I’ve got this new rig that’s absolutely going to put more bass in my livewell next year, and it’ll do the same for you. It’s the bait chaser rig. This thing is so simple of an idea and so simple to put together that I can’t believe I wasn’t using it years ago. It makes me wonder what I was thinking, or wasn’t thinking. Basically, it’s a spinner blade on the line in front of your lure. You can make it in two minutes in the boat with things you already have. All you have to do to make it […]
OK, so I like to color. But I don’t do it with a coloring book and I don’t use crayons. I do it with nearly every lure I own and with a variety of Spike-It products. Some weeks ago I wrote a blog telling everyone how and why I modify lures on the fly. The basic idea behind that is that I’m a big believer in matching the hatch, especially when I’m fishing clear water or heavily pressured fish. Over the years I’ve come to realize that the closer you can come to the real thing the more bites you’re […]
I had another experience fishing the Upper Mississippi River that I want to talk to everyone about. It was late summer when it happened but I think it’ll be pretty much universal as long as there are bass back in really skinny water. There were some places in the backwaters and sloughs that were super shallow — I’m talking less than 2 feet of water — that were holding a good number of keeper bass. The thing was, though, that they were so choked with thin, slimy vegetation and drift that had washed into the water that it was hard […]
Life’s crazy, man! A few weeks ago on the Upper Mississippi River I had an experience that might help you sometime in the future so I’m going to tell you all about it. Usually you find river bass shallow. That didn’t happen to me, though. They were deep and they were suspended. It sounds crazy but it’s true. I caught them in two types of places and with two different lures. Here’s how it went down… The first place I found them was out in the main river over the channel. They were suspended anywhere between 10 and 30 feet […]
After some street fishing in Paris late this summer, we moved on to Spain. We — Becky, myself and the youngest kids — spent a couple of days in Madrid before I fished the Soner Euro Cup on Lake Cigara near Madrid. My partner and I won it! How cool is that? The Euro Cup was a really exciting experience for me. There were something like 125-130 boats with two man teams in them. As best I can remember there were something like 25 or 30 countries represented, some of them from thousands of miles away. And, as you might […]
Those of you who follow me know that I’m a big advocate for urban fishing. I’ve filmed countless TV shows and posted I don’t know how many videos and blogs about it over the years. The reason I do that is because it’s how I grew up in New Jersey and because there’s better fishing in our cities than many men and women think. It’s a truly untapped resource. And, nowhere is that more true than in Paris, France. My experience over there started with Abu Garcia. We’ve developed a new series of rods designed just for the European market. […]
No matter how many lures you carry in your boat there’s always a color you need but don’t have. That’s a problem that plagues professional anglers just as much as recreational anglers. You just can’t carry every color combination of every bait out there. I’ve solved that problem with a few quick tricks that allow me to change or alter colors quickly and efficiently. Here they are… First of all I mostly carry just the basic colors in every lure. I’d rather have more shapes, sizes and actions than colors, especially when it comes to my hard baits. I can […]
One of the questions I get all the time is how to keep a plastic bait from sliding down the hook. I get it. Ruined plastics don’t catch bass and they can get to be expensive over time. Here’s how I’ve learned to solve that problem: Use a screw-type, spring looking bait keeper when you thread your plastic on your hook, but not in the way you might think. You know what I’m talking about. It’s a screw looking, spring-like bait keeper with a ring on top. Some people call it a hitch hiker. The way it’s supposed to be […]
That’s a question I get all the time, and it’s a good one. They’re both similar at first glance but they behave very differently and they should be used under very different conditions. Here’s how I make the decision… If I want my presentation to look vertical, I go with a Neko rig. This is typically in deeper water and along some kind of vertical cover or structure. The kind of places I’m thinking about are deep docks, deep and steep riprap and along bluff walls. My bait for the Neko rig is mostly a straight tail worm or a […]
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 […]