass fishing or any type of fishing give anglers a foundation to draw from when trying to figure out when the bass change moods or patternable behaviors. We change variables constantly in fishing. To the point where it appears we’re throwing everything but the kitchen sink at them in hopes of tricking them into biting one of our 10 different lures tied to 10 different rod and reel combos.
Folks outside of hardcore fishing might think it’s more about luck, but if it were, we wouldn’t be able to predict the changes in behavior so well.
Experience has taught me that the bass react differently to different profiles of lures under different circumstances. What makes choosing the right profile difficult is I’ve seen it change from spot to spot on the same lake on the same day. For example, when the bass move offshore, I often find multiple schools in various parts of the lake. While I will clean up with a football jig on one school, the next school totally shuns it. But if I pull out a 10-inch worm and start noodling it around in the school, I go to catching them rapidly. I’ve seen it time and time again. Profile matters.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Mon, Mar 26, 2012 @ 09:00 AM
Editor's Note: We're having Baker give us an on-tour report from the Southeast Everstarts. Baker was a standout All-American in college fishing and he's proving his worth this season on the Everstart Series trail with FLW. We think this series will give you great insight to practice, finding patterns and learning from mistakes.
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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 Mon, Mar 19, 2012 @ 10:12 AM
Please melt, ice. That's a common phrase we've seen typed by anglers on Facebook lately. Fishing in the northern tiers is about to make an annual shift from house and tent to boat and bank. As the ice melts, the shanties and augers will go to the shed as the boats and tackle boxes are organized for spring fishing.
In places where bass fishing is allowed around ice out, many folks find themselves a bit stumped on where to start. Fortunately in those same northern tiers there are consistent anglers who've proven certain strategies really work when the ice disappears and the bass reappear. Quite frankly, not many folks target bass under the ice, so you're talking about fish that haven't been tempted and teased for many months – making them more willing to take a lure if you get it around one.
One of the fascinating aspects of fishing is that it is local, regional and national. What we mean by that is certain patterns, techniques, even colors seem to work on a national level, while specific techniques and colors seem to work regionally and yet you can even more narrowly define certain baits, colors and techniques that really slay the fish on just a local fishery. Many of the techniques that work on Kentucky Lake don't necessarily work on Lake Champlain or Mille Lacs.
We talked with a well known Canadian angler who knows as much about ice out strategies on natural lakes as probably anyone in bass fishing. Jeff Gustafson, aka Gussy among his fishing friends, is one of the top anglers in Ontario and the northern US. He’s won several major events in Canada including the Kenora Bass International and International Falls Bass Championship. He’s a regular guide for fishing and hunting in Ontario and also hosts a Canadian television show Fishing with Gussy.
He’s bringing his talents south this year in the FLW Tour Opens, finishing 20th in his very first FLW Tour Open tournament one Lake Okeechobee, his very first time on the lake. No doubt his natural lake experience was a big factor there as many pros with 10 years of fishing down there, still don’t have Okeechobee figured out.
But back home, he’s still guiding for fish under ice and already chomping at the bit to get started on some ice out bass fishing.
“I think the ice-out period offers anglers some of the best fishing of the year,” Gustafson said. “For a week or so after the ice goes out the smallmouth are really schooled up in large groups. Think of all the bass from a 4 or 5 mile stretch of shoreline grouped up on a single structural element. The largemouth in contrast will go shallow, looking for the warmer dark-bottomed water they can find on our natural lakes. When you find these spots you can literally catch 100 fish in a day.”
In natural lakes up north, targeting smallmouths or largemouths are much more independent situations than on highland reservoirs and river impoundments of the south. It seems on those natural lakes they have very little crossover on the places they frequent during the ice out stages and you often have to style your game plan and techniques and tactics around one or the other.
Smallmouths Deep Dynamite
Gussy offered his wisdom in both respects and it was apparent he’s developed a sweet tooth for big schools of smallmouths offshore during ice out. Initially he’ll start deep and then work shallow as the season progresses. But generally he starts 20 to 30 feet deep checking likely places like the flat at the end of an extended point or off the sides of humps. But what he regularly finds is smallmouths that have been waiting all winter for the ice to melt to put on the feedbags and gorge themselves. So, the fish are hungry and vicious. As the water warms a little, the fish will move quickly to the shallows.
“A key forage for us this time of year is smelt,” Gustafson said. “For that reason, we focus on long slender 3 to 5-inch baits.”
For the deeper smallmouths, his bait of choice is a jighead with a minnow style plastic on it like a Zoom Fluke. He pitches them and fishes them vertically or in short horizontal presentations just off the bottom around the big groups of smallmouths. He prefers a Northland Mimic Minnow jighead in either 1/4 or 3/8 ounce depending on if he’s going 20 or 30 feet deep. He likes a 4-inch Impulse Mimic Minnow or a 5-inch Trigger X Minnow. He experiments with a drop shot some too but feels he gets a more natural presentation in the depths with the jighead approach.
His approach is very methodical for the deep smallmouth. He doesn’t just cast blindly. He uses his Humminbird 1198 to pinpoint fish on the bottom. Then he drops his jig and minnow to the bottom and stops it just before it gets on the fish. He watches on the sonar and then just as he sees his bait nearing the fish on the bottom, he stops it. The cat and mouse game works wonders for starving smallmouths.
“It’s sort of like if you crash the jig into the bottom, you tip the fish off that something is up,” he said. “You have to be sure it never touches bottom. The fish are looking up for their food. You have to hold it as still as possible. Just get it to their level and don’t jig it up and down. They come up and crush it.”
His tackle for deep jigging smallmouths is 7-foot, 4-inch G.Loomis Bronzeback Medium heavy power rod and a Shimano Stradic 3000 reel with 10-pound Power Pro braid with a 4-foot, 10-pound fluorocarbon leader.
