Bass Fishing ArticlesSet Up By Jim Crowley I can still remember the first bass I ever caught on a plastic worm. I was around eight years old and I was walking the bank of a farm pond in Indiana. I can also remember that the worm was purple and that I more than likely rigged it the wrong way. The other memory I have is feeling my line get tight and the rod almost pulling from my hand. I jerked back, (my hook setting was in its early stage!) and reeled hard to see a bass jump from the water and the battle continue. I think I literally hauled the bass up on the bank. That is my earliest memory of fishing plastics and where I am sure my affection for them started. Many years have went by and more than likely thousands of plastic worms, tubes, lizards, creatures and craws have been used and abused by me and those bass. I am one of those strange bass fisherman (insert your own joke here) that would rather feel a bass pick up a tube or worm and see the line jump and race off to one side or the other than watch a bass explode on a top water lure. When that line moves or I feel that "thump" I know that fish has just excepted my offering. Was that bass watching it for a while, did he follow it or did he merely strike it out of reflex? These are all options that we can usually put togethor over the couse of the day and figure out why and than go on to reproduce it, so we catch more fish. The questions that I usually get asked the most as far as bass fishing goes has to do with my equiptment in regard to my set ups for fishing for bass. What do I use and when, the actions and the application. I have fished with some of our readers this season and its been great. They have been surprised at the simplicity of these set ups and how easy they can do it when fishing on their own. So with that thought in mind lets go over a couple different scenarios that will hopefully lead to more success for some of you. I do use both spinning and bait casting equiptment. My choice of equiptment depends on varibles encountered but most often its water clarity and cover options. I fish plastics on spinning equiptment when conditions call for line 10 pound and under. My most frequent choice is 8 pound test. The line I use the most on a spinning reel is flourocarbon. I will explain that in a bit. Anything over 10 pound test is cast on bait casting equiptment. I frequently use 15-20 pound monofiliment line for those applications. The situations that call for spinning equiptment usually involve but are not limited to clearer water, frontal conditions, fishing pressure and quite simply the need to get bites! My standard equiptment is as follows: I fish a shaky head a lot! For those of you not familar with it or the tecnique, it involves a plain jig head varing in weight from 1/16 ounce to 1/4 ounce fished on 8 pound flourocarbon line. Reason being that because flourocarbon line sinks, and has little stretch, you have more feel and lure control with smaller lures. The straight tail worms range in sizes from 3 to 6 inches. Colors are clearer more natural colors to match the clearer water conditions. Green pumpkin, watermelon and their glitter colors are standard. These small offerings are fished on a 6'3 Pflueger Trion medium extra fast spinning rod matched with a President 6735 spinning reel. This spinning reel is one size up from what you might use, but being that I use the flourocabon line which has a tendency to be a little stiffer than mono, I want a reel that more easily handles and cast the line. The 6735 does this with ease and also is awesome for long as well as short accurate cast. The shaky head technique in itself is easy as long as you remember several things. It is a slow and deliberate technique not meant to cover water. It is important that once the lure is cast out, it must be allowed to fall on totally slack line to the bottom. Once contact is made with the lure, your rod is held and the 2' o clock position and dragged and shook till the rod reaches the 1 o'clock position. Then you reel back down to 2 and the slow process is repeated. The most important thing you must remember about fishing a shaky head is to shake the slack not the lure itself. You are shaking the bow in the line which cause the lure to sit in place and waiver. It is highly enticing to even the most finicky fish and extremely effective! I choose bait casting equiptment when the water is more stained, and the cover is more dense. For example, the upper end of just about any resevoir usually consist of shallow, stained water with lots of cover, meaning bushes, lay downs etc. The more stained the water, the larger lure I will use compared to deeper clearer water. I will also use contrasting colors that show up better in stained water. For example if I am fishing a series of laydown logs or brush piles in stained water, I may choose to fish a 4 inch tube in colors such as black/red flake, black and blue or brown/orange. I will more that likely add a rattle inside the tube. The tube will be fished with a 3/0 to 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG superline hook and fished on 15-20 pound line. The thicker the cover, and more stained the water, the heavier line I can get away with. Remember, that cover and structure are two completely separate things. Structure is a change in bottom contour. Stucture is not a log or a brush pile! My weight varies on how thick the cover is and the fall rate I want to acheive. Recently I have been using the new Sling Shot weight system by Northland tackle. (www.northlandtackle.com) This quick change system consist of a small and slim rubber core that you thread your line through. Than slotted quick change weights in various sizes can be put on by simply putting the rubber core in the "slot" on each weight. If you want a 3/16 weight, or any size for that matter, quickly slide the rubber core through the weight that is provided and you have a sliding sinker good to go. Wait it gets better! If you want to peg the sinker, simply twist the core that is now inside the weight and it holds it in place! Want to go to a carolina rig? Slide the weight up the line the desired length, twist the rubber core and the weight stays in place where you put it! It is a a great design, very practical and extremely effective! As I stated before, for heavier line, I use bait casting equiptment and my rod and reel set up are as follows. I use a Pflueger Supreme bait casting reel which has a high gear ratio of 6.3-1. I like the higher speed to gather line quickly which aids in speed for hook setting. I pair that with a 6'8 medium heavy Team AllStar rod. This rod has a fast tip that pitches lures extremly well. Its well balanced with my reel choice and actually seems to become an extension of my wrist and forearm. Overall its become my favorite rod and reel for this application. In most cases fishing plastics is a vertical presentation. (excluding speed worming and swimming frogs) meant to get down into the heart of the cover or precisely on a structure change. With that being said, I work just about all my plastics the same way no matter if I am fishing with spinning or casting equiptment. Let me ask you a question. Do you know what your lures are doing even when you can't see them? There is a difference between casting your lures and hoping for a strike and working your lures in anticipation of a strike. Want to get from casting to working? Then learn what your lures do, and learn how to make them do it. I always take my lures and work them in shallow water so I can see what they do. I watch them come over a branch and learn how they feel. I see them come through grass and learn how they feel. I see them bump a rock and know how they feel. When I feel something that is diffenrt than what I have learned, I set the hook! I watch how I moved my rod to make the lure shake and move how to make it look helpless and alive. Than when I cast the lure out and its 30 feet away and 10 feet deep I can picture what its doing and how I can make it work how I want, even if I can't see it. Thats the difference and the secret! Know what and how to do it and you will entice more fish to bite, you will learn what the bite feels like and take the guess work out of it. Education is another key to success. Learn, apply and be successful. Its not luck, its applied knowlede that leads to success and that success, is in part, in the set up. |