Boating Lifestyle

From the experts who never tell

The tension backstage was intense during the weigh-in at the Bassmaster Classic, and it wasn’t because of the number of fish in each contestant’s bag. The nerves had more to do with fear that another bag might be opened: the one holding a personal fail-proof tactic.

“You try to keep stuff as secret as possible,” says competitor Dean Rojas. “Maybe it’s a colour that worked in a certain situation or a certain way to cast your lure, anything to give you an edge over the next guy. That’s why you never see the older guys talking.”

As Pat McIntire, CEO of fishing tackle manufacturer Pure Fishing, told us, “We talk to anglers so we can create new products, but they won’t give full disclosure in front of each other. Alone, one on one, that’s when the really good stuff comes out.”

 

So, we took them aside, one by one, and got their best tips. Try them out the next time you hit the water, and when you start pulling fish in to your boat, please do us a favor: keep the secret to yourself.

 

 

 

When I’m flipping in real heavy grass, I like to dab a little super glue on the hook and slide my worm up on it. It anchors the worm in place so you won’t lose it. I’ve won tournaments with that technique.

 

If the fish suddenly stop biting, but you know they’re around, downgrade your bait and change your retrieval speed. Go from a seven-inch worm to a four-inch worm, and slow down your presentation. A lot of times you have to slow it down for the bigger fish.

 

For spinning tackle, spool your line off the reel and drag it about 50 yards behind your boat on the way to your spot. Then reel it all in. You won’t have any kinks or twists the rest of the day.

 

I carry 25 different colour Sharpie pens to customize my crank baits. If you put a little red line where the gills would be it mimics bleeding. To mimic a perch, I’ll paint the fins orange. To mimic a shad I’ll paint a black dot behind the eye toward the tail.

 

Cast your lure and reel it back in. Watch it all the way to the boat. It should come back straight. If it runs to the right, tweak the eyelet to the left with some needle nose pliers or vice versa if it runs to the left. An untuned lure won’t present properly and won’t catch fish.

 

I’ve used plastic grubs to catch everything from bass to perch to saltwater species when nothing else worked. It’s a subtle lure, so fish don’t have to swim as fast to catch it.

 

I try to not be rough handling the fish. Hold it at the bottom of the lip, and don’t remove its slime. Fish can get diseases if they don’t have the slime, which protects them.

 

Different animals hatch in the lake, depending on the time of the month, and that’s usually what the fish are keying on. Try different stuff — lures that mimic shad or frogs or grubs, that sort of thing. One will be sure to catch fish.

 

After you cast, watch your line fall limp before reeling it in. It means your bait’s on the bottom, in the strike zone. Then, when you’re slowly reeling it back in, lightly shake the rod with your other hand. It mimics a live worm better.

 

10. Find the food, find the fish
I look out for great blue herons because they’re hunting for the same food my fish are hunting for. When I find the herons, I know there must be fish nearby.

 

 

When your plastic worms get torn up, save ’em. Bass like to ambush wounded prey, so a beat-up worm is perfect to use, especially in shallow water.

In shallow cover — wood, stumps, clumps of grass — I like to use a spinner bait with a red or pink head, and a crank bait with red hooks. The red makes the fish think the bait’s injured, and they’ll bite at it.

When you cast, stop halfway instead of following through, similar to a check swing in baseball. This makes the lure hit the surface of the water a few feet before your target, so the lure skitters over the water. It’s a good way to get under docks and other structures.

I use a file to sharpen my hooks every time I catch a fish and before every trip. It takes 30 seconds. Bass have boney jaws, so a sharp hook is more apt to penetrate the fish.

When you put a bass in the livewell, they’re notorious for spitting up what they were feeding on. From there you can tell what color lure or kind of lure to throw the rest of the day.

Sacrifice some distance in your casts and fish with the wind in your face. Bass always swim with the current, so it’s better for them to find your bait before they find your boat. Plus, the noise of water slapping your hull will carry away from the spot you’re fishing, which is good.

 

In the spring bass hang out in spawning beds. Concentrate on shallow areas, especially in pockets and coves protected from the wind because this is where they like to guard their eggs. They’ll bite as much out of irritation with the lure as they will out of hunger.

 

Bass eat different bait depending on the time of year. The general rule is early in the year they like crawfish, so use peach-colored patterns. In the summer and fall they like shad, so use chrome or silver baits.

 

The best time to fish bass is before a front comes through, and the worst time to fish them is after. The pressure makes the bass more active, so watch for a wall of clouds moving in. When it’s too pretty out, bass aren’t likely to bite.

 

10. Bug those bass
Bass is an ornery fish. You have to keep tapping at it to upset it into biting your hook. Bass position themselves in cover, and like the lure presented to them at different angles. I’ve tossed lures a hundred times onto the same location until finally getting a bite.

 

 

 

 

The tide is the most important thing about saltwater fishing. It washes across the reefs, telling the bait to move and the fish to eat. Basically, on days when you have multiple tides, meaning water moving all day, that’s good fishing. On days with no tide, that’s a day you probably want to mow the lawn.

 

Redfish have a keen sense of smell, so I carry a bottle of lava soap wherever I go to get rid of the smell of gas or sunscreen. I don’t want those scents getting on my lures.

 

If it’s the middle of the summer, you want to stay away from high-profile areas like shipwrecks and large reefs because that’s where the sharks and barracudas hang out. Head to low profile areas like live reefs and rock bottoms. Grass beds are best.

 

Once you fight a fish on a fluorocarbon leader, it becomes stressed and will rearrange its chemical properties, becoming visible to fish again. So whenever you catch any decent-size fish, you want to change that line because you probably won’t catch another on it.

 

5. Pick the right lure depending on depth
Anglers should be aware that a fish’s best vision occurs at the surface. The moment you go past 50 feet in most coastal waters, the colour spectrum becomes much narrower. Use your colourful lures near the surface, and your whites and darker lures in deeper water where bottom fish key on contrast, not on colour.

 

 

 

 

Kevin Van Dam became bass fishing’s first $2 million man in 2006. But the moments he enjoys the most are those spent with his 10-year-old twin boys, Jackson and Nicholas. That’s what he was doing when we caught up with him on a rare tournament-free Saturday morning. Within two minutes of our arrival, Jackson had a fish on. For Kevin, it was no less exciting than catching another lunker during the Bassmaster Classic. Here are his five top tips for keeping kids tuned into fishing.
 

A fishing rod should be no bigger than six inches longer than a child’s height. Push-button reels are entry-level models and perfect for kids.

 

That way the kids can run around if they get bored.

 

They need to do it on their own because the excitement is in the struggle. Fighting a fish of any size turns into a huge event for kids.

 

It’s cooler by the water, and if the bugs start biting, kids can cover up.

 

5. Start kids with live bait instead of lures
Worms are perfect. They catch fish well and are fun to play with. After they get the hang of it and are ready for lures, use lures with exposed hooks like crank baits and spinner baits. They’re easier to use, and they catch numbers.

 

Courtesy of: www.boatinglife.com

Article By Darren Wendroff