Expert Rigs

Sometimes, simple really is better. All through high school and into college, friends and I focused a lot of catfishing energy on a series of semi-private ponds stocked with bass, pike, and crappies, as well as channel and flathead catfish. While the fishing was exclusively catch and release, by permit only, an abundance of anglers wetting hooks in these ponds caught a majority of the cats each year. In one of the deeper ponds, we’d met three big flatheads on multiple occasions, naming them Larry, Curly, and Moe. We realized, however, that these fish weren’t like the Three Stooges at all. Rather, most of the larger flatheads and channel cats here were pretty sharp, having been caught before, and soon began to drop baits upon feeling any resistance from slipsinker or float rigs. Frustrating.

After being frequently thwarted by cats dropping baits and eluding hook-sets, we shed the sinkers from our rigs entirely, instead fishing freelined cut and live baitfish. Switching from heavy casting combos to Shimano Baitrunner spinning reels and 9- to 11-foot medium-heavy power rods, we maintained the ability to pitch weightless baits sufficient distances, while wielding ample power to subdue big flatheads in these mostly cover-free waters.

We immediately experienced a major boost in channel cat bites, and hook-sets rarely missed. During flathead outings at night, we found that even though the lack of a sinker allowed our live green sunfish to swim anywhere they wanted, including on the surface, strikes actually increased. Cats rarely dropped their sunfish meals, and our bite-to-hook-set ratio jumped from 50 percent to nearly 100. We were also treated to occasional heart-thumping surface blasts.

In shallow lakes and ponds today, freelining remains among the most effective and simple riggings I’ve used. So long as excessive winds or snags aren’t a problem, it’s the rig I nearly always employ first in these waters. And on clean, shallow flats, offshore or quartering winds can sometimes turn freelined baits into drift rigs.

With your back quartered into the wind and rod tip near the water, slowly feed low-diameter braided line through your fingertips, allowing the bait to be carried gently across the flat. Maintain as much direct contact as possible while the bait drifts. With the right wind, you can drift 30- to 50-yard swaths of water this way, often walking down the bank, as the bait moves and you maintain contact with a 9- to 12-foot rod. When a cat bites, you feel the line jump and quickly peel away. Reel down to the fish, and when the line tightens, sharply lift the rod tip into the bulk of a hefty cat.

The Quick-Change Advantage
Simple rigs are one thing—easy to tie and replace. More complex rigs, however, can be simplified by using certain interchangeable parts. Most veteran anglers carry spare rigs and replacement parts, keeping everything within arm’s reach. Snagged and lost rigs happen everywhere, but time spent retying can be reduced. It’s one of the chief lessons I’ve taken from champion tournament anglers Phil King and John Jamison.

In reservoirs and large rivers, these top catmen drift or walk baits a large fraction of the time, and in tournaments, the clock is ticking. Jamison prefers a modified three-way drift rig, but he’s customized each of its components for immediate replacement. Weighting Jamison’s rigs are 3- to 8-ounce bank sinkers, each fastened to the end of a 1- to 3-foot 30-pound-test monofilament dropper line with a large cross-lock snap, as opposed to tying direct. At the foot of each angler in Jamison’s boat sits a plastic tub filled with spare bank sinkers. As current, depth, or boat speed changes, Jamison can instantly remove a 3-ounce sinker and clip on a 5-ouncer without skipping a beat.

So it also goes with the rest of this rig. Tied to the end of his 60- to 80-pound Power Pro or Spiderwire Stealth mainline is a #5 or #6 McMahon snap, which lets him immediately clip on a fresh rig.

Jamison employs an ingenious rig storage solution that all catmen should consider: Cabela’s Advanced Anglers Tackle Utility Binders house entire rigs, or individual droppers each within transparent, zippered pockets. A lost rig is replaced instantly, as he quickly retrieves a fresh one, attaching its three-way swivel to the McMahon snap rather re-tying a new knot or re-fashioning an entire rig. He’s back to fishing in seconds instead of minutes, which means keeping bait in the water almost continuously.

Pro Rig Profiles
The Bait-Walker: One of the finest tailrace and river cat rigs ever devised, the bait-walker rig allows an angler to “self-drift” bait downstream through extended river stretches. Drop the rig to the bottom. Then, while anchored, or working slowly upstream, or slowing your drift with a bowmount trolling motor, begin feeding line to maintain bottom contact. Frequently thumb the spool and slowly raise the rod tip to lift the sinker slightly off bottom, allowing current to propel the rig several feet further downstream. Drop the rod tip until you feel the sinker touch the river bottom once more. Repeat.

King and Jamison use line-counter reels to dial in and duplicate the precise locations of sinker-transmitted cover and bites. Walking bait is an old-school catman secret—one of the deadliest river approaches of all time.
The Suspender: Top performing tournament angler Jeremy Leach of Madison, Indiana, hunts suspended blue cats with a form of Carolina rig. “Most anglers overthink their rigging when approaching suspended blues,” Leach says. “Simpler is better for these fish. Keeping bait in front of their mouths is key, and a simple Carolina-style rig is the best way to do that.

“We use 100-pound-test Fins Original PRT braid as a mainline, and run about a 6-ounce egg sinker ahead of a large barrel swivel. The leader consists of an 18-inch section of 80-pound test Cajun Red Lightnin’ monofilament and a 10/0 in-line Mustad Demon Circle hook.”

Monitoring fish position on sonar, Leach lowers rigs to hover baits just inches to a foot above the depth level of the fish. Using the iPilot feature on his Minn Kota trolling motor, he keeps his SeaArk catboat stationed directly above, monitoring rod tips clutched in Monster Rod Holders. Most of the blues he targets lie 2 to 6 feet above bottom, and he’s often able to watch on sonar as fish rise and grab Carolina-rigged baits—typically strips of skipjack herring or gizzard shad.

The Pop-Up Paternoster: During the nearly 10 years in which I’ve used this adapted European float rig for flatheads, it’s never failed to garner odd looks and bemused skepticism. Nor has it failed to call flatheads from specific cover objects to which the rig can be precisely pinned. This customized three-way rig uses a submerged float to suspend live or cutbaits at precise depths above bottom, while a depth and current-matched sinker anchors the bait tight to a cover object.

Suspender-rigging is often a superior way to call flatheads from cover, as a lively baitfish kept well above bottom sends out tireless tail-thumping signals. Rigs with longer droppers can be somewhat unwieldy to cast, so we often set this rig into precise locations with a boat, then back off a distance to wait for action.

The Pebble Rig: Spend time pursuing carp in the U.K. or wels catfish in Spain and you begin to appreciate the need to rethink traditional rigging. The pebble rig is the creation of wels catfish specialist Stephen Buss, who several years ago began rigging large stones (up to about 5 pounds) as an alternative to lead weights. The Pebble Rig breaks free from its “pebble” on a hook-set, allowing the angler to battle large cats in heavy current completely unencumbered by excess weight. As most anglers who’ve caught large cats know, a heavy weight can cause slack line or even pull hooks loose as it swings during a fight.

Stones up to about a pound cast fairly well with medium-heavy to heavy catfish rods, while heavier pebbles up to 5 pounds are placed by anglers in boats. They carry the rig to a spot, then return to shore or an anchor position.

Two to four rubber bands encircle and secure the stone, while a cross-lock snap swivel clutches each rubber band at a central crossing point on top of the rock. Thick rubber bands, such as those used for bundles of broccoli or asparagus, work well. Various rigs work with a pebble weight, including three-ways and traditional sliprigs.

When a fish strikes, or if the stone snags, a sharp tug or hook-set usually pops the weight free, allowing for a direct connection to the fish. Flat, smooth stones hold river bottom quite well and are the most desired pebbles for this rig. Europeans on heavy fished waters even use discarded pebble weights to build their own fish-attracting rockpiles.

The Rattler: Santee-Cooper, South Carolina, guide Captain Marlin Ormseth has become a believer in rattles for attracting channel catfish. Not only has Ormseth devised an entire slow-trolling method employing his own radical rigs, he also handcrafts his own leader snaps and a unique snag-resistant sinker. By the way, Ormseth catches crazy numbers of big cats. And as he’ll tell you: “This rig is a fishing machine on Santee-Cooper.”

Simple? Not always. Tailor made to match the catch? You better believe it, bubba.

Flashing Magic In Practiced Hands

In-Fisherman Editor In Chief Doug Stange suggests that it’s one of the most fundamental triggering moves in fishing—that is, the up-down movement of a jigging spoon. It flashes on the lift and the fall, in imitation of a struggling baitfish.

Stange: “Fish get programmed early in their lives to respond to this movement. It’s a sure meal. And spoons are as efficient as they are effective. They can be cast and retrieved as well as fished vertically. You can cover a lot of water with them—and they work in reservoir, rivers, and natural lakes.

“Anglers use spoons all winter, but then leave them in the tackle box once open water sets in. Actually, that’s an overstatement. I should say anglers in some parts of North America forget about spoons. They’re a popular option all season long in many parts of the West and across the Mid South. I get to see spoons in action as we travel to shoot In-Fisherman Television.

“Two of my TV favorites are the Luhr Jensen Crippled Herring and the Luhr Jensen Tony Spoon. Lots of flash and vibration, but not much noise because there are no rattles. One of the big debates in a lot of areas where we use spoons is whether or not to rattle and flash, as opposed to just flash.”

One of the first spoons to incorporate a rattle was the Rattle Snakie Spoon from Bass ’N Bait Company, developed in Ohio as a bass lure that soon benefited Lake Erie walleye anglers. Not long afterwards, John Peterson of Northland Tackle designed the Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon.

Peterson: “Before introducing the spoon, I had success with the Buck-Shot Rattle Jig, winning a Professional Walleye Trail event on Lake of the Woods. The water was muddy. More and bigger fish found the jigs with rattles—so I knew a brass rattle in a minnow-imitating spoon would be good. I wanted a versatile and effective spoon that would attract fish in low light or in stained and muddy water.”

Clacker Backers Or Not

Stange often fishes at Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan, out of G & S Marina Outfitters, where the owner, Rob Schulz, has demonstrated how effective the ReelBait Fergie Spoon can be. The Fergie is a slab spoon with trebles top and bottom and a clacker system serving as the line tie, where two plastic beads surround a brass clacker sliding on a shaft above the spoon. “It makes a racket,” Stange says. “More like a Rattle Trap than the average spoon.”

Schulz says he started using the Fergie about 6 years ago. “We got to know Al Patterson (owner of ReelBait) through one of our guides,” he says. “We did an Outdoor Quest segment on using jigging spoons. We started on a sharp break to 35 feet off the edge of a rockpile. Structure is great for jigging spoons, and we caught six walleyes between 7 and 10 pounds. That was my introduction to the Fergie and they’ve been a staple for us ever since.