After the water starts to warm up, the smallmouths bolt for the shallows. This is when he really whacks the fish on a jerkbait. He believes a suspending jerkbait out-fishes every other presentation in the small window from ice-out to prespawn. Because the water is cold though he’s again real methodical and slow in his approach.
He works the bait quickly down a few feet and then throws long pauses into the presentation. His favorite bait hands down is a No. 10 Rapala X-Rap jerkbait.
“The X-Rap is so easy to use,” he said. “It runs perfect out of the box. Casts well. Suspends perfectly.”
This is a real feast or famine time of the year for smallmouths and Gussy’s advice is simple. If you’re not catching fish, move. They are not going to be everywhere. You are looking for those places where the fish want to be connected to some sort of structure – a point, a hump, a saddle, boulder slide, etc. You run the high percentage areas and eventually you’re going to find the fish foraging in an area. Again there will be spots on a certain area that will be cast after cast of fish fighting action. That’s what you’re looking for. So if you’re not catching fish, it’s on to the next area that offers feeding and structure opportunities.
For his jerkbait fishing he likes 6-foot, 8-inch medium heavy rods with 6.3:1 reels and 10-pound fluorocarbon line.
Largemouth Iced Tea
Largemouths on natural lakes seem to take on a totally different personality than their brown brethren in the ice out period. Instead of grouping up deep they seem to rush right to the shallows looking for the warmest sun soaked bottoms in the lake. The weeds are obviously dead this time of year, but typically those weed covered bottoms will be black and dark and radiate more heat than other sandy parts of the lake.
Gustafson looks for depressions, ditches, troughs and slight depth changes that offer them some travel routes and safe havens when the weather changes. He’s also hoping for warmer and sunny days as that tends to increase the ice out bass’s feeding and activity levels. Likewise afternoons are better than mornings as the warmest waters will be found late in the day after longer periods of sun.
Baits like the Senko are a top choice for largemouths roaming the shallows of these clear natural lakes of the north. Gustafson prefers a Northland Impulse Dip-Stick in black, watermelon, watermelon red or other natural popular colors. He wacky rigs the soft stickbaits on 2/0 Gamakatsu Wide Gap Finesse hooks. It’s a deadly combination for clean, shallow water.
But more importantly he likes to fish the bait on 20-pound yellow Power Pro braid with a 12-pound fluoro leader.
“I started using the yellow braid last year and it really pays off with certain techniques like this,” Gussy said. “More than 90 percent of your bites on soft stickbaits come on the initial fall, and it’s like having a strike indicator with that yellow braid because you’ll see your line jump when one bites. You want the bait to sink on completely slack line, so you won’t feel the bite. You have to see it on your line.”
He uses a 7-foot, 1-inch GLX Senko rod from G.Loomis and a Shimano Sustain spinning reel.
The only time he changes his ice out approach for largemouths is during those cold front days. This causes the bass to back off the shallow bays and move to the first little change to deeper water out from the bays. There he will use finesse crankbaits like a Rapala Shad Rap. But his absolute favorite is a DT3 Flat. He will target those depressions and subtle breaks where the largemouths seem to stack on those nasty cold days.
“I have nearly worn the paint off some of my crankbaits on some of the nasty days during the ice out period,” he said. “On lakes like Lake of the Woods or Rainy Lake, you can just crush the bass with this technique. It’s amazing how deadly crankbaits are for largemouth when they pull back and get in this mood in the north country. Yet still a lot of people don’t use crankbaits for bass in the ice out period. But I’m not complaining!”
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Fri, Mar 16, 2012 @ 09:55 AM
Alan McGuckin snapped some random photos at the weigh-in on Day One at Palatka, Fla. for the Bassmaster Elite Series 2012 kickoff tournament. The fishing was tough for much of the field but still some impressive limits and big bass were brought in as is always the case at this venue. J.Todd Tucker leads after one day of competition. Here are some shots from the weigh-in.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Fri, Mar 16, 2012 @ 12:01 AM
By Terry Brown
Warming temperatures in the Spring bring out the birds, bluegills and bass anglers. Many of the country’s fisherman have been cooped up indoors sorting tackle, getting boats ready and dreaming about warmer days.
Springtime is also jerkbait time, and this year that could be a short window of opportunity as bass move very quickly from their deep water haunts to spawn. Most spring seasons, anglers have several weeks for fish to move up in stages, but with all indications pointing towards an early spawn, there may be only a few days where they stage. Believe it or not, in a recent two-day period, we have seen water temperatures jump 24 degrees from 40 to 64 degrees.
Staging bass will still be ready for jerkbaits, but that window could be very short. Prespawn could be replaced with spawn and post spawn this year. Umbrella rig anglers might love it, but jerkbait anglers may have to rely on post spawners to show the value of these deadly shad imitators.
I have had the pleasure of utilizing jerkbaits to my advantage for many years. I see them as a way to catch deep-water suspending prespawn bass, shallow water staging bass on flats, and bass on main lake blow-downs prior to spawn.
I have been fortunate enough to follow the bait evolution from early days to present. Our first baits were all topwaters we built into suspenders. A little solder, some golf club tape and even drilling and lead pouring were some of our early efforts. We even used rubber core lead sinkers around the hook shanks to give these jerk and divers their action. Some anglers talk about the good old days, but with jerkbaits, the good old days are now.
Gone is the necessity to customize. It is now replaced with factory models that not only look sweet but also perform much better than the make shift models of yesteryear.
Jerkbaits, rip baits, stick baits, twitch baits or whatever you may call them are now designed to suspend indefinitely, slowly rise or even sink a bit depending on design. Colors vary but manufacturing processes have allowed for much better and more realistic looking shad and minnow imitators. Depending on water clarity there is a color combination for just about every body of water.
Here are nine jerkbaits for you to consider. They are in no particular order of rank just numbered to correspond with the above photo. You may have others but these baits have been tested, won events and will always be part of my jerkbait arsenal. Click the underlined titles to see the available colors, sizes and prices of each.
