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Q I’m a beginning amateur bass fisherman, and this is my 3rd year doing tournament. The problem im having is that I always catch fish on constant bases, but I can’t seem to ever get the 5lb plus fish I need to put me over the top. I’m very good at fishing plastics but is there something else I can do or learn to start getting me those bigger bass? Thanks for any suggestions.
A This is a pretty common problem with tournament fishing. Throwing baits like Robo worms can and do win tournaments. The problem is they catch a lot of small fish in the process. Fishermen fall in love with the fact that they can always get bit and catch fish. The problem being is if there is a decent reaction bait bite, most of the time, the worm fishermen get beat. The problem falls into you fishing what you like to fish, probably your strength, and it's hard to scrap this technique and fish for a hopeful bite. Don't get me wrong. I've won lots of tournaments on Robo worms. Many times they have played an important role in the tournament but they didn't necessarily catch my bigger fish. When I'm fun fishing, like at Lake Oroville, I throw Robo worms almost 100% of the time. In tournaments there, I probably fish them 20% of the time. You need a different mindset for tournaments than you do for your fun fishing. The best advice that I can give you is to fish some reaction baits, jigs and topwaters. Catch enough fish that you have confidence in them and start using them in tournaments. I guarantee your finishes will increase. Some other big fish baits are Yamamoto Senkos, 7" Robo worms rigged wacky style with a nail weight, Hula grubs on a football head and lots of Staycee 90s. Good luck on your tournaments. Q Gary, nearly every pro I have seen or read about, on the subject of hard body baits, recommends upgrading the treble hooks and up sizing them. Is installing a larger hook still a good practice if you are targeting smallmouth? When would you choose to use the EWG, or the short shank trebles?
A I think this is a great question. You may get a few different answers depending on the fisherman. First off, almost all companies put cheap hooks on their baits to save money. Secondly, most of the time you can upsize and not lose any bait action but definitely increase your hooking percentage. I don't use many EWG trebles because round bend hooks are designed stronger. Round bend hooks won't open nearly as easy as EWG hooks. I'm not a big fan of short-shank hooks either unless I have to use them to keep them from tangling. I will put up with tangling hooks as long as it doesn't happen too often. For instance, this will be hard to believe, but on a 1/8oz. speed trap, I use #4 Gamakatsu round bends. They tangle occasionally, they are way oversized for the bait but I hardly ever lose a fish. It doesn't affect the action of the bait. The cool thing about Gamakatsu is they now have the in-between sizes like #3 and #5. These are awesome. I hope this helps and it hasn't confused you. By the way, the new Lucky Craft Staycee 90 with my mug on it has the larger hooks and is already custom weighted. Its a flat awesome bait. I've fished it this way for close to ten years. Good luck! Q Hi Gary, I am a local angler up here at Clearlake. I fished the American Bass T.O.C the weekend after the FLW tournament on Clearlake and the big bite was tough for me to get going. I had a small limit on jigs and rips first thing in the morning and proceeded to throw swimbaits the rest of the day. It seemed like every other cast I had some real monsters follow the bait back to the boat, but not commit to eating it. I tried changing up bait size,color, and retrieve with no success. I tried killing it when I would see the fish follow it in and the fish would nose down on it and just stare at it. Needless to say it was frustrating to say the least. I can only theorize that a lot of fishing pressure and clear water conditions were the main reasons for so many follow-ups with no takers. Can you give me any tips or suggestions on how to get those finicky fish to eat the bait?
A Fishing pressure is definitely a huge key and was probably the majority of your problems. During the FLW event they were doing the same thing to me. When I would have one eat it, it just didn't eat it very well and I lost most of them. The bite was very finicky on swimbaits but, as you probably know, it was won on swimbaits. It was an unusual set of circumstances with a ton of shad there, though. To be totally honest with you, this is one of the things that happens a lot when swimbait fishing. I tanked Amistad this year doing the same thing that you described. The last day I had so many big followers it drove me absolutely nuts. All I can say, Bud, is sometimes the fish win. Most of the time you can change baits, size of baits, actions and depth of baits and beat the fish. But those few days enough to drive you nuts. Don't give up on them. Get them on the next trip.
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