Hot weather, deep water?? Go with a crankbait.
Crank Deep When the Weather’s Hot
Now’s the Time for a Buzzbait or a Walkin’ Stick
At this point it’s postspawn or early summer almost everywhere. That’s important because fish are totally controlled by their environment. They’re slow when the water’s cold and they’re active when it’s warm. The water’s warm right now, and that means they’re active. They need to eat. When they’re active and feeding heavily there are lots of ways to catch them. One of the best — big fish and explosive action — is on top. And, there’s not a better pair of topwater plugs to do that with than a buzzbait or a walkin’ stick. The reason I picked these two […]
Top Secret! The Spine Rig
The spine rig is a finesse rig that came from Japan and is popular on the West Coast. They’ve been pretty darn good at keeping it a secret, but I’m fixing that with this blog! Read on!
Six Pre-spawn Lures I Never Leave The Dock Without
Before we get into the actual lures I use we need to talk a little about the pre-spawn. I define it as somewhere between the middle to upper 40 degree mark on up into the upper 50 degree mark. Another thing is that the bass are feeding right now. Once they go to their beds eating isn’t so important anymore. The final thing I want to mention about the pre-spawn is that the fish can sometimes be hard to find but when you do find them they’ll be all grouped together. You can catch a ton of them from one […]
Top Secret! The MJ Rig
This time in our Top Secret Series we’re going to talk about the MJ rig, otherwise known as the spinner-jig. It’s super simple but it gives the fish something they haven’t seen before, something totally different. Basically, it’s a combination of flash and true tracking through the water. Let’s get started… You’ll need three things to build the MJ rig: We’ll start with a soft plastic stickbait. I use the Berkley Powerbait Maxscent The General Worm. The most important part of the stickbait is that it must have a big, fat blunt end on the back for the spinner to […]
Top secret! The Tiny Child Rig
This rig is basically a weedless version of the Ned rig. At the same time, though, it has a completely different look to it. The weedless part is a big deal. We all know that the Ned rig is one of the hottest finesse techniques around. And for good reason. It catches bass by the ton. But we also know that it’ll hang on anything and everything in the water. And, even with a weedless hook hangups can be an issue. The tiny child rig solves those issues. You’ll need four things to build this bad-boy: We’ll start with the […]
Top Secret! The Stupid Tube Rig
We all know that one of the biggest problems with tube fishing is that they snag easily. The stupid tube rig solves that problem. It’s totally weedless. A second problem with conventional tube rigs is that all they’ll do on the fall is spiral. I’m not saying a spiral’s totally bad, but sometimes we want to show the fish something different — something they haven’t seen before. The stupid tube rig glides gently towards the bottom as it falls. That gives it a completely different look. You only need two things to build a stupid tube rig: The right jig […]
Top Secret! The Cat Rig
Our next part of the Top Secret! series of new, fish catching, rigs is called the cat rig. I named it that because when you get done building this baitfish imitating lure it’ll move like a cat — subtle on the fall with just a little shimmy, and it stays perfectly horizontal in the water. Those of you who follow what I do know that’s super important to me. Anything that imitates a baitfish should always be horizontal in the water. It’s weedless, too. Ok, with all that out of the way let’s build one. We’ll start with a list […]
Top Secret! The Eel Rig
OK, this is a great rig for when the bite is a little slow and they’re short striking your lure. Basically it’s a cross or a hybrid between a Neko rig and a chicken rig. That sounds crazy, I know. But as you read on and figure out what I’m doing it’ll all make sense to you. Here’s what you’re going to need to build one: A snap swivel or a snap and a swivel. I use VMC Crankbait Snaps for this. They’re a little wider so they work a little better. And I like black. It’s less intrusive. A […]
The Best 6 Baits Every Serious Bass Angler Should Own
There must be a thousand fishing lures on the market. Choosing only six of them for this blog was no easy task. But sometimes we need to downsize so I did just that. I’ve listed the baits below in no particular order. The first three are power fishing lures. The last three are more in the finesse category. A crankbait This is a great bait because you can cover a lot of water with one and because they search out the bass. It’s almost like they’re calling the fish in to them. Although there are hundreds of them available, picking […]