1. Ito Vision 110 Family - A relative newcomer to this genre and one that, by design, is difficult to get in certain colors, the Ito Vision family of jerkbaits shines across the country when conditions demand a suspending presentation. A creative and unique body style casts easily thanks to a weight-transfer system that makes it rear weighted on the cast and front weighted when sitting horizontal in the water. To familiarize yourself with this proven tournament winner, read our recent review here.
2. Smithwick Rattlin' Rogue (Suspending) - One of the earliest baits to come out in a suspending model, the Rattlin' Rogue has a large following across the country. I particularly like the model with the three Excalibur hooks and foil finish. The larger model, 5 ½ inches, is the one I prefer for castability, but the smaller one, 4 ½ inches, can be equally effective. Even if the water is super clear, I like rattles in my jerkbaits so bass can find them with sound and flash over deeper water. Smithwick makes them in a wide variety of colors, but I have several hand painted models that get a special place in my boat. For some reason, in my area a bit of pink on the bait seems to be the ticket for early season bass, and I have several varieties of that color on several baits. Pay attention to accent colors that really seem to trigger fish on your fishery.
3. Spro McStick - A relative newcomer to the genre of fishing baits but due to painstaking detail design by stickbait expert Mike McClelland and the Spro designers, it came out with a bang. Again, the colors look good and the bait is effective right out of the package. Perfectly balanced, the McStick suspends very well even in cold water. I have put larger round-bend, short-shank hooks on them at times to get them to slow sink like a dying shad. They display a side-to-side action on the fall too.
4. Lucky Craft Pointer - One of the first premier jerkbait providers that changed how other companies built their products, the Pointer 78 and 100 are mainstays to jerkbait tackle boxes, and their color selection is unmatched. I really like the paint jobs on these baits especially Aurora Black, Bloody Chartreuse Shad, and Ghost Pearl Ayu. A very unique balancing system has made this a great bait for long pause retrieves. They have a very low center of gravity due to a brass weight system, and the bait wobbles and vibrates slightly when stopped. The Pointer shines in cold water situations, and it affords anglers long casts, even in high winds.
5. Reaction Strike XRM - A hidden jewel, out of Indiana, the XRM 80 and 100 are high motion offerings that suspend very well. The heavy lip design combined with a beefy body style allows them to be thrown long distances, and a specially designed J-Trough inside the bait positions a bearing to travel to the rear of the bait when it is cast. A small tail mounted bearing gives it a subtle rattle and three ball bearings in the belly allows them to suspend horizontally even in cold water. Ghost Minnow is my favorite color.
6. Lucky Craft Flash Minnow - the Flash Minnow 95 and 110 are shallow running cousins of the Pointer, and I like to fish them off the edges of shallow gravel flats and around docks. The lip is positioned near the nose of the bait and can be fished in 2-5 feet of water effectively. It too has the brass balancing system, and due to its bulk, it can be accurately cast long distances.
7. Rapala X-Rap - the X-Rap is jerkbait with a ton of versatility. It can be cast or trolled equally well thanks to its precision center weighting. The X-Rap has an action unlike many of the previous mentioned due to its nose forward bill. When jerked it dives quickly, nose down and slashes from side to side very well. Active fish love this action, and the color schemes of this line up makes it a great bait that provides a ton of flash. I like Albino Shad, Glass Ghost and Purple Ghost the best.
8. Rapala Husky Jerk - This classic jerkbait is precisely balanced and runs true right out of the box. I like to fish it in shallow water applications, 4-6 feet in a jerk-and-go style. Many hits occur after the bait is paused and then starts moving again. It is neutrally buoyant bait, so it suspends very well. Due to the weight of the larger models, it too can be cast very well. Favorite two colors are Silver and Helsinki Shad in this bait.
9. Jackall Squad Minnow - I have some of the early models of this bait, and it too fits in a category by itself, in my opinion. It’s more of a glide bait and has a tighter wiggle that allows it to be jerked fast. I like to use this bait on points and channel swings and like to use it when water temps are near 55 degrees. The Squad Minnow’s weight system is the reason a stop, dart and go action works well with this bait.
Early spring is the best time to use these types of minnow imitators, but I have caught fish year round on them. When the bite is tough, even in summer months, it may be a good idea to remember the jerkbait. Remember, clear water is best suited for this genre of baits and using fluorocarbon has added a great way to feel and catch more fish for me.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Tue, Mar 13, 2012 @ 12:10 AM
We've been asked a lot lately on our recommendations for throwing swimbaits on castable umbrella rigs, like The Alabama Rig. There are so many different swimbaits on the market and we won't even attempt to cover them all, but we'll instead give you 10 options that cover a wide spectrum of choices and tell you what is unique about each and how folks have employed them effectively.
Some considerations are how many come to a pack, the price, the sizes offered and the colors offered as well as how well they attach to a jighead as opposed to a weighted belly hook. A lot of anglers have found success using four smaller sizes and then a bigger one in the middle. Lance Walker who caught and released a fish that likely would have beat the Tenn. State Record largemouth bass, and his fishing buddy Jimmy Mason who has caught numerous fish over 10 pounds on Umbrella rigs often uses four 3 1/2-inch money minnows with a 5-inch money minnow in the middle.
We've found that keeping all the baits the same color or close to the same color seems to help so that they look like a naturally occurring pod of baitfish. I've seen times where one bait being just slightly different can often yield a lot of hookups as we see the bass may be keying on that different looking bait in cleaner water. Jury is still out on that as a concrete rule though.
We have seen where changing the profile of the swimbaits totally makes a different. For example, I might have five Zoom Swimming Flukes on my castable umbrella rig and my partner has five Berkley Split Bellies on his rig and one of us will really blast them for a while and then the other profile baits will get hot for a while. So there is definitely something to the changing profile. We figure it's like getting a school going on one color of crankbait and then when it cools off pick up another color to get them going again. Or switching from a jig to a worm to catch a few more fish out of a school. Same seems to be true at times with castable umbrella rigs.
