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| Wacky-rig FT Sinko |
Summer bass patterns can be tough. After the early top water bite, what is the next best technique to catch bass that move from and suspend out away from the bank? Last weekend taught me something that in the past I had little experience with. I know have more faith, and a better understanding, of what it takes to stop casting to the bank and focus on deep water.
At the Rocky Mountain Team Series presented by TroKar Hooks final qualifying event of 2011, the Navajo Lake Lazer Tungsten Tussle, held Aug. 20-21 from Two Rivers Marina in Navajo State Park at Arboles, CO, the fishing was the usual summer heat tough; blue-bird skies and blindingly bright. A lot of fish were caught all day long but catching keeper size smallmouth, despite the 12” minimum on Navajo Lake, was hard and catching larger bass even harder. The largemouth had to be over 14” and very few were brought to the scales this time.
Before I go on, congratulations are due to the winners of the event, the team of Bryan Leck and Sam Heckman, from Colorado Springs, who brought the biggest bag each day to the scales, over 12 lbs. each day, to win the guaranteed $1000 1st Place Prize with 24.19 lbs. and also the biggest fish weighing 4.01 lbs. to win the Maui Jim Big Bass Prize. And to the team of Greg Gizzi and Jared Nikirk (18.26), also from Colorado Springs, who got 2nd Place overall and the $1170 optional TroKar High-Stakes Pot. 3rd Place (17.86) was the team of Brandon White and Steve Barbee, 4th Place (17.13) was Jeff Jones and Herb Turner. The event had 19 boats and paid 4 Places in the Entry Pot and the top 3 Places entered in the optional TroKar High-Stakes Pot. You might know a fellow Fish Explorer poster, Kris Johnson of Dynamic Lures, who with partner Colt Roberts were just out of the money with a respectable 5th Place and 16.78 lbs. All details can be found at Rockymountainteamseries.com.
What I learned is this: persistence and adaptability are needed when searching for deep bass. Interviewing all the winners I found that while some of the larger fish of the tournament were caught early and shallow, after the sun came up each team had to regroup over deeper water and started finesse fishing. Grubs, tubes, drop-shot, and wacky-rig senko style baits were used by the top 4 teams.
My team had a place that held bass and on practice day I caught the only 3.5 lb. largemouth I saw all weekend there by flipping a wacky-rig sinking worm next to a tree over deep water. The bass came up and ate the bait before it could disappear from view. Another smaller but keeper-size smallmouth did the same on the next cast, so we saved that spot for tournament day and started searching for areas that showed bait fish on the graph. During the tournament, our team caught most of our slightly larger bass on walk-the-dog lures, or buzz bait, early, and even a few smaller ones later who came up and hit the top water from deep, but our primary pattern after the sun got high was the wacky-rig in deep water.
Moving around when the bite died in an area, we found that there are so many smallmouth in the lake that we found them almost everywhere there was a decent sloping bank down to at least 30 feet, even if it showed no cover on the bottom, as long as cover was nearby. Finding schools of bait fish on the depth-finder was also important, although the bass were not always hanging right on the school, but seemed to stay in place, waiting for the roving school to come near. The deep bites were slow and often just weight was felt on the line when lifted. We dragged the wacky-rigs below and behind the boat as we drifted down the bank, staying between 18 and 30 feet of depth. There was cover, usually larger trees and sometimes rock piles, and often the bite would come at or near that cover.
Late on the last day we got on a place that held numbers of slightly larger smallmouth, the ones that made a difference by culling out a 1.1 and a 1.3 lb. barely legal smallmouth for 1.15 and 2.3 lb. bass, gaining almost a pound each time. There was no discernable cover we could find, but a long point coming out from the bank framed a channel bend where the fish seemed to be stacked. The 2.3 smallie came on the last cast before we had to leave for weigh-in and was the difference between 4th and 5th, and a check or no check!
I used a Fenwick HMX 7’0 M spinning rod with a Revo Premier reel spooled with 8# Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon, an 1/8 oz. Falcon Tackle Wacky-rig weedless jig and 4” Sticko. Often the bass would hit the lure on the fall, so line-watching as it dropped and maintaining contact with the lure was important and the fluorocarbon line and sensitive rod tip helped to do this.
Each of the leaders at the event used some kind of finesse lure to find these deeper fish. Their persistence paid off for them. Over half of the teams in the event had a limit each day, but the limits were small in weight, an average 1.54 lbs. per fish, and those slightly larger smallmouth, hanging out in deeper water, helped greatly.
Fish On!
Jeff Jones
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