“The two trebles up your hooking percentage,” he adds. “We’ve had excellent results with the clacker system, on soft bottom as well as hard bottom. We’ve tried fishing silent spoons, but the clackers consistently outfish the non-clackers most of the time.”

Pat O’Grady, designer of the PK Spoon had a clacker system atop his spoons over a decade ago. “We fished almost exclusively with clacker versions for 4 years,” he recalls. “We assumed the clacker drew fish in because we fished 30 to 50 feet deep, in water that wasn’t clear. One day on Glendo Reservoir in Wyoming, in a group of six guys, one of us took the clacker off. He caught 40 of the 80 walleyes the next two days.

“I started testing spoons again after that. I found that people using my spoons were taking the clacker off and catching more fish. Testing proved that the action of the spoon was more important than any sound it could make. On a subsequent trip to Glendo we caught 106 walleyes in 5 hours. During that hot bite, it became obvious the action of the spoon improved when we took the clacker off, giving it a more lifelike, wounded action.

“I’m first and foremost a spoon guy,” he continues. “We can catch fish crankin’ and with crawler rigs, but when I want to run and hit a lot of spots to find fish, spoons work best. It’s fairly common to pull onto a spot and catch 40 walleyes with spoons in a few hours. Spoons produce more fish faster than any other method, and the best spoon is one that flutters freely on the drop.”

Peterson falls between those two opposites. “A rattle is most effective in low light; in dark, stained water; and when fishing around hard-bottom areas,” he says. “I fish spoons without rattles when the water’s gin-clear and cold, or if I’m vertically jigging under cold-front conditions, when the fish want a slower, subtler presentation. Deadsticking a spoon on or just off bottom can work well in those conditions, just holding the spoon as still as possible under the boat or under the ice.”

According to Peterson, “A subtle rattle is better than a loud one in cold water, during cold fronts, or when the fish are in a negative feeding mood. Loud rattles excel in warm water, dark or dirty water, or whenever walleyes are in a more aggressive feeding mode.

“But vertical jigging, casting, and snapjigging with rattling jigs or spoons over hard bottom is a big part of the story with rattles. Rock resonates sound better, and rattles attract fish to those areas faster than they do around silt and sand.”

Dan Ferguson, inventor of the Fergie Spoon, also believes that sound is unnecessary at times. “When walleyes are aggressive, I can catch them on spoon that make no noise or limit noise; so I often take the beads off,” he says. “But when I fish deeper than about 30 feet, I see a 3-to-1 difference in favor of noisy spoons.”

The Rattlin’ Way

Even though separated by mountain ranges and climate changes, experts often seem to come around to using similar equipment to fish the same lures. Methodology, however, is another story.

“We cast the Fergie, let it sink to bottom, then start to jerk-pause it back to the boat,” Schulz says. “Once we find fish, the vertical approach works better. We keep the line slightly but not entirely taut on the drop. Leave a slight bow when it’s dropping. When walleyes are shallow, on windswept sand points, we cast the Fergie up on top in 2 to 6 feet of water and start jerking them down the sand point. When walleyes are that shallow they often strike when the spoon first hits the water, or on the original drop. They’re feeding fish.

“Casting or jigging from a boat, we use 61⁄2-foot medium-heavy-action baitcasting gear spooled with 14-pound FireLine,” Schulz says. “We tie the jig to a 4-foot section of 20-pound Trilene fluorocarbon leader, for abrasion-resistance around rocks. Casting, we jerk the bait 5 or 6 feet, then let it flutter back down. The key to fishing spoons is the timing. Knowing when it’s going to hit bottom is important. You have to start jerking upward just before it hits bottom on Last Mountain, or you snag rocks or miss fish that hit on the drop near bottom.

“Same thing when vertically jigging. Start with the lure just touching bottom, with your rod tip 6 inches off the water so you know where bottom is when jigging. As soon as it touches bottom, snap it up 5 feet. The timing is critical. There are subtle things you have to learn, like letting the spoon wobble its way down on a semi-taut line.

“We also work a lot of breaklines, keeping a 20-degree angle to our lines, by slowly snap-trolling. We never tip with bait. The Fergie is our go-to lure for putting a trophy in the boat. But it doesn’t work as well in the hands of guests. It takes time to learn the nuances. Experienced fishermen can hunt big fish with these lures, though. If I really want to catch a 12 pounder, I can do it every day with this lure. I find them with electronics, stop, drop, give ’em 4 or 5 snaps and, if they don’t hit, I’m on to the next fish.

“That’s the nice thing about a jigging spoon. It’s aggressive. They’re either going to hit it or not, so don’t waste any time. They hit it more often than not because it’s a perfect wounded-minnow imitation, which is particularly effective for walleyes. We use the 1-ounce Fergie most of the time, but we drop down a size in shallow water, where we don’t want it to fall as fast.”

O’Grady and Peterson also prefer baitcasting gear, but they do things a little differently, as local environments often demand. “I use Abu low-profile baitcasters on 6-foot medium-action pistol-grip rods,” O’Grady says. “The finger grip makes it easier on your wrist, and the baitcaster pays out line more evenly on the drop.

“I use 10-pound Trilene XL, though a lot of my friends use braid because it doesn’t stretch. I think I get more movement and more flutter out of the spoon with mono. I really concentrate on the line, the depth, boat movement, and the angle of the drop, and I think that has more to do with catching fish on spoons than anything. It requires diligence.

“If it’s calm, I use a 1/2-ounce spoon anywhere from 25 to 45 feet deep,” O’Grady says. “With a little wind, I size up to a 3/4 or 1 ounce. You don’t have to rip the PK spoon. Just lift and drop. It has its own action. So many slab spoons designed to fish deep have no action unless you rip them all the time, leaving you with sore arms at the end of the day. I put 80 percent of the weight in the bottom of the PK Spoon, so it never tangles on itself, even with a treble on each end. It’s all about weight placement.

“I drop it down to bottom, then tighten up my line. I bring it up 4 to 6 inches off bottom and work it a lift-fall that might range from a 4-inch pop to a 24-inch pop. I work it more vigorously as I continue, eventually popping it 4 to 5 feet off bottom. That way I’m ­working the close fish first and distant fish last.

“I like to start on a point with a lot of structure. I’m fishing almost vertical, but I’m not staying in one place. Slowly move the boat with the trolling motor. In these reservoirs, you lose 100 spoons a day pounding bottom all the time. I constantly monitor sonar. If bottom comes up, I bring the lure up. It’s not a lazy way to fish, but once you’ve got it down, there’s no better way to hook a lot of walleyes in a short time.”

Peterson uses 61⁄2- to 7-foot medium-heavy baitcasting rods with 10- or 12-pound Berkley Trilene XT. “Heavier line allows me to aggressively jig and snap the spoon to imitate a crippled minnow,” he says. “The longer rod provides added leverage to set the hook with mono, which stretches. But mono provides resistance, too. It’s thicker, so the drop portion of a jigging motion isn’t so precipitous. This combo is light enough to fish all day long.

“If I fish vertically I raise the spoon 12 inches off bottom, give it a snap and let it settle back, then pause 5 seconds and repeat. One of my most productive techniques, especially during cold fronts or when fishing is tough, is to shake the spoon in place with short, quick snaps. The spoon rises and falls only 1 to 2 inches. Then I pause and deadstick for 15 seconds and repeat. It allows skittish fish time to approach and nip at the minnow head, where the treble is waiting.

“Walleyes often grab a spoon on the fall, so you have to be ready to set the hook immediately if you feel a slight tick. I cast a spoon when walleyes are in 15 feet of water or less, using 1/8- or 1/4-ounce Buck-Shots or the 1/2-ounce Live-Forage Casting Spoon. For this I prefer a 7-foot medium-action spinning rod with 10-pound mono. I make long casts, let the spoon settle to the bottom, and then aggressively snap the spoon back with quick, sharp, 8- to 12-inch jigging strokes. I catch a lot of fish as the spoon swings to vertical, directly below.”

Editor In Chief Stange offers this parting shot: “I’ve often said that spoons can become the ultimate illusion. They don’t look like anything in particular that a fish eats yet with the right manipulations they become something—just enough of a question mark in the fish’s mind to get them to respond.”

Spinnerbaiting Walleyes

Before his untimely death, Gregg Meyer was a cagey multispecies angler who often used spinnerbaits to catch walleyes. ”Once the spawn is over, walleyes are all about feeding,” he noted. “They move shallow into warm water where the food chain is in high gear. Banks and shallow flats are loaded with minnows, small panfish—all sorts of prey. Anglers usually use crankbaits and jigs tipped with bait or artificials to work that zone, but at times a spinnerbait can be more effective.

“Since spinnerbaits are snag-resistant, they work better than just about anything else around standing timber, flooded bushes, and brush,” he said. “Walleyes use that cover when feeding on panfish, shad, and minnows. Rocky shores can be good, too, especially when a modest wind is blowing in. I also fish the tops of shallow flats and along drop-offs where the flats breaks into deeper water. Preyfish must be present to get walleyes hunting shallow. In spring and early summer, some days they’re shallow and some days they’re not. You need to experiment, have faith, and not give up on this technique. Like anything else, it doesn’t work all the time.”

Rigging

Meyer uses his bass tackle for spinnerbaiting—a medium-heavy baitcasting outfit 6 ½ feet long and a reel spooled with 10- or 12-pound mono or braid of similar diameter. “If you don’t have baitcasters, your kid’s spincast reel will do,” he says. “You’re fishing shallow, but you still need to be aware of structural elements, so you need sonar, unless you’re familiar with the lake’s layout. The unit also helps pinpoint baitfish when you’re deeper than 5 feet or so.”

Meyer uses spinnerbaits from 1/8- to 3/8-ounce. He wants a true-running bait with good components and uses various models from Stanley Jigs of Huntington, Texas. A tapered-wire shaft enhances vibration that may be a key component of the spinnerbait’s attraction. The Stanley Salty Boss is hard to beat.

“Some days, blade color matters,“ he reported. “I switch among silver, gold, white, chartreuse, and key-lime-green blades. For the skirt, baitfish colors work fine in clearer water—silvers, golds, smoke-sparkle, and so on. In murkier water, chartreuse and white do well.”

Meyer says that top-quality polarized sunglasses are vital, as you often are sight-fishing. He favors those that block out light from the sides, such as the Wiley X models with a foam insert that seals the glasses around your face “Look carefully and you can spot walleyes in water as shallow as 6 inches,” he says. “Keep your distance, approach cautiously, and you can catch those fish.

