Hey guys,
Matty Wong, Elite Series pro here and educator for bassresource.com. I wanted to talk to you about five of my favorite baits to fish during the month of April.
So I'm gonna start from a finesse technique all the way up to one of my favorite and more well-known techniques, a swim bait.
But first of all, we're gonna dive in to the very first one. And that happens to be a neko rig. A neko rig is a finesse worm with a hook that can either be a drop shot hook or a straight shank hook that you hook in the upper third of the bait with a little nail weight that's located all the way up in the nose of the worm. And this little bait right here is great for fish that are coming up to spawn, coming out after they're done spawning and they're pulled up on isolated cover—something that you can fish across the country, and it doesn't matter what body of water you're on, you will catch fish on a neko rig. So that's why that's one of my favorite techniques.
The next one is the jerkbait. This is a Vision 110 by Megabass and this bait absolutely catches them. And the reason why is because the erratic action that this bait imparts. Now whether it's a 110 or 110+1, you have all these different depth ranges that you can target with a jerkbait. And the reason why I like to utilize a jerkbait in the month of April is because of fry guarders.
Now what is a fry guarder, you might ask yourself? It's when the bass are done spawning, what happens to those eggs? They hatch. And what are those little hatchlings called? They're called fry. And what happens is the male bass will stick around to guard those fry. And so if you're able to find a plume of fry, typically in the spring, you will find a male bass along with it.
One of my favorite ways to target those fry guarders is—boom—right here, a jerkbait. Giving it fast twitches and then pauses and repetitive casts through those fry guarders, you will get them to react and then eat this not out of hunger, but out of anger. So utilizing a jerkbait is a great way to catch those fish.
I like to fish that on straight 12 LB test FC Sniper fluorocarbon and utilizing the 110 special by Megabass. This combo is absolutely deadly. That's why it's my number two favorite one to use during the month of April.
All right, moving on.
Right here we have the Deep X100 LBO. It's a smaller crank and it has the Megabass patent LBO weighting system. It allows the weight to lock in on a long bomb cast, staying at the tail end of the bait when you're casting it. And then as soon as you start retrieving it, the bill changes the direction of the bait, then pushing that slider down to the nose and it allows this bait to get down really deep—around 12 feet.
Now in April, those fish are pushing in and out of pockets, utilizing secondary points, main lake points as transitional areas. Now when you have a little bit more condition, unlike today when you got that wind, overcast, maybe a storm's pushing in, this is a great little bait to crank around in and around those areas. And so that's why I like utilizing a crankbait and especially one like this Deep 100 during that time of year.
Now on to the next.
This is one of my favorite ways to fish and I think a lot of people will agree with me that when it comes to topwater fishing, a popper is a great way to catch them, especially in the springtime where these fish have just got off beds or they're pushing on up to beds. You can make precise casts around isolated pieces of cover and pop the bait and let it sit there and let the rings of the water ring out, and then you pop it again.
And just depending on how the fish are reacting that day, you can either walk this bait, you can pop and pause it, or you can just chug it along. And with this really unique system on the Pop Max, you're able to—it shoots a bunch of bubbles out through the mouth and out through the gills, making this a killer little popper.
So this is the Megabass Pop Max and yeah—one of my favorite baits to catch them in the springtime for sure. I like to fish this on braid to a very short fluorocarbon leader. Depending on where I am, sometimes I will just fish it just straight to braid.
Last but not very least, this is one of my favorite techniques of all time and probably the one of the techniques that I'm more known for—and that's glide bait fishing.
Now this is the 86 Baits Doomrider and this little guy absolutely can catch them. And if you notice this color, I'm mimicking brim. So any type of bluegill or crappie in the spring, bass are not friends with them because these little guys are trying to eat up on all their eggs. So this is a great way to target those big post-spawn giant females or those big females that are pre-spawning, trying to push up to spawn.
I'm fishing this on a Megabass Mark 56 with a Salty swimbait reel by Bates and I'm fishing this on 22 LB test Shooter by Sunline. And this whole setup is extremely important because when you're throwing around a high-dollar swimbait, you want to make sure that you have all the elements to support this bait.
If you're using too light of line, you're going to risk breaking it off. Or if you're hooking into a big fish, potentially losing it. And what's also important is changing out the hooks. So I instantly will take off the stock hooks and I will change them over to the Gamakatsu. This is a short shank EWG-style, 3X strength wire and a Magic Eye, which makes it a lot easier to thread them on to the split rings. I've caught fish up to 9 lbs with this bait and those hooks have never failed me.
Now depending on the glide bait, you can either put a snap on the front—and certain baits are swam a little bit better when you directly tie it. With this 86 Baits, I like to tie it directly to the line tie at the front—not adding a swivel or a split ring—but it all depends on the glide bait that you're wanting to fish.
Well, that's going to conclude my favorite top five baits during the month of April. Hopefully you guys learn a little something and hopefully you will enjoy fishing. Some of those techniques help put some more fish in your boat or more fish catches on shore for you.
