Well I spent a bit of time on Lake of the Ozarks over the past two weeks and while I struggled with getting onto the right kind of fish for my tournaments I feel that I learned a little more about jerkbait fishing. Jerkbait fishing has never been one of my strengths. It’s something that I’ve messed with but I haven’t mastered. It’s a technique that I am hoping to continue to improve upon and I hope to someday become skilled with a jerkbait. Here’s a couple of tips that I would like to share though about my experience of playing with the jerkbait over the past two weeks.
When you have overcast conditions some of the best colors that you can have tied on during a shad kill are bone, and black and chrome. These colors seemed to work the best. The bone color really stands out in the overcast conditions and it does a great job of mimicking shad.
When you work your jerkbait one of the best cadences to try first is two short twitches and then a pause. The biggest thing you have to mess with is how long you pause the bait. When you are looking for active fish a lot of times you just have to wait 5 seconds in between twitches. I caught a lot of fish letting the bait sit from 10 to 20 seconds. In practice I caught some letting it sit for about 25 seconds without moving it. If you know you are around fish try slowing down and working it really slow and letting it sit sometimes for up to a minute.
The places you want to look for to get your jerkbait fish are on secondary points and bluff end points. Look for the secondary points that have chunk rock and pea gravel mixed. Transitions like these attract bass in cold water. Try and spot brushpiles up on these points or any other stickups. Take your jerkbait and toss it right over the brush piles and let it sit. If the bass are around you can tempt them into coming up and eating your bait.
Some of the best bluff end points are the ones where you have the bluff end coming into a chunk rock bank that creates a shelf. One one of these points I caught a 6 pounder off in practice that just drilled it.
When it comes to getting bites try getting your jerkbait to hit stuff like rocks, and brush. Sometimes that is what it takes to get bit. Make sure you have a plug knocker handy though cause those jerkbaits get caught on everything.
When it comes to what brand of jerkbaits to throw make sure you invest in a couple of different styles. For whatever reason the bass will prefer Megabass Ito 110′s one day and your old Smithwick Rogues the next. I think a lot of it has to do with the sound that they make along with the action. Certain jerkbaits though have louder rattles on them which I think makes them more productive in stained water.
One last thing I learned is that jerkbait fishing is all about timing when the water is cold. You can fish a lot of points and then hit one point and load the boat. The key is to be patient and keep your head up and keep on fishing.
One of the funnest ways to catch spring time bass is sight fishing. Sight fishing is an exciting way to fish because you get to see the bass react to your bait from the time it enters the water till the time it engulfs it.
One of the most important pieces of equipment that you can have is a good pair of polarized sunglasses. If you forget your sunglasses this time of the year you are at a great disadvantage. Polarized sunglasses allow your eyes to cut the glare and see a lot deeper into the water. Make sure you get two types of lenses. Gray for sunny days and tan for cloudy days. Flying Fisherman makes some great sunglasses at affordable prices that will last you a long time. Most tournaments out their require you to hook all bass sight fishing in the mouth. Sunglasses help you see if the bait is in the mouth our on the side of the fish so you ensure your catch counts.
When it comes to bait selection make sure that you have a whole bunch of different offerings tied on. I like to use soft plastics for my sight fishing. For sight fishing it is hard to beat a texas rigged tube, lizard, or sweet beaver. Honey Hole Hooks has come out with a new hook called the Spring Hook that is just a really sharp and strong hook that makes rigging plastics a lot easier. The built in screw keeps your bait perfectly positioned so that you can spend your time fishing rather than messing with your bait. The new hook will make your texas rigging a breeze. Make sure you check them out at www.honeyholehooks.com
Also you want to make sure that you have a shakeyhead rigged finesse worm and a jig on your deck. A shakeyhead does a great job of making the bass angry as they often can’t stand a worm sticking up on the bed like it’s feeding on the eggs.
For all my shakeyhead fishing I use OMEGA Custom Tackle’s The Savior.
A full skirted football jig can also be great too on spawning bass. This presentation is often overlooked but does a great job of imitating a nest robbing bluegill. OMEGA Custom Tackle has a great football head jig in the Derek Remitz Signature Series. It’s got a great hook in it to get those big females in the boat.
Something different to try is a drop shot rig with a finesse worm. You can take that rig and pitch it into the spawning nest and keep it on the bed for eternity to entice the fish into striking. While I don’t have that much experience with spawning small mouths I’ve heard that the technique is really deadly on them.
Lastly don’t count out floating stickbaits. I saw the potential of working them over spawning beds last spring. For some reason bass hate stuff worked over their heads just as much.
Whatever baits you decided to toss to the bass make sure that you have some bigger ones and some smaller ones. One trick that will help you put some more spawning bass in the boat is to pitch a larger bait into the nest first to make the bass angry and if you don’t get bit take a smaller bait and pitch it into the nest. Sometimes that can be the trick to getting them to react.
Spawning bass can a lot of times be tough customers so when you find them try and get a feel for which ones you can catch in a reasonable amount of time. If a fish swims off when your bait hits the water it’s going to be a lot harder to catch then one that is locked onto the bed. Bass that are sitting on the bed at a slight angle with their nose down are usually the easiest to catch.
At the final day weigh in on the Cal Delta Elite Series event this past weekend, I found it noted on the westernbass.com forums that a viewer recognized that Skeet was the only angler of the final 12 to put his fish into a dry weigh-in bag before proceeding to the scales. In typical fashion, all other anglers had their fish bagged and in the (wet) livewell to easily pull the bag and weigh in. On the contrary, Skeet pulled his mesh bag from his Champ’s rear storage box, pulled the fish from their cull clips in the livewell, and then put them into the (dry) bag, one by one.
By this point, you’ve realized that a wet mesh weigh-in bag would likely weigh more than a completely dry one. While all anglers were completely in the limits of the rules, and either method of bagging fish is totally acceptable; could this process have cost Skeet the “W”, or, in the least, a tie and subsequent fishoff? He finished second by a mere ounce, of course.