Presentation

Meyer uses a variety of retrieves to trigger walleyes. “When they’re holding shallow and tight to the bank, cast right onto the edge of the shore. It’s common to have fish bite in the first five feet of the retrieve. In deeper water, make the retrieve smooth and slow, so the spinnerbait moves along near bottom. If you’re fishing a sloping area, slow down as the water deepens, to keep the spinnerbait down—what the bass guys call ‘slow-rolling.’”

Meyer uses the lure’s snag resistance to saturate shallow cover, easing it among boulders, weed clumps, brush, and stumps. Make it bump the cover on occasion, as that momentary change in direction can trigger bites from less active fish. He’s also found that a spinnerbait works well when retrieved parallel to a rocky bluff or the riprap face of a dam or causeway. Once you figure the prime depth, you repeat the presentation.

At times it pays to experiment with more erratic action. “Pause the bait and let it flutter,” he recommended. “The blade on a good spinnerbait lets it helicopter down, and that can be deadly on walleyes.”

Tips for Success

A spinnerbait is essentially a simple lure and at times there’s no wrong way to work it. Like other lures, it doesn’t always work, but when it’s on, it can load the boat with big walleyes. Meyer has a few more tips to help get you started.

Bait: “At times, it pays to tip the spinnerbait with a nightcrawler or minnow. There’s something about the look, smell, and taste of real food. Make sure the lure continues to run perfectly straight when bait is attached. Critters often turn on the hook and ruin the presentation. So I don’t use bait unless it seems necessary.”

Short strikes: “If you get bumped and don’t hook up, try a trailer or stinger hook to nail short strikers. Some days, the stinger gets most of the fish. But it can be a pain around brush and grass, so I don’t use one until I start missing fish.”

Other species: “It’s common to catch both bass and walleyes as you move along a bank—pike as well. But if you start catching nothing but bass, it’s time to move, unless you’re just fishing for fun. I love bass, too, and it’s hard to abandon a fast bite on anything.”

Tackle care: “You’re working through cover, and the line takes a beating, even heavy mono or braid. Moreover, walleyes really slam these things. Check the line and retie to keep from eventually breaking off a lunker. After catching some fish, the lure may get out of balance. Bend the overheard wire back into shape so it runs true. Sharpen the hook, too, and replace skirts when they get threadbare.”

Deep Tactics

Spinnerbaits are at their finest around shallow cover and on shallow banks in spring and early summer, but they can also be used deep. Again, the presence of cover often is the key. Across much of the West, when reservoirs rise they flood deeper trees and walleyes often suspend in the tops of those trees. Slow-trolling one-ounce spinnerbaits on a long line through the tops of the trees can be deadly. Anglers also use leadcore line to get spinnerbaits down.

Meyer has also had success with a teaser ahead of a trolled spinnerbait. “Before you tie on, string on a couple beads—-my favorite color, key lime —then a clevis with a tiny Colorado blade, then four more beads. It looks like multiple baitfish being chased by a smaller predatory fish,” he says.
Spinnerbaits use flash and vibration to sell the image of vulnerable prey to a predator. Meyer: “As a spinner turns, it produces a steady flash, since both sides are gold or silver or whatever. But when you watch a school of baitfish, they don’t produce a regular flash; it’s far more random. At times an intermittent flash or flicker is a better trigger than a constant flash. To produce intermittent flash, use a magic marker to blacken the concave side of the blade.”

Some anglers in the West have been using spinnerbaits for many years, but it generally hasn’t caught on elsewhere. Don’t let tradition stand in the way of success. In the right situations, walleyes eat spinnerbaits just as well as they do crankbaits and jigs.

*The late Gregg Meyer, Wilsonville, Nebraska, had a career in law enforcement, in addition to being an avid and innovative angler. This was his last of several contributions to In-Fisherman.

Mighty Mini Cranks

Fine balance is required to prevent things light as a feather from succumbing to water pressure. The weight of an ultralight crankbait is measured in grams, and rarely exceeds 1/8 ounce. Easy to keep larger cranks from spinning out, but the tolerances are very tight with objects ultra light. Balance is critical.

The slightest imperfection—a diving bill misplaced by one ten-thousandth of an inch—sends tiny cranks into a tailspin. As a result, some ultralight lures we buy were never meant to go to market, and that hurts sales overall. Engineering must be precise. Even the greatest crankbaits of all time can’t be simply miniaturized. Stresses those baits can tolerate at 3 inches in length might send the same design spiraling out of control in a smaller size.

Even the operable minis can’t tolerate speeds over 1 mph for the most part. Which is fine, because panfish often chase fast-moving objects but they bite slower ones more readily. A slight pause or full stop inspires more of an all-out assault, as opposed to nipping, which results in fewer solid hookups.

The eyes of panfish are genetically tuned to find smaller objects and bring them into focus. Most of the items on the menu are fairly slow. Even when feeding on minnows, crappies and bluegills prefer to focus on the ones at rest or moving slowly. All of which works in the favor of ultralight cranks, since most of them have to be moved with a light touch, in a meticulous manner. However, certain ultralight cranks can be ripped and worked aggressively in the midst of a feeding frenzy—and you need to know which ones before blindly ripping ultralights through the fray.

An ultralight crank, by our definition, is just over 2 inches in length or smaller. Some tiny cranks can tolerate a little speed, and most of those are found on the larger side of the scale—in the 2½-inch range. Make those your search baits. Panfish may or may not attack them with relish, but they certainly follow and bump. The lure acts as a compass, pointing the way to larger concentrations of panfish, whenever visibility is good enough to actually see follows. That’s when the remainder of your mini arsenal comes into play.

Search

When fishing big lakes and reservoirs, with a lot of water to cover, nothing divines location like a mini bass crank. Search mode requires long casts, so pick a 7-foot moderate- to fast-action graphite ultralight rod. Choose a moderate (light) spinning reel (ultralight reels are not casting tools), spool with 4- to 6-pound braid, and tie on a 3-foot long 2- to 4-pound fluorocarbon leader.

Norman, Rebel, Rapala, Cotton Cordell, and several other companies make miniature versions of bigger bass cranks that refuse to spin out when tuned precisely. But small rattle baits, probably the least squirrely of all ultralights, take the point on search patrol.

In the angling world, flash, vibration, and noise are welcome members of the search party. Rattlebaits deliver all three. With acres of weedlines, pockets, and gravel flats to cover, best to start with the fastest baits possible. The RNR04 Rattlin’ Rapala, Bill Lewis Mini-Trap, Sebile Flatt Shad 42, and the Cordell Spot Minnow are only about 1.5 inches long, but they cast like bullets. Being smaller and lighter, they sink slower than their larger counterparts, which is perfect. The idea is to launch long casts and use your eyes—not just to spot follows, but to find key spots. Slow that rattlebait down next to emerging flower tops on cabbage plants, logs, dark clusters of coontail, and visible boulders or rockpiles. Pause the bait for a nano second whenever it’s passing visible cover, then slowly turn the handle

Floating cranks that dive can be paused longer, of course—and they float up off weeds when fed some slack line. One of my favorites is the L&S Bait Company Jointed MM MirrOlure, perhaps the first ultralight crank ever mass produced. It was born in the 1950s and retains its signature metal lip (flash). It has a jointed body (noise). And it wiggles like no other tiny crank. Reel it steadily along and it covers a lot of water, emitting constant vibration. When it bumps something, pause it.

A diving “bass-style” nano crank, like the Strike King Bitsy Minnow, the Norman Crappie Bait, the Bomber 3F Fat A, or the Rapala Mini Fat Rap, works through and around cover efficiently. Round baits pop up quickly on the pause, and have all the attraction features, in varying quantities, of the MirrOlure. At about 1 mph, on a steady retrieve, round baits are deadly. The wider body and wider wobble protects hooks as these miniature beauties bounce off wood, pads, and weedstalks. Mini cranks like these are at their best over the tops of weedbeds and fallen trees when panfish are up and active.

The Rebel lineup of Creek Creature Baits falls into the search category, too. The Teeny-Wee Frog, Crickhopper, Crawfish, and Cat’r Crawler stimulate a visual response to profiles familiar and exciting to panfish.

Often, trolling is the best way to search. Mini cranks don’t troll well, as a general rule, but shad-shaped cranks represent notable exceptions. During the early season, when shad or perch fry proliferate, Yo-Zuri Snap Shads, Cordell Wee Shads, Rapala XRS06 X-Rap Shads, Rapala GSR04 Glass Shad Raps, and other shad-shaped minis shine. Having a tight, subtle wobble, and being easy to tune, shad bodies tolerate those surges of speed caused by wave action and turns. Stable banana-style baits, like the Luhr Jensen K-3 Kwikfish or Worden’s F-3 Flatfish, stand up to trolling even better. On a long, light line, moving just fast enough to make these baits wobble, nothing finds errant schools of crappies or white bass any faster. Use 10-foot ultralight rods in forward positions and 6-foot rods off the back corners to create a spread, move slow and cover water with a “school of somethings” in tow.

And Destroy

Once found, you can clean up on big numbers of panfish by casting floats with bait, spider-rigging, or pitching tubes. But if you want to immerse yourself in nano technology and learn a thing or two about ultralight fishing, stick with the little hard bodies.

Clean-up activities center around pitching—best accomplished with a 6- to 6.5-foot ultralight rod with a medium-fast action and a light (not ultralight) spinning reel. If your rig tolerates and protects 2-pound mono, it can pitch a Yo-Zuri Snap Bean or Matzuo Nano Crank into a feeding frenzy (which is easier to approach than a business-as-usual panfish scenario). These tiny baits are super sensitive (meaning fish them very slow) but they catch everything. Up where I live, it’s hard to throw one for more than 10 minutes without being mugged by a rogue pike or bass. The smallest Snap Bean is about 1.5 inches long, and something about its tadpole shape and rolling wobble drives crappies and bluegills into a feeding dementia.

Nano floating minnows like the Rebel F-49, the Yo-Zuri Pin’s Minnow, and the Rapala Original Floater F03, are mop-up machines whenever panfish are feeding near the surface (they’re also quite stable and efficient for drifting or slow-trolling with 3-way rigs near bottom). Little floaters select for larger specimens, too.

Whenever the water gives up a spectrum of bluegills or crappies ranging from very small to obese, these baits tend to both attract and hook the bigger ones. Just twitch and wake them along slowly on top wherever panfish are busting the surface.

