Bass Fishing part 5 - More on Fishing the Rapala XRap

Another good method for catching bass on Rapalas is to rig it up with a drop shot type rig, put a one oz. torpedo sinker on the end of your line then tie a dropper loop 1 foot up the line, then put the Rapala on the dropper loop. Now this combo can be trolled using your trolling motor. It should be trolled just fast enough to make the lure wiggle enticingly, you can also give the rod little jerks to make it jump and flash.

This is a very good method to find out what depth the fish are holding at , I start out at five feet and troll for 100 yds or so, making sure the sinker bumps the bottom. I keep going down in 5 ft. increments untill I start getting strikes. I keep my eye on my depthfinder to make sure I stay in the depth range I am searching. When I get a fish I note the type of spot or cover it came from, this helps me put together a pattern for the day. When you see most of your fish are coming fron a certain type of spot at say 15 ft. then you can go to other spots just like it in other parts of the lake and just fish the types of cover that produce fish for you.

If it quits working, go back to trolling to try to put together a new pattern. On any given day there are several different patterns at work on a small lake and many on a large lake. Some are shallow and some are deep and some are in between. The best way to find the depth most likely to hold fish is to cruse the lake looking for diving birds, not flying and diving in the water, but sitting on the surface and diving under the water ( if you see flying birds diving in the water get right over there and cast floating Rapalas to the action as the fish are on the surface ).

So now you have found an area with floating birds in it. They are not there for nothing, they know there is bait fish within reach of their dives ( remember they go fishing every day and know all the tricks to finding fish ). So now all you have to do is look around with your depth finder and you can see the depth the schools of bait are in. Say the bait is mostly at 20 ft. or so, now you look for structure in the 20 to 30 ft. range and this is where the bass will station themselves to attack the bait schools as it swims by.

This is the depth range you should start fishing in for the best chance of success. This works best when the forage base is mostly shad or other open water minnows. If the forage base is mostly bluegills the bass will hunt shallower because the prey is mostly weed oriented and shallow most of the day.