Discussion about fishing lures used to catch bass.
Just when you think you know it all something comes along that you’ve never heard about, not even thought about. That’s what happened to me this winter on the Upper Mississippi River when I was fishing Pool 2. I was introduced to the tumble rig. We were fishing near a power plant with a warm water discharge. Typically that’s where you find a lot of fish in a small area, and that’s exactly what we found. But, even though we […]
Last time we talked about jerkbaits, my favorite bait in the winter. This time I want to talk about my second favorite, the Rapala Rippin Rap Lipless Crankbait. But you should know this: Just because it’s my second favorite doesn’t mean I don’t use it all the time. In fact, when the water’s cold I never leave the dock without one tied on and ready to go. I fish this little jewel two ways. The first is with a traditional […]
Becky and I got back from vacation last Saturday and I decided to fish a Winter League tournament up here on Sunday. The air temperature was really cold and the water was in the low 40s. The bite was tough. Nevertheless, we won with four bites that put four bass in the livewell. They weighed 6.86 pounds. Here’s how we did it… We used what’s probably my favorite winter bass lure — a hard jerkbait. But, we didn’t fish with […]
Ok, so we’re in London, England, this time. This was the first time I’ve ever been there and I have to say that it’s awesome, really cool for a guy from Philadelphia. I’m going to go back in the near future and take Becky with me. There’s no doubt that she’ll like it as much as I do. Let’s talk fishing: Our targets are English Pike, Barbel and European Yellow Perch. You saw most of it on TV last night […]
This trip was really special. As you probably already know, I won the 2003 Bassmaster Classic on the Louisiana Delta. I won’t go so far as to say that it totally made my career but I will say that it’s a huge part of it. If you want to be considered one of the best, you need a Classic title. I will be forever grateful to New Orleans and the surroundingarea for mine. So anyway, when we arrived in New Orleans […]
I’ve been catching bass on a drop shot rig for years, and until a couple of years ago I always rigged it the same way. I tied a fluorocarbon leader to a braid main line and tied the hook somewhere down the leader. Then, I nose hooked my bait, or maybe hooded it in the middle, and went fishing. It worked. I caught my share but I was dissatisfied with my hooking percentage. I just felt like I could do […]
All bass use a wide variety of their senses to find their prey, but smallmouth primarily use two — sight and smell. We’re going to save the sight part for another day. Right now I want to talk about scent. I’ll start by telling you that I never fish with a plastic bait that isn’t scented or to which I haven’t added scent. That’s an absolute rule of mine. Never means never, not ever. It wouldn’t make sense. I want […]
When it comes to bass fishing there’s no better late summer and fall topwater bait than a frog, and there are no better frogs than the Molix Sneaky Frog and the Molix Supernato. The Sneaky Frog is a super good open water or sparse cover lure. It has a kind of elongated body and a center weight. Both of them combined let it walk in a smooth and sexy way, but without much forward movement. It’ll attract bass from deep water […]
We all know that hard jerkbaits will catch bass when conditions are right. But we also know that they are finesse or light tackle lures in most cases. True, there are a few bigger ones, heavier ones and ones that run deep. However, those baits are the exception rather than the rule. Rapala has corrected that issue with their new RipStop. You’ll remember that the original RipStop was revolutionary in its design. The lip on its tail made a bait […]
The Berkley Powerbait Jester Craw is not a “me-too” bait, and it doesn’t look like anything else I’ve ever fished. It’s listed at 4 inches but really fishes much bigger than that. The body is ribbed and fat. There are three feet-like looking things on each side of it and it has two big flappers as well as two long, skinny tentacles coming off the back. It’ll be offered in at least eight colors, some of which are striped. And, […]