The following are 10 popular and also not as common options that have been getting a lot of success on the various castable umbrella rigs. Click on the underlined swimbait below to go to an online ordering source.
1. Berkley PowerBait Split Belly - This is the more recent iteration of the Berkley swimbait that began as the Hollow Belly swimbait. We like the Split Belly swimbait for a few reasons. They have great looking natural colors. The split belly has a more durable head that seems to rig more consistently on the jigheads for us. The fact that the swimbait is not a double laminate pour gives the tail much more noticeable action on the rig as opposed to other hollow bellied swimbaits. 3-pack $5.49
2. Yum Money Minnow - very similar to the split belly, but it has a narrower minnow like profile which we like and the different sizes and natural baitfish colors have worked really well on various umbrella rigs. The swimbaits rig well on jig heads but seem to tear up a little faster than some of the other options. Plastic glues like Mend-It work wonders to repair torn baits though. 4-pack $8.99
3. Big Hammer Swimbait Tails - These shad bodied tails come a large variety of colors and have some great translucent finishes and unique colors for more stained water. They feature a big square pad tail that really kicks and makes the baits swim and roll through the water on an umbrella rig. They come in a large range of sizes too so you can downsize and upsize accordingly to fit the changing moods of the fish. 4-pack $3.49
4. Zoom Swimmin Super Fluke - The Zoom Swimming Fluke offers a much more finesse approach to castable umbrella rigs. We really like it on the thinner wire rigs and in clearer water where big bulk profiles might just be too distracting for the fish. They also come 6 to a pack which makes them a convenient, affordable option to load a five-bait rig quickly and easily. 5 pack $3.79
5. Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper - The grass choice for us is the Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper. If we're fishing around grass beds or in shallow water, for some reason the fish just really seem to like this swimbait and it seems to be equally well in the larger sizes out deep too. It comes in two great sizes, lots of great colors and again offers a more subtle swimming action which can often be the key in highly pressured areas. 7 pack $4.89
6. Go2Baits Jolt Swimbait - The softest swimbait we've tested thus far has been the Jolt Swimbait. The tail just lays over passed the head when you do the upside down test to measure tail kick on a swimbait. If you hold a swimbait head down by the head and let the tail flop over to the side, you can see how much action the tail is going to have in the water. Will it be a big wobbling tail or just a tight wiggle. This bait has a shimmy and shake that makes it very unique and that soft plastic they use at Go2 is going to make this a killer option. 5 pack $6.29
7. Lake Fork Tackle Live Magic Shad - The uniquely jointed body of the Magic Shad has put this swimbait in a class of its own in other applications and the same seems to be holding true on a castable umbrella rig. It's interesting to see this bait swim with more of a side to side snake action than the typical wobble roll of many other swimbaits on the market. Again the change of profile and action have yielded some great catches. This is another broad bodied bait that offers many colors and sizes. 4 pack $5.99
8. Optimum Double Diamond - We already loved the Double Diamond for deeper swimbait applications and on the backs of swim jigs, but now it's proven to be another great change up shape and action. It has a rounded paddle tail boot with a wedged body that displaces and makes the baits wobble and kick out occasionally. It can be precarious to rig on a jighead, but biting a little off the end can make it go on a jig head a little easier because of it's narrow neck design. 10 pack $9.99
9. Poor Boys Baits Silly Rabbit - This solid, hand pour split belly swimbait offers very unique colors, a flat kicking tail, lifelike eyes and more that make it a real unique offering. The fact that they are not as easy to find locally also makes them a nice ace in the hole when we know no one else is throwing this exact bait on our local fisheries. 3-Pack $8.59
10. Mizmo N-Seine Shad - A spin off of the Rabid Shad, the N-Seine Shad is a smaller profile shad type body style that mimics those young 2-3 inch shad. The bait features a unique upside down tail that actually kicks really well and gives the bait a good uniform school look on an umbrella rigs. We've been experimenting with them with some smaller castable rigs and really like how they look in the water. Another good smaller offering to mix it up on the fish. 6 pack $5.50
Those are 10 swimbaits we've liked so far on castable umbrella rigs that give us a lot of different looks and presentations with the rigs. As we all know, changing it up and keeping it interesting for the fish is the name of the game. We want it to look like a school of fish, but not everyone else's school of fish if you know what we mean.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Fri, Mar 09, 2012 @ 09:08 AM
Got your attention, didn't we? Bass react to crankbaits much the same way you probably are right now to that statement... "What was that?" You hear or see something and then you get curious and come in for a closer look. Sometimes it's just annoying, sometimes it's really good and you want more. You pounce on the stuff that looks good. Sometimes you pounce on the stuff that just annoys you too. Same with the bass on a favorite crankbait.
We were thinking about crankbaits recently and discussing with some pros how they can be very regional. On the Tennessee River system, a Bomber Fat Free Shad and Strike King 6XD have become legends on the ledges. On the Ozark White River Lakes in Missouri and Arkansas, the Storm Wiggle Wart has carved out a niche for itself. In the Carolina's, the Poe's Cedar crankbaits made a name for themselves, thanks to the prowess of guys like David Fritts and David "Smiley" Wright. Flat sided crankbaits in East Tennessee have been guarded secrets of the pros for years
But after covering the Bassmaster Classic in Shreveport last month and a recent trip or two in Kentucky, we've seen how effective one particular crankbait is in cold water, regardless of where you are in the country. The Rapala Shad Rap.
The Rapala Shad Rap has been around for several decades and yet it's ability to catch big fish has stood the test of time. It's a simple shape and size that mimics a wide variety of forage. It comes in four different sizes so you can effectively cover water from 1 foot to 14 feet or so. It comes in about every color imaginable but most anglers will keep it to 2 - 4 colors usually.
Over the last couple of decades, it's really carved its niche with bass fishermen hunting bass in cold waters. The fact that many fisheries clear up in the winter, and the very natural styling and subtle side to side rolling action of the crankbait make it tremendously appealing visually to the fish.
