Justin Mahaney

Hole hopping weeds with the bluegill colours? or just swimming it along edges?

I agree, however its easier to find large smallies in deeper water where as I find I have more luck pulling out lunker largemouths out of structure and cover near shallow water and/or backwater areas/bays which have much less fishing pressure than your average smallmouth holes.

Id actually like to touch up on why you should use a willow over a colorado or any custom blade for this technique.. just so those who arent familiar with working spinner baits in this fashion have an understanding of what your trying to accomplish. The willow blades take much less force to get spinning, so when your working the spinnerbait up the "hill" on an offshore hump, you want to pull up quickly to get those blades spinning. Than let it drop.. Making sure your reeling in any slack because these monsters love to hit the spinner bait on its fall. So remember spinner baits can be very usefull tools in the tackle box, but blade selection can be key. Now for colour, I prefer using a brown/red combination and a white/chartreuse when they dont want to feed on the crawfish colours. Spinner baits are Generally used in shallow water, but let me tell you these deep water bass love it just as much.

Wind, rain, sun, over cast, hail, snow.. no matter what the conditions are I seem to be able to bring atleast 3-4 in an hour on average. Every condition has its ups and downs, so weather and time should not vary your results too much!

Yep ;D

I think everyone should have a black and blue swimming jig in thier tackle box ;D

We all know many of the large smallmouth hangout in the deeper waters, I Was curious what some of your favourite techniques are to pull these lunker smallies out of thier deep hiding places? I personally have had alot of luck around sunken islands almost jigging a spinner bait up the hill.

When I dont know whats going on or where the fish are at a certain location its usually best to throw a crank or a spinner bait, something that covers a lot of water. This time of year the fish will likely be schooling, so where you catch one chances are you will catch more.

Depending on your retreive speed, you dont need to set the hook much at all, just a little sweep or jerk. The hooks on crank baits are usually very sharp. Ive seen many people set the hook too hard and rip the bait right out of the fishes mouth. When the bass hits your crank, he will almost set the hook for you.

If you can rig these up wacky style with a couple small split shots about 6 inches up the line for the first one and another 4 inches for the second they make great follow up baits for top water missed hits. The smallmouth in shore have been hammering the top water as of late, and whenever they miss the topwater or just poke at it, the wacky worm has brought them into the boat 90% of the time. Simply cast this into the water and wait 10-15 seconds and it should suspend in the water for a nice treat for our small and large mouth bass.

Smallmouth fight much harder than largemouths, However the largemouths do get bigger ofcourse. So I feel there both just as fun to catch because you really need to fish them a different way to be successful.

Yeah I figure if I do add this into a tournament plan, it would be early morning or worked along the sunken islands.

Exactly. I dont worry too much about sticking certain baits with season, all baits work as long as you can find fish that will take them. In most cases in a tournment, you win because you did something nobody else did.

Whats wrong with flipping docks with soft jerk baits in the summer heat? or shallow water bays

Ive decided im going to try lilly pads early in the morning in a bay / back water of rice lake with this jerk bait wait-less, almost as a top water. I'll post how I do next time I get out ^ ^

Hey I was in the local bait shop looking for some swimbaits, but the closest thing I could find was a power Jerk shad in the Ark Shiner pattern made by berkley power baits.. I know the traditional way to use these are weight less almost like a Slug-O .. but I wanted to know if anyone has had luck in the grass with these on a texas rig, or another weedless rig? Ive never really used too many soft jerk baits, I usually stick with tubes, craws, and Wacky style worms or texas worms when it comes to soft baits. :-/

Hey guys, Im an every day bass angler from bewdley ontario, south of peterborough on rice lake. Im curious if anyone else has fished this area or has access to fish it often.