Big Bass Pick On Weaklings

Match the hatch, copy the color, and swim that lure in a natural manner. Or throw on a bright-eyed chartreuse crankbait, bend the eyelet a tad, and jam it into boulders, brush and even the underneath sides of boat docks. Wait a minute, slow down. Just what in the world's going on? Do you want your baits to mimic nice healthy baitfish or off-colored and half dead minnows and perch that swim on their side and look "unnaturally" healthy?

Doesn't it make sense to prey on the weak, the old, and sickly? Isn't that the way the food chain works? Isn't it set up so only the fittest survive? Which type of prey do you think the biggest bass prey on? Which gazelle will the cheetah pursue? We've all seen it on TV. The young, the old, or the sick and injured are singled out. Sick...injured...hey, cold or hot, a hamburger's a hamburger. You surely don't think those Big Bonzai Bass get so fat and sassy by chasing around all the fastest, best fit perch, do you?

Let me suggest the possibility of the bigger fish being opportunists, feeding not only if they're hungry, but also when choice opportunities present themselves.

Say perhaps for an example we've got a couple of solid six pound bass suspended at eight feet in 20 feet of water. They're on a bend in the creek channel. Being larger bass, and territorial, they each have their own tree - one a big oak and the other a big sycamore. There's a slight guest of wind coming on the bend creating some activity. A school of white bass are chasing shad down the channel. As the shad are cutting across the bend the white bass come up on the shad and rip through like piercing broadheads, leaving many shad dying and fluttering to the bottom of the lake.

Maybe an injured, dying shad flutters a foot or so in front of one of those bass. An opportunity for a free meal exists. But, maybe also the bass fed heavily on a nearby wind-blown bank on crawdads the day before and is still stuffed. My prediction is that a bass would and will react to an injured or unnatural bait quite often if the bait is presented in a close enough strike zone.

Let me tell you a particular story and see if you don't recall similar stories caused by the same circumstances. A friend and I headed over to Pittsburg, Kansas to fish some strip pits for the weekend. We had excellent fishing. Well, she had excellent fishing as soon as we loaded our two man scamp in the first pit, catching bass after bass up to a Mr. Six Pounder on salt and pepper gitzits. I'll not waste your time making up excuses for the next two paragraphs as to why she was catching more than me, even though I'd like to!

Anyway, the following day Deb and I decided to do some skin diving since the action had slowed. Clear water and bright skies made it a real treat to enjoy the underwater world. We're still in Kansas, mind you, and seeing visibly for up to 15 feet or more in some pits. I'd stopped and picked up some nightcrawlers earlier so we could do some "perch jerkin" under water. Six or eight feet of 8# line and a small cricket hook, and we were set. Deb was really having a blast catching big 'old pumpkin seeds under water and watching them flare from side to side when they were caught. I can't believe how much skin or scuba diving helps you understand what's going under water. The visualization process is really helped by those activities.

Deb had told me there was a bass that would come up real close when she had a perch hooked. I didn't think a whole lot about it until I heard her start yelling over at me. She'd hooked a small perch and the bass came up and ate the perch right in front of her and hooked itself while the perch got away. Man, I really started thinking after tha. The bass could sense that th eperch was in danger and vulnerable when they were hoked swimming and flaring from side to side. A very unnatural swimming motion.

So naturally I wanted to start messing around with my crankbaits to make them "vulnerable." Now, back to the bass as an opportunist when a sluggo or shad comes fluttering down. Isn't that an unnatural motion that actually alerts bass? Bass fishing is constantly getting more specialized and diversified, leaving some fishermen as mere specialists in single baits. David Fritts, for example, crankbaits; Denny Brauer, jigs; Tommy Biffle, jigs, and Paul Elias, crankbaits. Even though these fishermen catch fish wih others' methods as well, I think that one of the reasons they specialize in their own particular technique is because of some little thing they do with their baits that others don't, and when I speak about this, I mean movement or non-movement of these baits. When to pause, jerk, rip or just plain sit that bait.

Subtle little differences can make or break you. One of these, for example, is a short twitch or pause or stop while fishing a crankbait. Many times I've seen bass follow a bait up to the boat and flash away. When this happens, I just start jerkin' and pausin' or rippini' and stoppin' my bait. By rippin' my bait, I can get that bass moving at a pretty fair clip right behind my bait. Then, with a pause or stop the bass swims right upon the bait. In your face, so to speak. In an "in your face" situation, the bass usually flares it's gills and sucks your bait in. This technique can work with any bait, also.

This is one reason we stop and start our retrieves when using spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, etc. The key is getting a little momentum in your bait so that the bass doesn't have time to put on the brakes or swerve out of the way when you stop. Get enough speed on your bait so the bass will get up on it a little bit, then stop your retrieve. It's my belief that is why the jerk, pause method works so well. That's the cadence used by minnows and perch, and I believe a lot of them get eaten right after that second pause. Think about that bass coming directly behind the baitfish. Now that baitfish does not have eyes in the back of it's head. So, if that bass comes up behind and times the pause cadence right, he has a better chance of sucking that minnow in. So, the jerk, jerk, pause retrieve would be more of a natural retrieve.

When and where to use natural or more wounded type retrieves can only come with experience. How many times have you wondered why another angler catches fish where you had just tried earlier wihout a bite. Speed of retrieval, different cadence, color, size, presentation or just making the bait look natural. Or was that unnatural?

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