The Mighty A-Rig

The Mighty A-Rig

It won’t be long and the water will start to cool. That means early in the cycle the bass will have a tendency to suspend. Later on it’ll get really cold. A lot of anglers struggle under these conditions. But, that is not necessary. Success is all about fishing with the right lure combination and setting it up correctly. One of the best ever lure combinations for suspended bass and cold water conditions is the A-Rig. Nothing puts them in the boat like it. They look crazy when you first see them. There are wires and spinners everywhere. You’d think […]

The Dragonfly Bite

The Dragonfly Bite

This time we’re going to talk about how to catch bass when there’s a few dragonflies around. Before we do that, though, I want to make sure that we’re all thinking about the same creature. A dragonfly is a dragonfly. It’s not a mayfly. It’s an insect all to its own. Most of them have a wingspan of somewhere between 2 and 5 inches and they’re very colorful. They are expert flyers, too. They can move in any direction — up, down or sideways — and some of them live for up to a full year. I first saw evidence […]

Suspended Bass in Rivers?

Suspended Bass in Rivers?

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 […]

Crankbait Rods

Crankbait Rods

We hear all the time about specialty rods, how they’re an important part of the sport because they help us fish more efficiently. That’s true, and some of the most important and useful are what are commonly called crankbait rods. The thing is, though, they really should be named treble hook rods or reaction bait rods because the design features they have will help you fish more efficiently with any bait that has a treble hook on it. I’m thinking about hard jerkbaits and topwater plugs as well as crankbaits. The basic, and most important, thing about one of these […]