Tag: VMC

Top Four Bass Baits for May

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Top Four Bass Baits for May

May is really one of my favorite months of the year to fish for bass no matter where I find myself in the country. Depending on where you are, it’s either the late spring or the front side of the summer and that’s a terrific time to catch fish. Today I want to share with you four baits that never leave my boat in May. Two of them are primarily for north of the Mason-Dixon Line (from Virginia and Maryland on up) and two are for south of it (from the Carolinas on down to Texas and Florida). Actually, the […]

Bass Fishing With Lipless Crankbaits

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Bass Fishing With Lipless Crankbaits

When the water is cold, or cold but warming up, a lipless crankbait is an absolute killer. There’s a misconception that it’s only good in the spring. I hear that all the time, but this is a lure that works in all four seasons. It’s during the winter and pre-spawn when it really shines, though. abyLet’s back up for a second. What is a lipless crankbait? Well, as the name suggests, and you probably guessed if you didn’t already know, it’s hard-bodied like a crankbait, minus one thing…The lip! It’s that design that makes it so effective for bass because […]

Top Five Baits for Winter Finesse Fishing

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<strong>Top Five Baits for Winter Finesse Fishing</strong>

In my last column, I outlined five of my favorite power fishing lures for winter bass. There are times when power fishing is the deal and you can use baitcasting gear to force the bass to react. However, as the weather gets frigid, and water temperatures drop into the 40s or even the upper 30s, bass often become tight-lipped and lethargic. When that happens a spinning rod and light line can really change your day. Here are five of my favorite finesse options for those conditions. This first one probably isn’t much of a surprise if you’ve followed me over […]

Two Easy Ways to Catch Spring Bass

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Two Easy Ways to Catch Spring Bass

When I think about spring bass I think about bass that are in transition. They’re moving from winter areas into shallow, spawning areas and then back out again to where they’ll spend the summer. So, the first thing you need to do is find them. After that you need to catch them. I have two basic ways to do those things. Both involve a Tokyo rig, although in very different ways than what you normally hear about. We’ll find them first. You probably don’t think of a Tokyo rig as a search rig. It’s been touted as a great heavy […]

The Best Fall Lure!

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The Best Fall Lure!

The fall season is here. The nights are getting cold, the water temperature is dropping and the water is getting clearer. That all adds up to mean that bait is what bass fishing is all about. With that in mind let’s talk about the best fall bass lure. And yes, there is only one. It’s the great baitfish imitator — the spinnerbait. The way we need to fish our spinnerbait is by burning it. That can be done the best with an ordinary, but heavy, size spinnerbait. The key to this technique is weight and a size that’s not too […]

My Top Three Shallow Water Baits

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My Top Three Shallow Water Baits

Fall is here. The water is cool. The fish are shallow, or at least moving in that direction. It’s time for shallow baits to take advantage of that. Here are my top three… But, before I start talking about the baits we need to think about shallow water. It’s different in different parts of the country and in different lakes. It’s a term of art, not science. For this blog I’m going to tell you that I’m talking about water that’s no deeper than 3 feet. That’s pretty skinny, I know. Nevertheless, it’s fall and that’s the water I’ll target […]

My World, with Keyshawn Whitehorse

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My World, with Keyshawn Whitehorse

I worked with professional bull rider, Keyshawn Whitehorse, in the episode this week. It was interesting and might have been the most difficult physical activity I’ve ever tried. Staying on a bull is not for the weak or the timid. Keyshawn is currently ranked fourth in the country and 11th in the world. He’s a man of faith and a man who hasn’t forgotten his Navajo roots. He is someone we should all admire before we even consider his professional accomplishments. He describes riding a bull as a dance. He points out that they’re bigger, stronger and faster than we […]

My Secret Spring Bass Lure

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My Secret Spring Bass Lure

This is one of the toughest blogs I’ve ever written. The bait I’m about to tell you about has been my money springtime bait for many years. I’ve always kept it a secret. I hate to give it up, but you’re my fans. I want to help you catch more bass this spring. I guarantee you this will do it. It’s good for prespawn, spawning and postspawn bass as well as when you’re fishing behind another boat. You’ll catch bass that you didn’t know were there and bass that won’t bite anything else. And, it’s inexpensive and easy to rig. […]

The Ultimate Cold Water Bait

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The Ultimate Cold Water Bait

This is one technique I never wanted to give up to anyone, but you fellow bass-heads make all of this possible, so it’s only right that I let you in on one of my most effective cold water techniques. That is the Rapala Shallow Shad Rap. It’s the perfect crankbait for cold water conditions. It has a tight wiggle and no rattle. I do, however, modify it a little bit. First off, by cold water I mean anything from the middle 50-degree range on down. And, by little modifications I mean swapping out hooks and adding a split ring or […]