Understanding Fall Bass Movements

Understanding Fall Bass Movements

This blog is going to be mostly theoretical. Instead of talking about lures and tackle we’re going to look at how bass move as the fall season comes and goes. The reason for that is that we can catch a ton of them at this time of the year if we can find them. No matter all of what I say today, however, it’s important to keep one thing in mind: The fall is about BAITFISH!!! MATCH THE HATCH!!! I want to start with a brief definition of fall. The air temperature is dropping. The water temperature is dropping. The […]

How to Fish a Squarebill

How to Fish a Squarebill

A bait that’s really started to shine over the past few years is the squarebill crankbait. Their shine is well deserved, too. They catch bass in heavy cover when they’re shallow, and there are always a few good ones shallow regardless of the season or the weather. Squarebills will create a true reaction bite and often catch bass when other lures won’t. My favorite is a Rapala Balsa Xtreme BX Brat Squarebill. It’s made from balsa, and that’s a good thing. It floats high and has that unique vibration that only balsa can produce. But because it’s covered with a […]

Stay on Top of Things When the Water Gets Hard

Stay on Top of Things When the Water Gets Hard

In the last couple of blogs we talked about winter bass lures. That’s great, up to a point. But, somewhere along the line it just gets too cold to fish and at some point the lakes freeze over in much of the country. But that doesn’t mean you have to stop getting better at your craft. You can still learn and practice. I can’t say how many videos in total are posted on the Internet but to give you a clue here at The BASS University we have something like a thousand of them, more or less. About 500 are […]

Ice Fishing Lures for Warm Water Bass?

Ice Fishing Lures for Warm Water Bass?

I first started thinking about the idea seven or eight years ago. I was ice fishing with a sponsor. That’s the first time I ever tried it, and I noticed that we were not only catching bass but we were catching them on lures that looked to me like they might work in warm water. The thing is, though, I really didn’t know much about what we were doing so I was a little hesitant to get out too far in front with the concept. I kept things to myself but every so often I’d give one of them a […]

Bass Fishing with the VMC Spinshot Hook

Bass Fishing with the VMC Spinshot Hook

I love to drop shot but I don’t love line twist, and that’s one of the biggest problems with drop shotting. That’s too bad because on tough days a drop shot is one of the most effective ways to put one in your livewell. With that in mind, I set out to solve that problem. That shouldn’t come as any surprise to those of you who know me or who have followed my career. I tinker with everything and, thanks to some first-class professional sponsors, some of my modifications actually make it to fruition. The VMC Spinshot Hooks are in […]

Subtle Topwater Fishing for Postspawn Bass

Subtle Topwater Fishing for Postspawn Bass

It’s the postspawn all around the country and with that comes a topwater bite. The thing is, though, sometimes a noisy, splashy topwater plug runs them off rather than fills the livewell. When that happens I go subtle. That means I reach for a Berkley HAVOC Subwoofer. It’s a unique bait in that it has a short (4 inches), fat body with a classic cut tail that’ll move a lot of water when you crank it fast. And, you can do that with this lure because of the way the body is designed. It not only has a fat, shad-like […]

A Bass is a Bass, is a Bass

A Bass is a Bass, is a Bass

My Italy trip was fantastic. It’s a really neat country. On one level it’s very different from the United States. Everywhere you go there are lots of old ruins and marble, some of them thousands of years old. I live near the historical city of Philadelphia. We have lots of old stuff that has great significance to our country, but there’s nothing that old. On another level, however, it’s just like the United States. Of course, I’m referring to bass fishing. Fish Italy for a few days and you’ll realize that a bass is a bass regardless of where they […]

Woody’s Hole and Shaky Heads

Woody’s Hole and Shaky Heads

Woody’s Hole is a place on the Delaware River where the bass go when the weather turns cold. It’s affected by the tide and it has a lot of current running through it. We named it Woody’s Hole because a guy named Woody found it, not because it’s full of wood or anything like that. We fished it in late fall. The fish were starting to move in but they weren’t stacked up yet. Our trip is a great lesson in how to catch fish with finesse presentations in heavy current. We fished shaky heads because you get two presentations […]

City Bass are Still Bass

City Bass are Still Bass

It never fails. Break out the cameras and a cold front will blow through. That’s one of the few guarantees in life. Naturally, that’s what happened when I fished with Joe Sancho in Central Park in New York. The bite started off really slow. Then it got tough. Nothing we were throwing seemed to interest them. But, we had a show to film so we needed to do something. That something turned out to be soaking a jig. Here’s the deal: bass are bass regardless of where they live. The ponds in Central Park have some cover just like waters […]