No Boundaries
Ott Defoe used a Rapala Shad Rap to post a top-five finish in his first Bassmaster Classic on a fishery where a Shad Rap probably wasn't even considered an option by most locals or the rest of the Classic field for that matter. In practice he was able to come through areas behind other competitors and catch some big bass. That's another key attribute: it's diminutive profile makes it a great follow up crankbait in crowded waters.
Northern anglers have long used the Shad Rap to tempt bass all seasons of the year and it's equally deadly on other game fish, like walleye up north. I've had some unbelievable days fishing a shad rap in Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York and other places on natural lakes. Again it's profile and size and color options give you the ability to match a lot of local forage in the northern climes.
In the Midwest, the Shad Rap has proved to be effective for not only largemouth but also big smallmouths and spotted bass too. Several recent outings have proved that to us in water ranging from slightly muddy to slightly stained. Again color options and the larger No. 8 and No. 9 lures give you a lot of options and flexibility.
Terry Bolton was fishing with me recently and we both pulled out the same crankbait to start attacking the bass in 52 degree water -- a Rapala Shad Rap. I grabbed my favorite No. 8 Shad Rap in the original Crawdad color. It's got a distinct orange belly and darker brown back. Bolton reached for a No. 5 Shad Rap in the original Shad color.
Our first point yielded a small keeper and a couple non-keepers. The second point yielded a 6-plus-pound bass that fell for the No. 8 Crawdad Shad rap. Our next couple of banks weren't productive, so we jumped to another bay. It wasn't long before Bolton had a chunky 4-pounder take his Shad Rap after a slight change. he picked up a No. 8 in the new Dark Brown Craw. A few casts later and Bolton boated one weighing more than 6-pounds as well.
It wasn't the first time either of us had thrown the Shad Rap this year, but it was the first time they had been that productive this season.
Taking the Rap
In the prespawn, fish will begin migrating from their main lake and deep water haunts and start matriculating back into bays, pockets and creek arms feeding up, staging and eventually moving shallow to spawn. Staging is nothing more than when bass group up in schools, usually in a little deeper water, to forage and wait for conditions to get optimal to move shallow, spread out to start making nests and pair up for the spawn. Fish will group on channel swings, points, ditches and channels near adjacent flats and bays where they will spawn.
Often Bolton will start on the main lake and work into pockets and the mouths of bigger bays and cast the Shad Rap around to the bank and bring it out into the deeper water. If there have been several warming days in a row, the fish will often get shallower and up on the banks more. Wind and water color can also move them a lot shallower so he likes to have a variety of sizes and colors available to him.
Bolton will fish the baits on two basic setups. A Denali medium action spinning rod with a Lew's spinning reel or the Denali Michael Murphy jerkbait baitcasting rod with a Lew's Tournament Pro reel. With both setups he uses Sufix Tritanium 10-pound line. He likes that line size so he can land bigger bass with some confidence and also because that size and smoothness of the Tritanium line casts well on either a baitcaster or spinning reel.
"That line is so smooth and it has some stretch, which is extremely handy with Shad Raps because their narrow wobble and profile will enable them to get into some crevices and you're going to have to be good at popping them free," Bolton said. "But with this mono it's got some stretch but not as much as most other mono which makes it really good at pulling slack and popping a hung Shad Rap free without having to go up and get it. I've caught some big bass popping it off a stump like that too."
Bolton keeps a variety of sizes and colors on his deck and will alternate depending on depth and water clarity.
"Day in and day out, that orange one [crawdad] is hard to beat," he said. "That color works when it's real muddy as well as it does when it's real clear in the water."
Target Zone
Bolton really pays close attention to the banks, size of the rock, available cover when searching with a Shad Rap. He also is constantly searching for those subtle transition places where bass can move up from deeper water to a shallow flat quickly. The bass will often move up and feed on those small flats right next to deep water and then slide back off into deeper water and wait for the water to warm up.
As far as fishing the Shad Rap, slow and steady is the norm.
"I really don't do anything fancy with a Shad Rap," Bolton said. "It seems to me over there years that the fish just prefer that slow steady craw where you're just occassionally ticking the bottom and the bait is just easing along really unassuming."
Most of the times the bites are just going to feel like a little more pressure on the rod. That's why it's so important to use a rod that gives you great feel and a forgiving tip. Not only can you feel bites and subtle changes better but a whippy tip will allow the small bait to load harder and let you really catapult the bait out there on a hard whip of the rod.
So it works from Canada to Louisiana and everywhere in between. It's subtle wobble makes it perfect for lethargic bass just getting back to feeding. That natural profile, action and colors of the bait make it a great follow up lure in pressured waters. The range of sizes enable an angler to cover depth zones from the bank out to 12-14 feet. Difficulty casting in the wind can be overcome with a larger size or more finesse spinning tackle and lighter line. It truly has no boundaries and that's why we think it's the best coldwater crankbait ever.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Tue, Mar 06, 2012 @ 04:57 AM
By Jason Sealock
Bass fishing knows no bounds. It’s what we like about it. Certain times of the year the bass will eat the biggest baits you can find. Other times they won’t touch anything bigger than a pinky nail. Sometimes they’re roaming flat shallow flats and other times they’re on steep vertical structure. Sometimes they’re right on the bottom and sometimes they’re suspending just under the surface, soaking up rays and germinating the next garden of bass fry.
What has always appealed to us about bass fishing is the puzzle. Understanding and gaining experience from different situations breeds confidence. Part of being successful is knowing how to attack the different seasons and the other part is knowing how to attack different forms of structure and cover. And then what tools best entice the fish given those two things combined yields success and fun days on the water.
