Bass Fishing - Best Way to Locate Bass (2/5)

Now that we have eliminated the top fifteen feet of water, its time to fish the fifteen to thirty foot range. If the fish were at all active we should have caught a few in the upper levels of the water, this is usually but not always true, sometimes the baitfish are deeper in the water column and the majority of bass are where the food is, deeper.

In lakes with healthy bass populations, I have no qualms about keeping a few one to two pound fish for the dinner table. ( check local regulations, or state Fish and Game regulations to make sure this size is legal to keep ) The first legal small fish I catch, I clean right away and look in the stomach to see what he was eating. Usually in the deeper summer waters I find shad, shad are found from twenty five to fifty feet deep in the summer, with the average being thirty-five to forty feet deep. I usually know beforehand what depth they are using because in prior days I have metered them under bird schools, with my Lawrance depth finder.

But lets say you don't have this information, so you have to slowly work down the forty five degree bank ( thirty five to fifty five degrees is ok ) untilyou start catching bass. For fishing the deeper water I will use a 1/2 to 3/4 oz. white weedless jig with a small Berkley Gulp singletail trailer on the hook.I fish this on a six and one half to seven foot med/hvy spinning rod with a medium size spinning reel ( the larger ones cast farther and have better drags ) loaded with Berkley Vanish, fluorocarbon line in ten or fifteen pound test depending on the amount of snags in the water. Casts are made parallel to the bank, and the lure is counted down ( one thousand and one, one thousand and two, etc ) until it hits the bottom and the line goes slack. As this lure sinks at about one foot per second, you can judge about how deep the water is where you cast your lure, but the main reason is we make multiple casts into the same depth range to strain the water, and if the lure has been hitting bottom at the count of fifteen and this time the line goes slack at twelve, a bass has hit it on the sink, and you should immediately turn the reel handle fast until the rod starts to bend the set the hook by sweeping the rod upward quickly, then pumping the fish quickly to get it away from the snags down there.

Pumpingis lifting the fish with the rod, when the rod is overhead, reel quickly as you lower the rod. The fish is lifted with the rod, not the reel, if you try to reel the fish up you will twist the line. Only use the reel to take up line as you drop the rod from twelve o'clock to nine o'clock, never reel when the fish is pulling drag.

Let the fish run against the drag and when it stops pulling line, lift it with the rod then reel as you drop the rod to gain line. You should keep a bend in the rod at all times, if you let the rod go straight, the fish will have slack line and will come unhooked easily. After a while this pumping will become second nature and you catch count will go up. Pumping will work on all fish that are big enough to pull drag on the reel you are using, from bluegills to bluefin tuna.

In the fall and spring when crawfish are the food of choice for bass, I cast into the bank and hop the lure down the bank, keeping it near the bottom where the "bugs" live. But in the summer when the fish are feeding on shad the lure is cast parallel to the bank and fished in a swimming retrieve, this is just reeling fast enough to keep the lure at about the same depth range. You want it to be bumping into limbs and brush occasionally, but not so often that you are always hung up, I vary my reeling speed until I have a happy medium between hangups and not brushing the brush at all. Always watch the rod tip carefully and be aware of the amount of bend in the rod, if the bend suddenly disappears, a fish has the lure in its mouth and is swimming towards you, set the hook right away!! This is why I like the Berkley Gulp trailers, they are made from real food and the fish tasting food, will hold on to the lure for quite a while, giving you plenty of time to set the hook.

FISH BITE AND WON'T LET GO!!