Few ultralight baits cast better than sinking minnowbaits. Other than the Yo-Zuri Snap Bean, no hardbait is smaller than the 1-inch Rapala CountDown CD01, yet it casts for distance on light line. CountDowns and other sinking minnows allow you to target depths tiny divers can’t reach. The action is minimal—which is good. Wild side-to-side behavior isn’t always a plus when targeting panfish. Work them with a slow twitch-pause cadence.

When sunfish and ‘gills gather under overhanging trees to take advantage of dangling inch worms, my match-the-hatch mindset takes command and I tie on a Rebel Cat’r Crawler. Work it just like a tiny floating minnow—keep it near the surface and twitch it a lot. Whether it’s a match-the-hatch dynamic or not, this bait typically outperforms other nano cranks during the inch-worm bloom.

Taking all hot bites on ultralights into account, suspending baits account for more than a fair share. Once I find ‘em, I grind ‘em with little Rapala XR04 X-Raps and Matzuo Nano Minnows. A 2-inch suspending minnow can mesmerize active crappies. They troop along behind a suspending bait like calico zombies until you give it a little extra quiver or twitch. Most strikes occur when the bait is paused and sitting still. The modus operandi of a suspending bait is perfect for crappies and white bass, but with the nano versions you must slow it down.

No walk-the-dog tricks. Snapping the rod tip any more than a few inches acts like a transporter. You might as well beam the lure into an alternate universe, because crappies and bluegills will lose track and lose interest. But twitching it then letting it sit still, suspended, in the right spot is more effective (I’m convinced of this) than dangling a live minnow at least 50 percent of the time. The hotter the bite, the more effective little “slash baits” become.

Be judicious in the handling and manipulation of them and ultralight lures can produce more bites than bait whenever the water is truly warm (over 70°F). Unless you fish them often, it’s easy to forget how sensitive nano cranks are. Even the most subtle movements of the rod tip define “overkill” with many of these baits. If the bait can handle erratic action, slow it down. Most days, panfish don’t want fast and erratic.

Working nano lures like larger ones is the biggest obstacle to success for recent converts to ultralight fishing. Slow and steady, mate. Slow and steady. That’s the key that unlocks the gateway to nano world and panfish nirvana.

In-Fisherman Field Editor Matt Straw has been working on In-Fisherman products for the past 20 years. He lives in Brainerd, Minnesota.

Tracking ‘Gills

The earliest telemetry studies, dating to the mid-1950s, focused on mid-size and large fish, as radio and acoustic tags were bulky, largely due to batteries used to power them. Advances in electronics and battery technology have expanded the range of fish studied with this insightful technique, and more research on bluegills has been done, following the first such study at Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia, published in 1978.

South Dakota Studies

Researchers at South Dakota State University have led the way in recent bluegill movement studies. Dr. Craig Paukert, now Unit Leader at the Missouri Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Unit, tracked big bluegills at Pelican Lake in Nebraska as part of his Ph.D. dissertation research. Pelican Lake, located in the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge in northcentral Nebraska, is regionally acclaimed for the quality of its bluegill fishing.

Pelican Lake: This 820-acre lake is about 3 miles long by 1/2 mile wide and shallow, with average depth less than 4 feet and maximum depth of 9 feet. Patches of emergent vegetation grow throughout the basin, particularly reeds, bulrushes, and cattails. Paukert and his team implanted transmitters in 60 bluegills from 8 to 103⁄4 inches in length and noted locations and habitat from April through September. They also tracked some fish over 24-hour periods.

Throughout the 6-month study, bluegills moved an average of 62 yards per hour, though individuals varied greatly. A couple speedsters moved up to 3/4 of a mile in just an hour. Overall, Pelican Lake bluegills were most active in mid-summer and least active in April and September, when movements were primarily around dusk. Females also tended to move more than males, though there was no size difference between sexes.

From May to August, 24-hour tracking showed bluegill movement rather constant, which seemed to indicate that they were feeding opportunistically day and night. The effect of temperature on movement wasn’t clear. While movement was limited in April, when the lake averaged just 46°F, movement also was less in August and September when the water was close to 70°F.

Bluegill core home ranges were largest in April, averaging 7 acres, though Paukert noted that over 90 percent of radio-tagged ‘gills seemed to move rather randomly. This core home range was defined as the area encompassing at least half of all locations. Core home ranges varied considerably among individual fish as well, ranging from 0.02 to 67 acres.

Unlike fish in some other lakes, bluegills here didn’t make regular inshore-offshore migrations, likely because the lake’s shallow basin offered similar habitat throughout, with cattails growing in the middle of the lake. On a seasonal basis, however, fish were closest to shore in April and June, and farthest from shore in late summer.

In this weedy shallow lake, it wasn’t surprising that bluegills occupied submergent and emergent vegetation in all months and throughout the day and night, though they also were found in open water. There were, however, differences in vegetation use between males and females. Females didn’t show preference for any type of vegetation or open water, while males more often occupied emergent plants like bulrushes, reeds, and cattails during April, June, July, and August. An earlier lab study had determined that the deeper body of male bluegills is more efficient for foraging in vegetation, while slender females with longer snouts are better suited to feeding in open water.

Enemy Swim Lake: Graduate student Eric Weimer conducted a year-round tracking study at Enemy Swim Lake, a 2,150-acre glacial lake in northeastern South Dakota, also focusing on large bluegills (over 8 inches). This mesotrophic lake averages 16 feet and gets as deep as 28 feet. Though they don’t grow as large as at Pelican Lake, the population is high-quality, and has attracted increased angling pressure since 2000. From that year through 2004, fishing effort for bluegill quadrupled, while the catch rose from 10,000 to over 100,000 fish. Ice-fishing pressure has risen even faster since 2002.

Similar to Pelican Lake, bluegills selected dense and moderate vegetation as habitat during fall, the spawn season, and summer. In winter, they favored dense vegetation only, while moderate vegetation was selected in spring. They avoided unvegetated areas throughout the study. During fall and winter, fish favored the tallest vegetation available, and during winter, many bluegills occupied a shallow weedy bay, remaining there until ice-out.

Weimer theorized that fish used thick vegetation as feeding areas, finding abundant macroinvertebrates, including insect larvae, among the stalks. He noted that the density and size of predators, particularly pike and largemouth bass, were probably not sufficient to force bluegills into weedy sanctuaries to avoid predation.

Findings on distance from the shoreline by season differed from the Pelican Lake study. At Enemy Swim, ‘gills were located farthest from shore in spring, and closest in summer. At Pelican, they were farthest from shore in mid-summer, and an intermediate distance from shore during spring. It’s likely that habitat factors, such as vegetation, as well as structural features like points and humps affect habitat selection, and distance from shore, in itself, has little meaning from an ecological or angling perspective.

During winter, bluegills occupied the smallest core home ranges, while ranges were largest in summer and fall. Movement peaked during the spawning period, and there was little difference in activity between males and females, similar to Paukert’s findings at Pelican Lake.

While Weimer didn’t locate bluegills in deep water during any season, that result could have been influenced by the nature of his radio transmitters. Their high-frequency pulses were difficult to detect in water deeper than 16 feet, so more fish may have moved into deeper water in summer to feed on open-water zooplankton or benthic invertebrates such as insect larvae.

Angling Insights

Weimer also compared the spots anglers were targeting bluegills to the exact locations and habitat types occupied by radio-tagged fish. At Enemy Swim, most bluegill fishing takes place in July and August. Total catches and harvest were about twice as high during summer as in winter. Bluegills spawn in June there, and fishing might be expected to be excellent. But Weimer theorized that the excellent walleye fishing at that time tempted many anglers from the bluegill bite.

He noted that bluegill anglers generally fished close to, but not precisely on, concentrations of bluegills in all months. Notably, anglers targeted winter bluegills in shallow Indian Bay where they were indeed concentrated. In June, anglers were found fishing adjacent to bluegill spawning areas, including some in Indian Bay. In mid-summer, however, many bluegills evacuated this bay and spread into the main lake, though the bulk of anglers remained behind.

When ice-fishing, anglers tended to fish too deep, where vegetation was thinner, while most bluegills seemed to seek the thickest weeds. Weimer noted that winter anglers fished areas that were more conducive to trouble-free fishing, as weeds would foul their lines. In summer, as well, anglers tended to fish deeper and in more open areas than bluegills favored.

From these studies, the message seems clear—in various environments, big bluegills occupy weedy areas. Other investigations have found them in offshore habitats during summer and winter, but they’re more difficult to locate in those areas, and more likely to move about with planktonic food sources.

Anglers have many tools to probe thick vegetation, particularly dipping or dabbling softbaits on jigs or livebaits weighted with lead shot. Target pockets or holes within weedbeds, as bluegills tend to exploit the edges of thick vegetation where they can focus more clearly and maneuver better. Ice fishing in weeds is an art, particularly if you use sonar, as the signal, so clean and bright in open water, is scattered and unreliable. But persistence pays off for big ‘gills.

Dave Lefebre Talks Jigs

At the time of my introduction to skirted jigs in the 1970s, only a couple brands were available. They “featured” a skirt that melted in sunlight or in contact with soft-plastic lures, a stiff weedguard that frequently fell out, and a thick-wire hook dull as a knitting needle.

Today, walk down the aisle of any tackle department or glance at a catalog to see how the jig landscape has changed—not just improvements in design and components, but the myriad ways jigs are fished today.

This jig revolution largely resulted from generations of competitive anglers looking for ways to catch more bass. For example, Pennsylvania pro Dave Lefebre has built his tournament fortune on the flip of a jig.

Fishing pro circuits since 2001, Lefebre notes that all his wins at the regional and national level involved a jig as either the primary or secondary lure, and he used a jig at every top-10 finish.

“In my first Stren Series win on the Mississippi River, I caught smallmouths in a backwater on my custom 5/32-ounce Super Finesse Jig with an Uncle Josh #11 Pork Frog. While my first FLW Tour win, on Old Hickory in Tennessee, was all about cranking for the first three days, I sealed the win on the last day by flipping a green pumpkin-orange 5/16-ounce heavy cover jig with a Yamamoto Double Tail.

All 6 of my Potomac River wins came on jigs, though they were of 5 different types.” His list of tournament accomplishments with jigs goes on and on, including his most recent win at the Texas Toyota Bass Championship in 2009, which involved swimming a Tabu Open Water Series jig around docks and sea walls.

Lefebre’s affection for jigs started during his teens. “The first time I got on a jig-n-pig bite, I knew I was hooked. I pulled a 4-pound largemouth out of dense brush on the edge of a flooded island in a small lake near my home. I’d been fishing that lake for years, and when I used a jig for the first time that day, I caught more bass over 3 pounds than I’d caught the previous two years.

