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Slaughter ‘em with Slug-go’s by Rob Brewer |
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| Prespawn bass are hungry, plain and simple. The key to catching them is finding them. If you’re already familiar with a lake’s known spawning beds, great. If not, here’s where to look. Start with some firm bottom in protected coves or other sheltered areas. Search depths from 2 to 6 feet for starters. Look for dishpan shaped holes in the bottom. When you find these, mark them on your map. Bass will use them year after year. The point here is to locate spawning sites for future reference. Once the locations are known you have a starting point to find prespawn bass. Once found, these bass can usually be suckered with a soft plastic jerkbait. The market is saturated with various brands and finding them is easy. I like Herb Reed’s original Slug-go by Lunker City. Jerkbaits are great bass catching tools. They weedless, make a soft entry into the water, and work in a muted, subtle fashion that bass fail to become accustomed to. It’s the same reason why jigs and worms never lose their bass appeal. Choose one in a natural shad or minnow color. Just be sure it has some pearlesence to it so can be seen. Seeing the bait and how it is working will let you know if you rigged it right. To be effective, the bait should randomly dart about with every twitch of the rod. If it spins or constantly veers to the same side, reel it in and re-rig it. It must be perfectly straight on the hook to work it’s magic. Try not to “overfish” the lure, especially with the cooler water temps you’ll be experiencing in the prespawn. Fish these on a medium action casting rod spooled up with 12-17 LB mono. I use a 5/0 (for 6” baits) and a 3/0 (for 4” baits) Gamakatsu offset hook for these. They’re strong and sharp right out of the pack. Fish the bait around all forms of visible cover. Work it up to the cover and let it “die” down into the cover, then hang on! Make certain you also work any ledges, tapered points and other key holding areas in the vicinity of the old spawn beds. Start at about 8 feet and work shallower. Even if the cover is shallower, don’t hit it first, fish up to it. Strikes vary from bone jarring to a flash with a swirl. Sometimes your line will just swim off left or right. In any case, set the hook hard as if worm or jig fishing. There are several ways to rig these baits. I most often used a weightless Texas rig with the hook point barely exposed. For a different look, try one of the hooks with the weight molded onto the shank. These hooks impart a nice wobbling action to the bait as it falls vertically on the pause. Sometimes this makes all the difference. I have fished right behind other boats throwing the standard fare (spinnerbaits & worms) and caught fish where they blanked. If you want to keep the random action but fish the bait deeper, buy a box of small finishing or paneling nails. Insert one or two of these in the bait near the head. It’s much cheaper (and easier to fine tune) than the lead weight sticks sold for the same purpose. With a little experimentation, you’ll find the right combination of ballast needed to get the action you want. Yet another way to rig these is with the popular drop shot rig, though I’ve yet to try it. I’m surprised more anglers aren’t throwing these baits. They’re cheap, effective and not that difficult to learn to fish. What more could you want? Give these baits a whirl, you’ll be glad you did once you hook that first hawg. See ya’ on the lake. Remember, fishing is life! Rob Brewer |
