Cold Water Swimbait Fishing

Late last night I received a video from a member of the Tacticalbassin community. He sent it as a follow up to “Swimbaits Part 6″. He wanted to further show the power of swimbaits on small fish. You may recognize Ryan from previous videos as he contributes to the site on a fairly regular basis.

What makes this video unique is both the size of fish (fairly small) and the water temperature in which the fish were being caught. As you’ll see he was able to produce a small limit of fish very quickly using an Osprey Swimbait on a high-speed retrieve in 44 degree water. Yes, you read that right… 44 degree water thanks to snow runoff. So for those of you in the Northern states, this ones for you:

For those of you who are curious about the bait he is using, its an Osprey 6″ Tournament Talon Swimbait. The specific color appears to be Chartreuse Shad though I’m sure he could have done it with a wide range of colors. Here is a link to the baits direct from tacklewarehouse: Osprey Tournament Talon

I hope you understand the importance of this video. These fish were caught in very similar conditions to lakes around the entire Northern half of the United States. The water was cold, the fish were small, and Ryan wasn’t trying to imitate a trout. This can translate to nearly any body of water, you can make these baits work for you.
Last but not least, as a disclaimer… I too use the Osprey from time to time. Believe me, it will produce giant bass as well as dinks so don’t feel like you don’t have a shot at a big bass. On my boat this bait has produced fish under 2 lbs and fish over 10 lbs in the last two years.

Swimbaits Part 6: They Work

When we started this website the goal was to teach anglers everywhere how to catch more and bigger fish. My fear is that we are slowly getting off track. I don’t want this site to be about giant bass on the West coast. I want it to be about big fish (whatever that means to you) in whatever place you happen to be from. I firmly believe that the concepts taught here will apply to you, no matter where you are. I do however understand that to many anglers some of these principles seem far fetched.

I too started out with very little confidence in myself and even less confidence in giant baits. And perhaps you’re right, you may be from one of the few lakes where swimbaits just don’t seem to work like they should. However, it is much more likely that after you commit the time and figure out what you can do to tweak these techniques, that you will catch better quality fish more often.

This is a short clip geared toward reminding you that swimbaits work on “ordinary” fish too. Its not all about giant bass, its just about catching quality. On a day when I was catching 1-2 lb fish I was able to catch a little better fish by increasing the size of my bait. No matter where you live there is a bass in the lake capable of fitting a swimbait in its mouth. Notice also that this fish was caught with just the stock hook. No added hooks were needed to hook the fish. When a bass is in the mood to feed, nothing is going to stop it from getting at its prey.

I’d love to hear some stories from other anglers. I get quite a few emails, private messages, and calls from guys around the country telling me about the fish they’re catching on swimbaits. Its time to give back and share a little, encourage some of the other anglers that read the site that haven’t experienced your level of success yet. I don’t care if its an 8 lber or a 2 lber, let’s hear about it.

Understanding Lake Maps

With all the gadgets and contraptions that bass fisherman use today its easy to get ahead of ourselves and skip important steps when approaching a new lake. Even with GPS, mapping chips, and a network of friends I still spend a lot of time pouring over maps before venturing onto a new body of water. Many anglers have abandoned the paper map in favor of more “modern” options, never stopping to check which is more accurate.

Though I run GPS on my boat I’ve never forgotten the paper map. I still carry maps on the boat and reference them constantly. For this reason I was quite pleased to get an email from an angler asking for an explanation of lake maps and some of the associated terminology.

For this explanation I pulled out the first map my hand landed on, it happened to be Lake Fork, Texas. Though I have not spent a great deal of time on Fork I have been there enough to get a feel for the lake and an understanding of its features. Hopefully this video will shed some light not only on Fork but on every fishery you encounter.

I expect more on this topic in the future from Adam Hinkle, a regular contributor to the site. I’m sure Adam will have a different approach and it will be fun to see how the approaches vary. I look forward to your feedback.

Sight Fishing: Seeing Pressured Bass

To all of you that live in parts of the country where the water is too murky to sight fish in Spring, I’m sorry. Its a fun and exciting way to fish for a brief part of the year and should be experienced by everyone at least once. However, it can be humbling, will test your patience and make you more frustrated than you knew you could be while having “fun”. For those who do get to sight fish you know that as the spawn really begins the pressure from anglers becomes an ever-increasing problem. In many clear water impoundments the pressure is so bad you can’t even approach the fish before they are gone.

Jeff wrangled this bass out of deep cover on Day 1 of the FLW

Over the last couple weeks I spent a great deal of time on the California Delta, unfortunately so did many of the West’s greatest pros. The FLW tournament series had come to town and there were wrapped boats every which way you turned. Not wanting to be rude I did my best to stay out of the way while still having a shot at trophy bass. Even so, you could feel the bite shutting down more and more as the days ticked by. The timing was right but there was too much boat traffic.

Instead of getting frustrated we put our heads together, selected a couple patterns that consistently produced, and went to catching fish. The primary pattern was sight fishing with a secondary pattern throwing swimbaits in shallow water. The swimbait bite was self-explanatory (we covered a lot of likely water) but the sight fishing took some work. As I mentioned we were constantly surrounded by boats but I was amazed day after day to see that most of them weren’t sight fishing. There were beds all around but many anglers managed to overlook them.

What I believe set us apart was our ability and willingness to look deeper. As the FLW approached the bass started spawning deeper than usual. The week before there were beds in 1-2 feet of water. During the event most beds were in 4-6 feet and as deep as 9-11 feet. Remember, the delta is not a clear-water fishery so finding these beds in 10+ feet of water was a real challenge. What was happening was the pressure was pushing these fish down and away from the boat traffic and many anglers failed to make that switch, those that did cashed big pay checks from a variety of techniques.

I’m not usually one to push products through the website. I want anglers to have freedom of choice and I want this website to be a place to learn rather than a place to be fed a cheap line and a bunch of gimmick products. Understand that when I do mention products by name it is because they have made a major impact on my fishing and I believe they can do the same for you.

If you’re trying to fish without polarized glasses you’re on the losing end of the game. There is no way you can compete without them. You need to invest in quality polarized lenses but you don’t need to break the bank. The particular pair I choose to wear during the spawn is the Amber lense made by Eye Surrender Eyewear. Why am I telling you this? Because I finally found a pair of glasses that don’t cost a fortune. I’m not big into the hype and gimmicks about glasses, all I really know about these is that I can see deeper than the people around me, they were inexpensive ($39.99), have a lifetime warranty, and are widely available in shops and direct from the manufacturer.
I hope these insights help you prepare for the rest of this season or the beginning of the next. When the bass are feeling the presence of boat traffic don’t give up, back off, look deeper, and you may just catch a giant (or two