Beyond the Bait

When the bass are pressured or being selective or just don’t want to hit a larger bait, it’s time to go with a finesse tactic. Charlie Brewer had that in mind more than 50 years ago when he developed an early finesse-fishing technique that used a small soft-plastic worm fished on a light jig head and light line, which would become known as the slider rig. kwfishing

Heavy fishing pressure and clear water is a combination that often requires a subtle presentation. Sometimes the fish want a “dead” bait, a bait that has almost no motion at all other than a slow descent. The free rig, which was developed by Japanese anglers for their home waters that receive intense fishing pressure, is one way to reach fish and coax them into biting with a slowly sinking bait.

Anglers often think of jigs as bottom-bouncing baits—and they usually are. But the swim jig is a different case. This type of jig is designed for a steady horizontal retrieve, and it can produce big bites from fish lurking around cover without touching the bottom at all. Guiding a swim jig through bushes, brush piles, laydowns and other shallow woody cover is a fun power-fishing technique that can

They may not imitate any type of forage closely, but stick-style worm baits are proven bass catchers. There is just something about their profile and wiggly, lifelike action in the water that the fish can’t resist. Several rigging techniques have been developed to play up this action, and the Neko rig is one that’s especially effective at finessing bass from both shallow and deep water.

When bass move offshore after the spawn and as the water temperature rises, they go deep or suspend along humps or other bottom contours. They often target schools of baitfish such as shad. In this situation, one lure that excels at both matching the forage and reaching the bass is the blade bait.

When most anglers think of a crankbait, they picture a hard lure with a plastic lip at the front that enables the bait to dive to a certain depth in the water. But some crankbaits don’t need a lip to get down into the water column and draw strikes from bass. These lipless crankbaits offer key advantages in some situations, making them more versatile than their conventional counterparts.