“What I’d been reading about jigs in fishing magazines was true! That’s when I started studying the techniques of pros like Denny Brauer, Tommy Biffle, Gary Klein, and Basil Bacon as they talked about
flipping and pitching jigs.”

When pros started talking about skipping jigs, Lefebre began practicing on the only dock on the lake—in a swimming area. He practiced flipping, pitching, and skipping for hours. “I never caught a bass off the dock, but by the end of summer, I could drop a jig on a dime anywhere around or under it.”

His education continued as he realized the effectiveness of swimming a jig, first in vegetation, then down deep on structure. Jigs, he stresses, are not limited to a vertical drop or bottom bouncing. “You can swim a jig like a spinnerbait in the shallows or swim it deeper than any crankbait in open water. I can cover water faster with a jig than any other lure.”

Lefebre says that in his quest to become a pro, he wanted to master every bassin’ technique but whenever someone asked him to pick just one lure to fish, his answer was always, ”a jig.” From his perspective, the positive attributes of jigs outdistance all other baits:

■ Jigs catch bass all year long.
■ They produce bass of a larger average size than other lures.
■ Hook-up ratio is better than most lures.
■ You can cast a jig into almost anything and get it back.
■ Jigs can be fished at a variety of speeds and depths.

When asked about negatives of jigs, he says there aren’t any . . . unless you consider it a negative that no single jig can do it all. Gone are the days of the jack-of-all-trades jig. Manufacturers now offer many types to address angler needs.

Special Purpose Jigs

Lefebre has settled on 5 types of jigs to effectively target bass under every circumstance. He refers to them as Super Finesse; Open Water; Heavy Cover; Grass Swim; and Vegetation Mat. The first three categories include jigs he designed for the Tabu label.

His Super Finesse Jig is designed for shallow water and skittish bass. “It’s built in one size—5/32-ounce, which is not too heavy and not too light, in my experience. It has a modified ball head and 3/0 Owner hook with a slightly inward point.”

This is his go-to jig for shallow isolated cover and docks. Its small profile makes it a good choice for extra-tough conditions, especially in clear water. Rigged with a trailer, it’s balanced for a slow fall, giving bass a lingering view. He uses a variety of trailers, including plastic chunks, small craws, and pork frogs.

Lefebre says his Open Water Jig (available in 5/16-, 9/16-, 3/4-, and 1-ounce) has unique features. The broad, flattened head is for open-water swimming and dragging on deep structure. It won’t roll over like a narrower pointed head, or hang on rocks and deep brush as much as a football head. The tied-skirt can’t be pulled down by short-striking deepwater bass and this jig also skips nicely.

Lefebre stresses that every feature on his Open Water jig is matched to light-line fishing. The length and angle of the fiberguard as well as the number of strands in it and the thin but strong hook allow easy hook-ups on line as light as 8-pound test. “You don’t need a heavy-handed hook-set with this jig,” he says. “Just let the rod load when the fish bites, then sweep it upward.”

The third jig in his lineup is a Heavy Cover Jig, intended for traditional flipping and pitching to heavy cover—stumps, logs, buckbrush, and other visible cover. Many manufacturers offer a jig in this category with a large, strong hook to be fished on heavy line. Lefebre fishes it on 14- to 17-pound fluorocarbon.

Next on his list is a Grass Swim Jig for shallow vegetation. “For this application, I prefer a torpedo-shape head,” notes Lefebre, “as it easily swims through shallow grass and sparse vegetation. Everything should be in line with the line-tie. I typically fish braid around grass so it needs a hook that won’t bend.” He uses 1/4- and 3/8-ounce Yamamoto jigs in this category, though several other good cone-shaped swim jigs are available.

Lefebre’s final category is a Vegetation Mat Jig for penetrating grass matted on the surface. “You need a 3/4- or 1-ounce compact jig and trailer, streamlined so it breaks through the thick stuff, then drops straight down. The jig must have a stout hook that stands up to the heaviest line without bending. I never go heavier than 50-pound braid; nothing is going to break that stuff.”

Skirting the Issue

The details of a jig skirt are important to Lefebre. “I’ve been tying my own for 15 years, and every color and cut of silicone material known to man can be found my 60-pound skirt-making bag. Whenever something new comes out, I get it even if I don’t generally use it. Subtleties in shade, texture, or thickness can have a dramatic impact on the number of bass caught in hard-fished waters.”

He believes color also plays a vital role in generating bites. Carrying many shades of shad colors, smokes, blues, greens, and browns, he experiments more with color than any angler I’ve met. One of his tips for pressured bass: Create a skirt and trailer combination that’s barely visible to the human eye in the prevailing water color.

“I often trim jig skirts as short and thin as possible, he adds. “But when the bite is extremely slow, I like long strands and a lot of them.” Instead of changing a jig to alter sink rate, Lefebre often adjusts the length and thickness of skirts to slow or speed the drop. In cold water, for example, he prefers fuller, longer skirts that fall slower.

But he’s found that reducing skirt material can bring better control in deep water. “At a PAA tournament on Cherokee Lake in Tennessee, I was using a 7/16-ounce Open Water Jig in 30 to 40 feet to catch spotted bass. Spots are hard to hook at that depth.

“The wind came up strong on the last day. Rather than switching to a heavier head and perhaps sacrificing hook-up ratio, I reduced the 45-strand skirt to about 25 strands and trimmed my trailer. That made all the difference.”

When you want a skirt to flare as the jig hits bottom or when you stop it suddenly during a swimming retrieve, a tied skirt has an advantage over one with a slip-on collar. And the tighter the material is tied, the more it flares.

“I sometimes favor living rubber skirts, particularly when fishing for smallmouth,” he continues. “It seems to breathe more than silicone in cold water. It’s old school, but at times you can’t beat living rubber and a pork chunk.”

Trailer Talk

For swim jigs, he usually rigs a 4-inch Yamamoto Double Tail or Single Tail Grub, whether he’s fishing shallow weeds or deep in open water. He uses Berkley’s PowerBait Chigger Craws or Chunk Trailers when pitching and flipping. And Uncle Josh Pork Frogs come out when he’s ripping jigs in vegetation or stroking jigs down deep because they aren’t torn off by sharp rips with the rod. But while fishing, he continually experiments with different chunk and craw trailers.

And he uses few “out of the pack.” Sometimes alterations involve merely cutting a trailer to match the hook and skirt length. But he may shave a chunk to make it thinner or make slices in the plastic or pork to give it more action. Dye markers also add an accent color on the tips.

“I know that I’m picky when it comes to jig-fishing,” Lefebre admits. I wish I could keep it simple, but there’s too much going on in my head when it comes to jigs. I’d love nothing more than to carry a couple 1/2-ounce black-blue and green pumpkin jigs. But that wouldn’t be as much fun as striving to create the perfect jig combination for a situation.” And given the sophistication of anglers today, standard colors and designs likely wouldn’t yield the impressive catches that Lefebre’s become famous for.

Darl Black, Cochranton, Pennsylvania, is a freelance writer and photographer, and frequent contributor to Bass Guide.

Brent Ehrler’s Winning Tactics

Brent Ehrler of Redlands, California, has enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame in professional bass fishing. He began his FLW career in 2003 and straightaway won the Western Division points championship. At the end of the 2009 tournament season, he was ranked second in the BassFan World Rankings, and his angling versatility and prowess was hailed by many.

He started the 2010 season by winning the FLW Series National Guard Western Division tournament at Lake Shasta in January, his fourth FLW win, in addition to 20 top-10 finishes and $1,241,983 in prize money.

Winter kept its relentless grip on the Heartland throughout last February, and when Ehrler arrived at Table Rock Lake, Missouri, on February 27 to practice for the second FLW tournament, weather and water temperatures were unseasonably cold. Ice formed in the backs of coves and fishing was extremely challenging. A massive shad kill had occurred, which seemed to further stymie the bite.

Ehrler allowed me to observe his first practice day, from sunrise at 6:46 a.m. to sunset at 6:04 p.m. Joining us was Brandon Hunter, a successful co-angler from Benton, Kentucky, who’s practiced with him since 2008.

Setting the Scene

At 6:35, Ehrler launched about 13 miles above the dam, where thermometers read 27°F. A 7-mph wind angled from the west, and barometric pressure registered 30.02 inches. Once the sun rose above the Ozark hills, it shone like a new dime, ultimately warming surface water as high as 45°F from the morning’s low of 39° F, though a pesky northwest wind gusted to 25 mph.

Lake level was about 10 inches above normal and the main lake was clear, though a bit stained in parts of the Kings and James river arms. Ehrler began his day fishing a jerkbait on deep wind-blown points near the mouth of Fisher Creek, hoping for action despite unseasonably low temperatures. He’d selected this area because it’s near an access where many local tournaments weigh-in, so he hoped an abundance of bass in the vicinity might provide clues to activity levels and patterns at Table Rock.

In the frigid conditions, I considered his jerkbait retrieve too fast, but he said that the quick pace was essential to cover water and locate congregations of bass. He felt that once he found a group, he could slow down and milk the spots during the competition. But he admitted it might be difficult to provoke strikes on faster presentations.

As he watched ice form on the guides, he briefly reflected on his 5 years on the FLW circuit, and he concluded he’d never experienced such demanding conditions as Table Rock presented that day. During the winter of 2009, he’d spent two weeks there for an FLW tournament. He’d acquired what he called a rudimentary knowledge of the lake’s 43,100 acres, 745 miles of shoreline, and three bass species. In that event, he finished 6th with 48½ pounds.

Difficult conditions and a lack of initial success led him to doubt that he could decipher in just 3 practice days the whereabouts of Table Rock’s bass. So he braced for a week of trying fishing, perhaps enduring many hours without a bite. Ultimately, however, his work ethic, versatility, instincts, and over-riding optimism guided him to a mother lode of bass. Yet it took more than two grueling days of fishing and heavy contemplation before he realized what he’d found.

Preparation

To prepare, Ehrler had spent considerable time searching the internet, consulting websites like ozarkanglers.com. He studied the results of past tournaments and determined what areas are noted for yielding winning catches, as well as areas with many small bass. He’d poured over maps and consulted a Fishing Hot Spots paper map several times while he fished with me. His two Lowrance LCX38cHD units contained lake map cards.

He had also talked to local anglers, ascertaining information such as the color and style of lures bass traditionally prefer, and he acquired jerkbaits in the popular Table Rock Shad hue, some 20-year-old crayfish Wiggle Warts, and a variety of jig-grub combos. He even customized lures, following local prescriptions, but noted that an angler can get too wrapped up in “dock talk,” so he tends to use only the lures he has confidence in.