One thing readers have been asking about is how to attack bluffs, both visible above the water and concealed underneath it. The big mistake we see novice anglers make is making up their mind that they need to be fishing bluffs and not understanding that it’s like any other structure. You don’t just meander through a flat covered with standing timber, or start flipping matted grass in acres of matted grass. You have to figure out what’s going on in the area under the water and attack those intersection points.
We talked to a very successful bluff angler recently and picked his brain about how he targets and effectively plucks off bass from them. FLW Tour pro Dan Morehead has had a bunch of success targeting bass relating to bluffs and was a little reluctant to let the cat out of the bag.
“Bluffs have been my little secret for a while because it seems like not a lot of anglers are fishing the channel swings and bluffs above and under the water,” Morehead said. “It seems like when we get to the prespawn, everyone is targeting points and pockets and not really looking at what the channels are doing. I like to look for channel swings which are nothing more than bluffs underwater.”
A channel swing is one of the most productive areas to find prespawn bass and yet many anglers still don’t understand this bluff creating option. A channel swing is simply an area where a creek or river channel turns, runs along a bank, then turns back away from the bank. At times it happens on a point, other times it happens on a regular bank. Sometimes you can see the noticeable change in rock on the bank. Some channel swings are far enough off the bank that the bluff is actually masked by further sediment and erosion above the water line.
Channel swings aren’t the only bluffs anglers can fish. But often it can make finding feeding zones a lot faster because it offers distinct transition zones. Before the channel swings in close to the bank there will often be a flatter bank and generally smaller rock, gravel or even clay. Then as the channel swings in closer, the rock will change to large chunk rock, boulders or bluff rock. Then as it swings away again there will be another distinct transition from steep sheer faces to more gradual broken up rock.
Obviously the cover on a bluff can have an impact on the productivity and fishing along the bluff. Many bluffs are lined with standing timber at various depths. You can also have rock slides that form underwater points, piles and other irregularities in the otherwise sheer contour. Obviously these changes in areas and cover can hold forage and more importantly offer bass an ample feeding zone.
According to Morehead, other things clue him to better bluffs than others. The presence of baitfish is not only important but can be the tell when it comes to reading the bass’s bluff. How the baitfish position on the bluff can determine their activity level and what bait imitators will be most effective.
“The baitfish will position in different places,” he said. “Sometimes the bait is suspending and that is where the fish will move in and feed. Other times the bait gets out deep on the ends and you have to fish out there. But it’s all about locating where the channel kicks in and kicks out. The wind will position the bait a lot of the time where you can target the bluffs.”
One of Morehead’s favorite bluff lakes is Table Rock Lake in Southern Missouri. He loves the lake and has had some solid finishes there fishing bluffs. He’s also had great success on Kentucky Lake, Lake of the Ozarks, Beaver Lake and other highland impoundments and river systems across the Midwest and South. But Table Rock is where he’s had the fondest memories.
“It’s taken me 15 years to learn a lot of spots where bluffs offer those swings and adjacent feeding flats,” he said. “I caught a 6-pound, 15-ounce spotted bass a few years ago in an FLW Tour event on Table Rock fishing a bluff. There was a bluff that came to a point and the channel swung away and right on the end of it there was a big ole cedar tree there. Those bluffs setup perfect. It was a good bluff, had wind on it, and a big isolated piece of cover that made targeting a bass on that particular bluff easy.”
You can find a bluff on just about any lake. Obviously river impoundments will have a lot more, but many lakes have bluff type banks in the backs of bays that hardly get worked properly. Often that last swing of deep water in the back of a bay can be a secondary staging area that can really congregate bass.
Terry Brown and I fished some bluffs and channel swings on Guntersville a few springs ago and had some banner catches and limits topping 25 pounds on several days fishing small isolated feeding zones along the swings and bluffs. One we literally found looking at a map after having success on another one. The thing to remember is that it may not look like a bluff above the water but if a channel swings in close to a bank, there is a bluff under the water somewhere. It’s knowing and reading that lip and stair stepping rock and using lures that can effectively cover the water column vertically as well as horizontally that will give you success catching bass on the river.
Morehead will fish spinnerbaits, crankbaits, jigs, and jerkbaits have become his staple presentation when the water clarity allows, but his latest addition to the arsenal has become the Alabama Rig. Morehead targets those same suspending bass that fall for jerkbaits with 5 baits at once and loves the new found success on the castable umbrella rigs.
Lifting and dropping jigs down steps of rock on bluffs and swings is extremely effective. Morehead recounted many trips where he was dragging football jigs out 30-40 feet deep on the flats at the ends of the bluffs where the channel turned away from the bank or point and catching wads of bass staging to move up when the water warmed.
Crankbaits and spinnerbaits can be equally effective, albeit in different ways. When the bluffs get a bit of tinge to them in the early spring and waters begin to warm, colored water can make bass feel comfortable enough to rise up in the water column and get close to the faces of the bluff. This is when tight parallel presentations down the bluff can be effective crankbaits and spinnerbaits fished horizontally.
Bluffs are often associated with gin clear water and fishing vertically. That can be effective of course, but we had a recent outing with Bandit 200 and 300 crankbaits where the water had muddied and there was a bit of current on the bluff corners and little points created by jutting outward rocks. The bass were right against the rock. In fact, you had to put the crankbait on the rock face and by the second or third turn of the handle you were leaning into a fish.
Jerkbaits like the Megabass Ito Vision 110 have become mainstays in pro angler tackle boxes on bluff lakes like Table Rock, Beaver Lake, Lake of the Ozarks, Wilson Lake in Alabama, the canyon lakes out West and southern border lakes in Texas. The ability to draw bass from depths with erratic actions and sounds and then sit motionless, with a taunting scowl, has made them very effective on bluffs.
Often targeting bluffs with cover like deep standing timber can be a very effective technique with the jerkbait. Often times the bass can be relating to suspending schools of bait hanging near the bluff faces. We often start working parallel down a bluff, then fan out as we get to the swings on the ends of the bluffs making multiple casts onto the flatter sweeping banks at the ends of the bluffs.
