Westernbass Magazine - Bass Fishing Tips And Techniques - August 2012, Page 50

Westernbass Magazine - Bass Fishing Tips And Techniques - August 2012, Page 50

rod and work these weeds, especially on sunny summer and fall days. If you are here in the spring, there are a lot of brush stick-ups where the bass will gather and stage before moving to the spawning beds in March and April. There are other shallow areas where spawning in the spring brings the double-digit girls up shallow. When you launch at the main marina and turn left towards the dam you will find another 5 MPH zone for a short stretch that opens up again to a number of flats and creek channels. There is a large cove off to the left before you leave the 5 MPH that the locals call the “swimming pool cove”. This area has some humps in it that attract spawning bass in large numbers. This cove and the area of flats and creek channels closer to the dam hold lots of bass in summer too. The aquatic weed growth is very prolific on these flats. Try the Pad Crashers, Booyah jigs and YUM Dingers to work the various depths of weeds. A common theme here is the spawning flats and humps that hold bedding bass in the spring will be the weedy areas in summer and fall and draw the big bass back out of the outside deeper areas they go to recover from the spawn. The main lake is the length of lake that lies between the two 5 MPH areas mentioned earlier. Here is where small coves angle off the main lake and

the steeper rock banks and points that hold bass in the winter months is located. I’m pretty much a YUM Dinger and Booyah Jig fisherman; so these are my preferred baits for the main lake banks and points. In my experience, this part of the lake with these baits is the most reliable bite, not only during the summer and fall, but all year long. I fished an American Bass team tournament here this past April. Jim Slusher and I weighed in 24.52-pounds of largemouth bass. The big fish in our limit was a 5.52 and our smallest bass was a 4-pounder. After we weighed in Bassmaster Elite Series pro Jared Lintner and his partner Nick Salvucci approached us and asked us what we weighed. I told Jared 24.52 pounds and he showed me his weigh ticket and it read 24.52 pounds, a tie for first! This was the first time I had ever tied for a win with a fairly large bag. The tiebreaker for the ABA tournaments is the big fish of the limit. Jared and Nick had a bass just over 6-pounds, so we finished in 2 nd place. By the way, I broke off a fish that probably cost us the win. This was just another reminder to me to retie my line every so often, especially in a tournament situation. With big largemouth bass in Santa Margarita Lake, I don’t know of any bait that hasn’t worked here at one time or another depending on conditions so come here loaded with your favorite technique and you can get some of these big bass too.

Jim Slusher and Ken Sauret with an April limit of 24.52.

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