Location

After plying points for half an hour, Ehrler decided to move across the lake to a point at the end of Cedar Bluff, about 14 miles above the dam. Here he used a jig-and-grub combo to no avail. As he fished, he pondered his next move, weighing the merits of a 36-mile run up the White River to Roaring River or a 19-mile jaunt up the James. He opted for the latter, as this area had produced good bags the year before.

After probing a series of small coves a mile above the mouth of the James, they moved at 9:26 to Jackson Hollow, skipping past Aunts Creek. He bypassed Aunts Creek because he’d found the fishing pressure there too intense on his previous visit. (At the 2010 tournament, Rod Shuffield of Arkansas, caught 18 bass that weighed 56 pounds 9 ounces in Aunts Creek and finished second.)

At 10:27, they moved to Morris Bluff and fished transition areas, where a bluff peters out and the terrain changes to shelf-rock, boulders, chunk rock, then gravel. At 11:21 a.m. Brandon Hunter caught a 14-inch largemouth on a grub in 6 to 8 feet of water, along a chunk-rock bank with mild wave action.

At 11:40, they began fishing several points and transition areas across from Cedar Hollow. On a shallow gravel point that drops into 50 feet, Ehrler hooked a bass on a pearl Lucky Craft Pointer 78DD close to shore, but allowed it to shake loose as another angler approached.

From about 12:30 until 3 pm, they probed shorelines and secondary points in Thompson Hollow, catching two bass over 15 inches and two under; Hunter caught a 15-incher on an 1/8-ounce Picasso Shakedown jig with a green-pumpkin Reaction Innovations Smallie Beaver while Ehrler caught three on a crayfish-colored crankbait.

From 3:46 to 4:23, they fished at the mouth of Viney Hollow and shorelines inside Viney, then ventured into Smith Branch, where Ehrler caught a 3-pound largemouth on a crayfish crankbait in a small cove. After working upriver from Piney, they headed back toward the boat ramp, stopping on a main-lake point and made their last casts of the day with no results.

Tackle Details

Three Lucky Craft spinning rods and 7 casting rods graced the deck of his Ranger Z Comanche. His 7-foot spinning rods were matched with Abu Garcia Soron SX40 reels spooled with 12-pound-test Sunline PE braid with an 8-pound Sunline FC Sniper leader. One spinning outfit had a 1/4-ounce ball-head jig with a wire guard and 4-inch smoke grub that had been soaked in water to give it a milky hue. During the tournament, he also dressed this jig with a Yamamoto Swimming Senko in a natural shad color and a 4- or 5-inch smoke Yamamoto Single Tail grub, also soaked to a milky color.

A Neko rig adorned another spinning outfit, with a 5-inch green-pumpkin Senko with a 3/32-ounce Lunker City Nail Weight in the head, an O-ring ‘round the egg sack, and a 1/0 Owner Weedless Wacky Hook impaled under the O-ring. An 1/8-ounce Picasso Shakedown jig with either a green-pumpkin Yamamoto Pro Senko or Flappin’ Hog, stripped of side appendages, dressed the third spinning rod.

Three of his casting rods were 7-footers with either a medium-fast or medium-heavy action, from Lucky Craft’s cranking-rod repertoire. They were fitted with Abu Garcia Revo Winch Reels (5.4:1 gear ratio), and spooled with 10-pound-test Sunline FC Sniper. He wielded a variety of shallow- and medium-diving crankbaits, including a Lucky Craft RC 1.5DD and vintage Storm Wiggle Warts. Three casting rods were 6-foot 10-inch graphite models for fishing jerkbaits. Each carried an Abu Garcia Revo Premier (6.4:1 gear ratio), spooled with 10-pound Sunline FC Sniper.

Another 7-foot graphite casting rod and Revo Premier, spooled with 14-pound-test Sunline FC Sniper, had a 1/2-ounce football jig and green-pumpkin Yamamoto Hula Grub. During the tournament, he switched to a 1/2-ounce Pepper Jig with a black Arky-style head and a brown-green-purple skirt and 5-inch green-pumpkin Yamamoto Double-Tail Grub.

Prefishing Keys

Over the past two seasons, Brandon Hunter has played a significant role in Ehrler’s practice sessions, especially when they fish unfamiliar waters. As Ehrler fished a crankbait or jerkbait at Table Rock, Hunter used, at Ehrler’s request, an 1/8-ounce shaky-head jig dressed with a green-pumpkin Smallie Beaver, or 4-inch smoke grub on a 1/4-ounce jig or a skirted jig with trailer. Having Hunter as a pre-fish partner allows Ehrler to simultaneously test two different presentations. Because Hunter’s a gifted angler, Ehrler trusts his abilities, and during the 3 practice days at Table Rock, Hunter had more bites than Ehrler.

For years, Ehrler was reluctant to have another angler prefish with him, especially on his home waters in California. Ehrler feared distraction, or that a companion might reveal his tactics to competitors, or return to fish his spots. In addition to Hunter’s fishing skills, Ehrler enjoys the companionship, saying it relieves the tedium that can afflict an angler regularly practicing from daylight to dusk.

When Ehrler practices at unfamiliar lakes, he relies on crankbaits, such as Lucky Craft’s RC1.5, Skeet MR, and BDS3, which work in 1 to 4 feet of water, or a 1.5DD in 4 to 8 feet. He says 3 days of practice doesn’t allow much time to experiment, and cranking covers a lot of water, allowing him to find bass quickly in prime conditions. But he conceded the wintry scenario limited the usefulness of this method.

Nevertheless, he cranked for about four hours, plying various terrains in 4 to 8 feet of water. He relied on crankbaits along shorelines and secondary points inside coves, hollows, and small creeks. He retrieved at medium-speed with the rod pointed at the 4- to 5-o’clock position, never imparting a pause or snap to alter its cadence.

He devoted most time to fishing a various suspending jerkbaits, including deep-divers. He retrieved with rod held at the 3- to 5-o’clock position as he executed a series of two twitches followed by a 2- to 4-second pause. At times he used a single twitch instead. He didn’t try the extended pauses that many local anglers favor during winter, feeling that this would be effective only if one knew the whereabouts of groups of bass.

He fished jerkbaits in wind-blown areas, focusing on submerged trees on main-lake points and around secondary points inside small creeks and hollows, as well as ledges and boulder areas along steep banks. He ignored boat docks, which many local anglers rely on.

Ehrler used a football jig and Hula grub for 18 minutes along a bluff, retrieving by delicately lifting the rod from 2 to 12 o’clock, which raised the jig about 2 inches off bottom. He described it as minor hop and drag, He also tried a Neko rig for 10 minutes, casting to laydowns on the bank and slowly dragging and shaking and shaking it.

Hunter fished a 4-inch smoke grub and 1/4-ounce jig and caught one 14-inch largemouth. Ehrler barely used a grub and said it hadn’t worked for him in 2009. Traditionally the grub has been one of the most effective bass lures at Table Rock and other Ozark impoundments, especially in winter.

During the 2009 Table Rock tournament, Ehrler and Hunter caught a good number of bass on shaky-head jigs dressed with plastic worms. Ehrler didn’t use it, but he asked Hunter to work it regularly. Hunter dressed the jig with a Smallie Beaver. He’d shake the jig at it fell toward bottom and as moved it slowly with a lift-drop motion, but most bites came as he dragged it along bottom. This combo elicited the most bites during their 3 practice days.

The Rest of the Story

The following day, Ehrler and Hunter ventured about 49 miles up the White River to fish main-lake points, channel banks, and bluff ends. Inside one creek arm, however, they had action on shaky-head jigs, catching a 3-pounder on a 45-degree shoreline with shelf-rock. In this creek, Ehrler used sonar to locate a likely-looking lair on a secondary point.

Hunter reported, “As we were leaving the creek, he spun the boat around, and I knew exactly what he was doing. I immediately looked at the graph and it was lit up. We turned the boat, fired out with a grub and started getting bit. We knew we were fishing a creek channel swing but didn’t study it too hard.” Most bites were from small bass, but as soon as they each boated a nice keeper, they left and searched in vain for a similar locale.

During more than 36 hours of pre-fishing, Ehrler boated just 6 keeper-size bass and Hunter only two. After the last day of practice, Ehrler thought he’d start the tournament with a 1/8-ounce Picasso Shakedown jig and Yamamoto Flappin’ Hog.

Though the small creek arm he’d found on day-2 had been his most productive spot, Ehrler planned to start in the James River arm, focusing on areas such as Thompson Hollow and Piney Creek where Hunter had gotten bites on a shaky-head and Smallie Beaver. With a run-and-gun approach, he hoped to catch 3 keepers a day, finish in the top 50, and collect at least $10,000.

But once he pulled boat number 6 on day-1, Ehrler decided to make the 46-mile run up the White to fish that secondary point and channel swing they’d found on the second practice day. If he’d had a later boat draw, he feared another angler would beat him to it, forcing him to travel 46 miles back down to the James River.

Even as he made the frigid run up the White, he fretted that he’d made the wrong choice. But his worry melted after his first three casts netted a pair of 2½ -pounders. Within 45 minutes, he’d sacked a limit weighing 16 pounds 6 ounces. He left the spot and spent the rest of the day searching unsuccessfully in other areas of the upper lake.

He caught bass on 4- and 5-inch milky-colored grubs on a 1/4-ounce jig. Holding the boat over 30 to 35 feet of water, he made long casts onto the point and allowed the grub to fall to the bottom—gravel with occasional boulders in 7 to 15 feet of water. A few bass engulfed the grub on the initial drop.

If a bass didn’t strike on the fall, he began a slow, steady retrieve once the jig touched bottom, allowing it to scrub the gravel and rocks and eventually glide across the tops of submerged trees about 12 feet below the surface. Some bass didn’t bite until the grub was under the trolling motor. At times, he’d catch one after missing a strike; as Ehrler allowed the jig to fall after the miss, another bass occasionally would eat it. He felt most of the bass lurked in the submerged trees and had to be enticed out.

His second day was similar, boxing a good limit within an hour. Fishing nearby areas, he later nailed a 6½-pound kicker on a pearl Pointer 100DD.

On day-3, Ehrler feared the bass at his honey hole might have become accustomed to his grub tactics so he switched to a 4-inch Swimming Senko on a 1/4-ounce jig, Lucky Craft 2.5DD crankbait in ghost-minnow, and Lucky Craft Pointer 100DD. He caught a 2 ½- and a 5½-pounder on the 2.5DD.