Wind, overcast and sun can move the fish around on a bluff. Morehead recalls several times where cloudy days drove the fish deeper and he had to use things like jigs and drop shots to target the bass. Where on sunny days he’s caught big fish burning spinnerbaits high in the water column. Wind can position baitfish closer to the rocks, cause fish to move up higher in the water column and make them a little more willing to chase a little. So it’s wise to note the conditions and adjust if you’re not getting bites targeting one zone or area in the water column along a productive bluff.
Bluffs are like any other target in fishing. Whether it’s humps, ledges, points, docks, seawalls, grass beds or bluffs, there are multiple variables to consider. Fish it all until you figure out the pattern inside the structure. Maybe the fish are up on the flat ends of the bluffs. Maybe they are holding on isolated pieces of cover or rock slides on the bluffs. Maybe they are suspending on the bait. Maybe they are up against the rocks because of wind and water color. Fish it all until you figure out the key spot along the bluff and then chances are you can run that key spot on several other bluffs.
Closer to the spawn we’ll have a feature on bedding bass on bluffs.
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Mon, Mar 05, 2012 @ 08:00 AM
Bass fishing spotted bass in the “other” Alabama river system
Photos and article by Shaye Baker
When discussing giant spotted bass in the southeast, a lot of the talk centers on the Coosa River. With fisheries like Jordan, Mitchell and Lay Lake making so much noise in the fishing world, there is often little mention of the Black Warrior River and the lakes that make it up. Don’t be fooled, however, the Warrior is a mecca for giant spots as well, and many experts believe it will be the location of the next state-record spotted bass.
The Black Warrior River is the largest watershed entirely in the state of Alabama. It’s composed of the Locust Fork or Little River and the Mulbery Fork which flows out of Smith Lake. Logs, rock bluffs, lily pads and pea gravel points present different cover to compose a diverse fishery. The Warrior has some current but nowhere near as much as the Coosa since its dams aren’t the primary source of hydroelectric power generation for the area.
One thing that does set the Warrior apart from the Coosa according to local expert and FLW Tour pro Kyle Mabrey is the lack of pressure. For years now, Mabrey has fished and competed on both Bankhead and Holt, the two northern most fisheries on the Warrior, and he can attest to the lack of competition over fishing spots. Unless it’s the weekend there are typically only a handful of people out enjoying these stellar fisheries.
“The Warrior is a healthy river system with a lot of bait, bass and little pressure,” said Mabrey. “The existing Alabama state record spot of 8-15 came from Smith Lake just above here, but a local fisheries biologist told me shock studies would indicate Bankhead holds the next state record.”
Every year during the transition from winter to spring, anglers fool giant spots feeding up for the spawn. In recent weeks several 6-pound-plus spotted bass have been caught and weighed in local tournaments held on Bankhead and Holt. Thanks to the five-headed monster that is the castable umbrella rig, the number of big spots caught this year seems a little higher than in years passed.
Mabrey has put his own spin on the umbrella rig, creating a version by hand that he believes to be better because it’s made up of stronger components.
“All the stuff I use for the rig you can find on my website, theyellowhammerrig.com,” said Mabrey. “We have the jigheads, swimbaits and line all in one place.”
The Yellow Hammer Rig, as he calls it, produced several quality fish during our recent trip to Holt including several chunky spots and two giant 13- to 15-pound hybrid striped bass. Judging by the ferociousness of the fish and their body type, there is no doubt that the Warrior is one of the most fertile breeding grounds for giant spots in the whole southeast.
As to whether these bass are the exact same strain of bass that run the rapid waters of the Coosa is a bit of a mystery. Genetically they are very similar and there have been rumors that the Coosa strain of spots was introduced to the Warrior, but Mabrey believes them to be an inherent species to the region.
“I refer to them all as Alabama Spots because the Coosa is the Coosa and the Warrior is the Warrior but they are in both of them,” said Mabrey. “One things for sure, they aren’t Kentucky spots.”
Since the spotted bass spend most of their lives in the main river, anglers will discover the majority of the bigger ones on the Warrior there. Laden with channel swings, bluffs and boulders all along the main river run, the Warrior serves up great cover and staging locations for the bass.
As these bass move up in late winter early spring from their “sanctuary depths” of around 30-plus feet, they have only two things on their mind; full bellies and spring loving. This is why so many giants are caught just before the spawn.
“As they stage, I’ve seen some of the biggest ones caught,” Mabrey said. “The potential over that two or three week period to see a 7- or 8-pounder is highly likely especially with the rig out there now.”
If you choose to fish in one of the tail races during that feeding frenzy, you have to look for current breaks or the slack zones where there’s a seam in the current. The spots will also hang right on the bottom, right behind rocks and logs and down in holes.
In addition to the Yellow Hammer Rig, Mabrey will use a few other pre-umbrella-rig baits to unlock some of the bass from the current. Jerkbaits, topwaters and crankbaits are all good but one of his favorites is still the single swimbait. He rigs a 6-inch Basstrix Swimbait on a 3/4-ounce Buckeye J-Will Swimbait Head.
“I’ve had minimal success on heads bigger than 3/4-ounce,” said Mabrey. “It would be good if you were fishing in 30 feet of water but the 3/4-ounce jighead does just about all I need it to do in the shallower current.”
If you’re fishing further downstream from one of the dams, then the fish will set up on the upriver side of points and rocks. By positioning themselves in the face of the current they let the current bring the food to them. One of Mabrey’s baits of choice for this approach is a football head jig.
“I like to judge the weight of my jig by whatever it takes for me to stay in good contact with the bottom,” Mabrey said. “That contact indicates to me where the best places are to fish. With that jig I can tell if I’m fishing rock, gravel or just muddy bottom.”
The harder bottom is what you want to look for. Extensions of a point or the edge of a flat with a good hard spot are ideal habitat for a feeding spot readying itself for the spawn. Spawning spots bed a little deeper than largemouths so they are harder to see. Just like largemouth, though, they love to spawn on stumpy roots, so Mabrey will often work the edge of a flat for spots that are feeding and then work the entire flat looking for individual stumps that a spawner might be using. Spawners are easy to catch but hard to find on the Warrior, generally speaking.
Spots bed a little deeper so they are harder to see when they do spawn. He uses his graph a lot to try and locate areas with stumps or big rocks that are out of the current in about 4 to 8 feet of water.
“I rely a lot on my Humminbird this time of year to find the areas with the right bottom composition,” said Mabrey. “The spotted bass also spawn heavily on seawalls. There’s something they like about that 2 or 3 feet of vertical cover where they can have their back to the wall.”
Mabrey uses a topwater to locate the bedding spots and a shaky head or jig to pluck them off the bed if they won’t commit to the topwater. For the football jig, he uses a 734 Powell Rod. For the single swimbait it’s a 735 Powell and for the Yellow Hammer a 775. He uses Hi Seas 100% Fluorocarbon line and Hi Seas Grand Slam Braid.
If you have the desire to tie into one of these giant Warrior River spots then make your way down to the river. There are several well-kept boat ramps that can be used to access the fishery and an abundance of quality fish ripe for the picking. Do to the abnormally warm winter that we have experienced here in the south this may very well be the spring when the state record is broken. Instead of being lethargic due to cold water, all these fish have fed throughout the winter and are now full of shad and eggs. Come get in on the fun this spring.
More Visit Fish destinations:
H. Neely Henry
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Posted by Jason Sealock on Fri, Mar 02, 2012 @ 11:35 AM
Three is a magical number. Okay except most of us don’t believe in magic. But it’s hard to deny the significance of the number three. A triple play is more impressive than a double play. A three-peat is more impressive than a repeat. In photography there is this golden rule of thirds for framing and composing photographs by putting compelling aspects of the shot in the left and right or upper and lower thirds. It makes an ordinary photo more dynamic in some instances.
In fishing there is another rule of thirds and it has more to do with weather than glamour. In many parts of the country, it’s prespawn. In the northern tier it will be prespawn very soon albeit some folks don’t get to enjoy prespawn because of nonsensical closed seasons. But here in the Midwest and parts of the South, the prespawn is happening right now.
We learned many years ago to watch the weather to be a successful angler. And it’s not watching today’s weather or tomorrow’s weather; it’s watching weather patterns. Cold fronts have a distinctive cycle that generally is three days. There is the blow day when the front is coming in. That can be some great fishing by the way. Then there is the cold front day. And then generally there is a cold, high sky, no wind day that is post frontal day, often some of the worst fishing.
However many anglers fail to realize there is a rule of thirds for the opposite. A warm front in the prespawn is a recipe for success that many anglers have benefitted from time and time again. Personally, I’ve had tremendous success by watching this and picking a “day off” from work based on three days of warming trends in the early prespawn.
One of the first 20-plus-pound limits I had on my home lake five years ago was after a warm 70 degree day in February, followed by a warm rainy day that produced inches of rainfall, followed by another warm sunny day. The result was a bunch of big fish roaming in shallow dirty water gagging on my crankbaits. I was finding places where warm water was running off the banks into the lake and the fish were up there taking a hot bath and munching on crawfish colored crankbaits like Doritos.
Yesterday, I had a scheduled video and photo shoot with FLW Tour pro Terry Bolton. The topic of our shoot was going to be finesse crankbaits in the prespawn, specifically Rapala Shad Raps as both Bolton and I have an affinity for those diminutive con artists. We’ll have a feature up next week all about employing a Shad Rap effectively on your lakes and rivers.
But what I found profound was how both Bolton and I called our shots based on previous years of three day warming trends during prespawn bass fishing.
I talked to a buddy the day before and told him, “We’re going to jack them up tomorrow!” How did I know? Because it’s March. The days are getting longer. The fish want to move up. We’ve had an unbelievably mild winter. The shad didn’t die so the fish are gorging. We’ve had three days of 70 degree temperatures and a warm 72-degree rain dumped into the lake that day.
All those factors add up to slightly stained, shallow waters with bass wanting to move up and feed for the spawn. The result: we jacked them up!
We fed Rapala Shad Raps, Rapala DT 6s, Bandit 300s, Rapala Rippin’ Raps, Terminator spinnerbaits and Cumberland Pro Caster jigs with Zoom Chunks to willing and already fattened bass. We fished around quite a bit checking main lake stuff, pockets, creeks, points, shallow cover and more. Turns out the fish were in about the same place in every creek we went into: places where they could easily slide out of deep water into the warmer shallow water for just a bit and sun their backs while picking up a snack or two from the buffet of crankbaits, jigs and spinnerbaits.
Three weather related elements are your friend in the prespawn.
Warm rain is your friend in the prespawn. It can make the warmest water on the lake about a foot deep. And the shad know it and so do the bass.
Stain can be your friend in the prespawn. If you don’t get much precipitation in the prespawn, the fishery can get very clear and a lot tougher to fish. Wind and rain can add a little stain to the shallows and make a bass a lot more secure about moving up shallow to forage.
Wind can be your friend. A lot of us pull our hair out when we have to fish in the wind, especially offshore away from the bank. But wind blowing on a bank can actually be a good thing for fishing prespawn. It can put those fish inches from dry land. It can put a lot of bait up there and it can dirty the water and conceal anything that doesn’t look natural about your presentation. The result is a lot easier fishing if you learn to fish with the wind and not against it.
Bass fishing is a puzzle and most of us just have to go when we can go or when a tournament dictates we go. But this time of year I always try to play by ear that three day warm up period and take a day to get on the water, even if I have to take a day off work to get there. Trust me it’s worth it. Some of my best days on multiple different fisheries have been hitting that 3-day cycle perfect. You owe it to yourself to enjoy some of the best fishing of the year. Play it smart and go for the triple plays when you find them.
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