During the final day, he opted for the grub and quickly caught 4 bass. He got his fifth by slowly lifting and dragging a 1/2-ounce Pepper Jig with a brown-green-purple skirt and 5-inch green-pumpkin Yamamoto Double-Tail Grub across the bottom of the point. Long before his last cast, Ehrler had outpaced the field, catching 20 bass that weighed 69 pounds 11 ounces, while some of the nation’s finest tournament anglers failed to catch a single keeper. With this win, Ehrler replaced Kevin VanDam atop the BassFan World Rankings.

Ned Kehde, Lawrence, Kansas, is an In-Fisherman Field Editor and frequent contributor to Bass Guide. His detailed accounts of the tactics of expert anglers are widely acclaimed.

Dissecting Edges for Esox

Weedlines—the mother of all edges. On one side, open water. On the other, uniformity of a different type. Where they meet exists a diversity of habitats, a greater variety and density of organisms than in either of the adjacent ecological zones. It’s called the edge effect, but for the sake of the here and now we might as well call it the Esox Effect.

Muskies and pike are weededge-inclined. Of course, there are exceptions where living might more efficient elsewhere in a waterbody. But my bets are on an edge in some form, most of the time. It might not be botanical, but it’s often still a place where two different habitats meet. Could be a nearshore drop-off or the slope off an openwater hump, or where boulder outcropping meets finer substrate, or a shadow line, or a thermocline, or a chemocline. But where the green goes kaput is a place to make a solid bet.

Working weededges is often a down-the-pipe affair. Too far left and you’re out in space. Too far right and it’s a salad snare. Dial it in and productivity peaks, falling like a bell curve on either side. Finding the right presentation to maximize efficiency is key. Working at the proper depth, speed, and with the right vibration patterns are all variables.

In-Fisherman Editor In Chief Doug Stange developed a swimbait system for weedline walleyes. He’s found paddletail swimbaits mounted on jigheads to be one of the most effective tools for working weededges during spring and early summer, his proving grounds down the road from our office, at Mille Lacs Lake, but also taking the show on the road to places like Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan, and other top walleye factories, from the Columbia River to the Bay of Quinte. You can catch those weedline walleyes on spinner rigs and crankbaits, but my money’s on Stange and his swimbait for efficiency. Rarely do you see him stripping weeds off his hook or tiptoeing around for finicky fish. He works with tempo and precision, like setting a pace for a 5K, not too fast but certainly not meandering.

Surgeon and Scalpel

Marc Wisniewski, lure manufacturer and rod builder from Greenfield, Wisconsin, is another swimbait aficionado. He’s mastered his craft for inshore species in Florida waters as well as for trout and salmon in the Great Lakes. Inland, swimbaits are his go-to lures for muskies most of the year. And it’s a system that’s equally well suited to pike. Wisniewski mostly fishes for muskies in the hard-hit waters around the Milwaukee area in southeastern Wisconsin, as well as the lakes area in northern Wisconsin.

“My approach to muskie fishing with swimbaits is a lot different than what seems to be the norm right now—giant baits,” Wisniewski says. “In contrast, the biggest lure I use is a 6-inch Lunker City Salt Shaker, and most of my work is done with 5½-inch Big Hammers, and Doug’s favorite, the Berkley 5-inch PowerBait Saltwater Swim Shad or the new freshwater version, the Flatback Shad. These are small compared to most popular muskie baits, but I can dissect structure like a surgeon with these lures. Smaller size doesn’t matter because I’m putting the swimbait right in their faces.” Stange also likes Berkley PowerBait Hollow Belly Swimbaits in the 5- and 6-inch sizes. Berkley discontinued the 6-incher; but the 5-incher works for pike and light muskie applications. Other good options are the Northland Rock-R-Minnow, Yum Money Minnow, and Z-Man SwimmerZ.

Wisniewski starts fishing with swimbaits in spring and relies on them through summer and early fall. “I do well right through the turnover until the water temperature drops to about 45°F to 47°F,” he says. “After that, they lose their effectiveness and larger, slower-moving baits like Bulldawgs outproduce them.

“In spring, I fish flats with emer

In summer and early fall, Wisniewski focuses on deep weededges, 8 feet down to 16 to 18 feet max, he says. “There’s no better lure than a swimbait for fishing weededges. Unfortunately, to do this right, it’s a one-fisherman system. I get my boat right on the weedline and follow it, making casts parallel to the edge. You should be flirting with weeds all the time. If your lures are coming in clean, you aren’t close enough to the edge.

“Don’t go to fast. I like to fish into the wind, transom first, with a transom-mount trolling motor pulling me slowly along the edge. My eyes are always glued to the locator, staying on that edge. If you find long, straight stretches of weedline, make long casts and work as much water as you can. If the weedline jogs in and out, keep the casts short and precise.

“I worked this same approach with deep-diving crankbaits for much of my career, but crankbaits run at a specific depth, which may or may not work with a particular weededge depth,” he says. “The jig-swimbait combo is much more versatile and is in the zone for nearly 100 percent of the cast. Also, with one hook, it can be ripped through weeds much better than most crankbaits.”

Some anglers prefer treble-hook lures for muskies and pike, but Wisniewski finds that the hooking percentage with swimbaits is outstanding. “If they eat it, you got them,” he says. “The entire power of the hook-set goes into one point, and I don’t know that I have had any fish throw them once hooked. I’ve experimented with stingers or ‘trap-rigging,’ but it isn’t necessary.

“Swimbaits are fairly weedless because you can snap weeds free during the retrieve. This can be a trigger for strikes.” Stange found that most of the time it isn’t necessary to remove weeds between casts. On the next cast make a snapcast and the weeds fly off the hook. Another level of efficiency in this system.

“People mistakenly put on a swimbait-jig combo and start jigging, but you shouldn’t fish the bait that way,” Wisniewski explains. “Cast it out and let it sink. I let it go to bottom. Point the rod at the bait at 2 o’clock and reel it 10 to 12 feet, pause a few seconds to let the bait descend, reel some more. I try to keep the bait within 18 inches of the bottom on a deep weedline. If you need to reestablish depth, pause and let it return to the bottom and continue.”

Stange agrees this is how swimbaits should be fished. It might seem like a fast presentation, and you might be inclined to pause and jig too much, he says, but keeping the bait moving creates a continuous vibration and visual trail that fish can track. Walleyes track a swimbait from behind before they strike. Muskies track baits from behind, too. Pike often side-swipe baits, but likely track from behind more than we think.

“The only time you should lift the rod tip is to snap the bait through a weed,” Wisniewski adds. “Weed contact is good. If you’re ticking weeds you’re where you want to be. If you haul in bushel baskets of weeds, you casted too far onto the flat. If you’re not feeling anything, you probably lost the edge.”

Down to Details

Wisniewski uses three swimbait setups depending on the situation:
• Shallow, 3 to 10 feet deep: 5-inch Berkley Saltwater Swimshad (or Flatback) on 1/2- to 3/4-ounce jighead.
• Mid-depths and most weedlines, 8 to 16 feet deep: 5½-inch Big Hammer or 6-inch Lunker City Salt Shaker on 1-, 1½-, and 2-ounce jighead.
•Deeper than 16 to 18 feet: 6-inch Lunker City Salt Shaker on 2- and 2½-ounce jighead.

He pours his own jigheads for each size and style of swimbait. “I use Do-It Molds Style 9 Shad Head molds,” he says. “The profile of the head finishes the shape of these baits perfectly. But here’s the twist. The mold is designed to have the eye of the hook come out the top of the head with a 90-degree bend (top-tie). You can modify the mold so that you can fit a 60-degree-bend hook in the head so that the hook eye comes out the nose of the jig (nose-tie). They are both good, but the difference is huge and you need some of each to perfect this swimbait system.” Stange likes the Owner Saltwater Bullet Head. For lighter applications, the 1/2-ounce Matzuo Boshi Jig Head is another good option.

Wisniewski explains that with the top-tie, the swimming action of the tail is restricted somewhat but the bait tracks deeper and can be fished faster. “The top tie also is less weedless, creating a crook for weeds to collect. You also can get baits to dart side to side better with this connection.
With the leader connected to the nose, the tail action and side-to-side roll is more pronounced. There’s no crook for weeds to collect, so the nose position is more weedless. And the nose-tie design fishes shallower and slower than the top-tie.”

With these two options and the varied weights, Wisniewski dials into a particular situation. “On a clean, 15-foot deep edge, I like a 1½-ounce top-tie. On a 15-foot deep erratic weedline with long coontail, I go with the nose-tie because I’d be encountering more weeds. To fish slower with more pauses, I use the nose-tie. When I want a faster retrieve deeper, I bump up an extra 1/2 ounce on a top-tie.”

Wisniewski uses saltwater hooks or heavy hooks designed for flippin’ jigs. For the 1/2- and 3/4-ouncers he uses the Eagle Claw #730 or Mustad 32786BLN in 5/0. For 1- to 2½-ouncers he likes the Mustad 32789BLN or Eagle Claw 413 in 7/0. “These hooks match the swimbaits I use well. A hook too short is no good, and a hook too far back in the tail kills lure action.” For leaders, he uses single-strand .016-gauge (diameter) coffee-colored wire. He ties one end to the jig with a haywire twist and the other end to a quality size #7 swivel.

“A swimbait mounted crooked on a hook doesn’t run straight or work properly,” he adds, “so take time to get it on straight and then use superglue to attach it to the jighead. I don’t use baitkeeper collars on the shafts of the jigs because they split the plastic. Superglue also helps mend baits that have been sliced by teeth.

“Stange introduced rigging swimbaits sideways for walleyes, probably 30 years ago now. That works for muskies, too. Rig them on the jighead sideways with the hook exiting the middle of the side of the bait. The bait glides and can be fished much slower. It’s a good option on days when the fish aren’t chasing faster-moving baits.”

ging weeds, particularly at the entrances to shallow bays or the leading edge to windblown flats. I like flats that have scattered clumps instead of widespread weeds. I fish every angle of a clump and then move on to the next. On a lake with a lot of hard bottom, a good spring spot can be the first break off of a gravel or rock flat.”

Rods and Reels

For 1/2- to 3/4-ounce jigheads, Wisniewski uses spinning tackle. He likes an extra-fast medium-heavy 7-foot rod and a 4000-size spinning reel loaded with 14-pound FireLine. He attaches a 2-foot leader of 25-pound-test Vanish or Triple Fish fluorocarbon leader, which gets tied to a swivel.

For heavier jigheads, he prefers baitcasting tackle, a 7½-foot or longer flippin’ stick and 30-pound mono or braid. “Braid gives you more feel for what the bait’s doing,” he explains. “You can tell how a lure is swimming and decipher bottom and weedgrowth. I can tell when I hit a patch of cabbage in the middle of some coontail. With braid you have to be careful to hold back and not set too soon. You have to let fish come up and engulf the swimbait.”

Often, you feel a fish rushing up behind a swimbait right before it strikes, as if it’s pushing water behind the bait, making the retrieve feel loose with loss of lure action. “You lose the tail thump and it feels weightless for a second, then crunch,” Wisniewski says. “It’s not the same as a crankbait. The best way to describe the strike is that the bait just keeps getting heavier and heavier till it stops. That’s when you hit them.”

Wisniewski built a rod specifically for heavier swimbaits. “It’s an 8-foot moderate-action blank designed for back-bouncing for steelhead,” he says. “This contrasts with the extra-fast action on my spinning rods. I built the 8-footer to lob big jigs and to deaden the reaction time to the hook-set, much like bass fishermen use glass rods for crankbaits or spinnerbaits. I want the fish to fully engulf the bait and start to load up the rod before I set the hook.

“So, why two different actions? The spinning rod is specifically rigged with the 5-inch Berkley Flatback on a 1/2-ounce head. This is the smallest bait I use, and most anglers consider it a big bass lure. With this lure, I never had a problem with muskies short-striking, so delaying the hook-set isn’t an issue. The feel on this rod is incredible so I often use it as my underwater eyes and fingers to ‘feel’ bottom and identify weeds.

“I’ve been fishing for muskies on light tackle for 33 years,” Wisniewski says. “It started with Worral-Portincaso creature tactics, which are still great. But the swimbait covers water faster. It’s fatigue-free fishing. I don’t last two hours reeling double-10 Cowgirls. With this system I can go all day. It keeps you on your toes because between muskies, there are a lot of bass and walleyes that don’t know this bait wasn’t intended for them.”

FINDING FISH

Some key fishing locations on the south side of the Island are the beach below Mohegan Bluffs and Black Rock Point. On the east side, spend time working the shoreline from the jetty at Old Harbor south to Lantem Rock, and on to Old Harbor Point, hitting each jetty along the way. Sand-eel patterns are good choices, as are white or black Tabory Snake Flies-be sure to use colors appropriate to the time of day and water conditions. Chartreuse-and-white Deceivers, as well as Clouser Minnows in chartreuse or black, are also good bets. Guide Johnny Glenn's silicone fly, Charlie's Angel, is another very popular Block Island fly.

As water temperatures reach 50 degrees (sometime around mid-May or so), look for striped bass to appear. They are the prime target for Block Island anglers until late November. Arriving soon after the bass, bluefish move through on their migration north. Like the striped bass, their numbers and appetite greatly increase in the fall, before they journey south in early November.

When light westerlies blow in, head to the west side of the Island. These breezes will push bait in against the shoreline, setting up a buffet for bluefish and striped bass. Check the beaches at Southwest Point, farther north at Dories Cove and Grace's Cove, Charleston Beach, around the entrance to the Great Salt Pond at Dead Man's Cove and Skipper's Island, and at the Island's northern tip, Sandy Point. One note of caution-Sandy Point can be one mean piece of water to fish at times, so be extra careful.

For easier fishing, try the eastern side along the stretch of beach from the Pots and Kettles to Jerry's Point, and even down to Crescent Beach. Bass often cruise along this beach, just beyond the wavewash. These fish, particularly during the summer, can be suckers for a crab fly drifted (like a nymph) on the outside edge of the surf zone.

For those who relish the challenges of offshore fishing, blue sharks arrive in June, followed by makes. A chum fly fished in a chum slick is the standard way to hook up to one of these big-game fish. Bluefin and yellowfin tuna show up in late July and actively feed until the first of October.

Like annual, late-summer tourists, false albacore and bonito move into Block Island's waters around August 1, with the bonito the first to turn up. False albacore depart earliest, when fall temperatures first begin to cool the water. By mid-October, the bonito move out for warmer, southern waters. Although less celebrated than other spots in the Northeast, Block Island is arguably the best fishery for bonito and false albacore around. A consistently good spot to look for the fish is in and around the entrance to Great Salt Pond, by the U.S. Coast Guard Station, Beane's Point, and in the pond itself. Sand-eel patterns, sparse Clouster Minnows, and small minnow patterns will get the attention of these speedsters.

Carolina Rig Fishing

Carolina, split-shot, mojo rig, no matter what you call it, it serves you the same way, IT CATCHES FISH. No matter which situation you use these rigs in you will have the opportunity to catch fish. I will describe for you each technique and where they can be best used.


Split-shot rig is probably the easiest one of all. Because I am a bigger guy, over 6’ tall I prefer using a 6 ½’ Lamiglas rods. For split-shotting I am currently using the Ti2000, TBS 663. The rod is fast enough to pick up line when setting the hook, yet sensitive enough to feel what is going on at the end of line even in up to 50’ of water. On a calm day yes, in the winter we fish as deep as 50’. To set up this rig I attach a #3 shot approximately 2-2 ½’ up from the hook. McCoy 8lb test line does the trick for me because this rig is used mostly in open water situations, and the abrasion resistance of the line allows you to apply the shot directly to the line without thoughts of line breakage. This rig is especially effective when the fish are holding close to or on the bottom structure. The structure that I would recommend fishing with this rig is scattered rock. Because of the shape of the shot it should not hang up to often and you will still be able to feel the bottom change. A reason to fish this way would be if the fish are finicky and the bite has slowed down. The baits that I find most effective with this rig is smaller plastics, grubs, worms, and 4” lizards. The smaller tubes can be rigged this way also.

Carolina rigs are normally associated with fishing a stump or rock field, or long sloping points. The rig gives you the opportunity to fish as fast or as slow as you want to drag it along. Fish a sinker that is bell shaped, they tend to not get hung up dragging through the rocks. During calm conditions you can use as light as an 1/8oz, but normally I will use a ¼ oz or more weight, so that you can feel the bottom without hanging up. On windy days, or current conditions you may have to go as high as a ¾ oz. Using the McCoy “MCSTOPPER” to replace the barrel swivel will eliminate 2 knots. The “MCSTOPPER” is a hard piece of plastic that you can open


with a pair of pliers, slide it up your line under your sinker to the length that you want your leader. I still slide on a glass bead to connect with the sinker to give it the “ticking” sound. You might want to invest in a longer rod to fish this way, as you make a long cast and drag the bait along the bottom. You want the longer rod to be able to pick up the line that is out and get a strong hook set. A trick to use carolina rigging is to tie on a jerkbait and drag it along the bottom, not many fish have seen that before. Common baits fished this way are grubs, worms, lizards, and reepers.

Mojo riggings are somewhat new to the market. It is set up exactly the same, as the Carolina rig is; only change, the mojo rig is most effective being used in and around grass. The shape of the “mojo” is like a cylinder, so it allows the rig to slide through the grass instead of burying itself and getting hung in the grass. The method of fishing is exactly the same as fishing a carolina rig. Maintain contact with the bottom, and if you get hung up and shake it loose, be prepared for the strike. The bait makes erratic movements when you snap it free from the grass; this is when the strike occurs. Keep watch on your depth finders, know the height of the grass and set your leader approximately 6” above the length of the grass.

Rigging your poles with a Carolina, split-shot, or mojo rig is a good bet on any body of water during any time of the year. When fish are not very active, or you have covered an area with a reaction bait, try picking up a “RIG” and throw it. Long rods are a must. They help you cast further, and give you backbone for better hook sets. This way of fishing for me is my mainstay. I catch most of my fish during the year with one of these techniques. Enjoy your day on the water and “feel” what you are fishing.

Bunker Dunking Swivel Rig Update

In October of 1990, an article that I had written appeared in this publication. In that article titled "Terminal Livelining," I discussed a method for rigging a live bunker using a "Duolock" double locking snap swivel. The purpose of this rig is to avoid the use of treble hooks that often kill fish that are to be released. Since the time of that writing, I have continued to experiment with this terminal tackle arrangement. I now, more than ever, believe that it is the best possible combination in terms of both conservation and fishing effectiveness. I have however made some subtle but important changes in the rig which I felt should be passed along at this time.

The first of these changes relates to the orientation of the hook and attachment of the swivel to the hook to achieve this orientation. Due to the fact that the swivel runs through the eye of the hook, it will maintain the attitude of the hook in either the point up or point down position. It is very important that the hook be point up as this will prevent the rig from fouling in bottom debris. The point up position also seems to produce more solid hookups in the upper lip of the fish. To achieve this positioning of the hook, the swivel must be inserted into the bunker in one specific direction, however this presents another problem. It is much easier to insert the swivel going from the top of the head, down and out the mouth than it is going the opposite way. In order to satisfy both of these needs, the swivel must originally be attached to the hook in the proper way. As illustrated in the accompanying photographs, the Duolock swivel is opened at both ends, then the large loop side is passed through the eye of the hook from the back of the hook toward the point. It is then run all the way through so that the eye of the hook is in the small loop of the swivel where it will be held in position by the small side swivel lock. Now the large loop side of the swivel can be passed through the bait from the top of the head, down and out through the mouth. This will leave the hook in the point up position as illustrated.

The second change that I have incorporated is related to the place of attachment of the swivel in the head of the bunker. Previously I had recommended hooking through the nostrils or the upper front part of the mouth. I have discovered through use that in many cases, a hard hitting fish would tear the bunker off the rig before the hook


could be set by the angler. I dissected a bunker and discovered that there is a thick ridge of cartilage tissue just behind the nostrils but in front of the eyes. The swivel must be inserted through or behind this tough tissue. I use my fishing hook which is usually a 7/0 Gamakatsu short shank O’Shaugnessy style, or an ice pick, to punch a hole through the roof of the mouth at a point even with the front of the eye sockets. Using the largest size Duolock swivel of 1 9/16 inch, I run it through this hole from the top of the head and out the mouth. The swivel is long enough to be snapped closed outside the mouth. I have found this attachment to be strong enough to withstand the most savage attack by any bass or bluefish.

A reminder once again, this rig is not sanctioned by the IGFA for setting world records because of the free swinging hook. It is however a real fish catcher that usually results in lip hooked fish that can easily and quickly be released. Occasionally fish will be hooked in the throat but the single hook can be removed with a long handled hook disgorger. If it is deeply gut hooked which is very rare with this rig, the leader should be cut leaving the hook to rust out which it does very quickly in a fish digestive system. A treble hook in the throat or gut will tear up or block the digestive path and result in certain death. I have developed tremendous confidence in this rig. I do not feel that I catch any fewer fish because of it, in fact, I feel that my catch has improved. My only hope is that more people will begin using it in the interest of fish conservation.