®
Spring 2024
page 38
A disadvantage to fishing for bass in this type of situation is that every day that the water rises, the further they will be moving away from where you caught them the day before. This forces you the angler to continually search out new water and follow the bass as they move with the water. This may mean you are fishing in a farmer’s field or in an area that is covered with flooded timber.
To begin the search for these bass, I like to throw lures that cover water quickly and that will generate a reaction bite out of these bass. When the water is on the cooler side, a spinnerbait (1/4-ounce, single Colorado blade) is my choice, because the single blade puts off a lot of flash and vibration. With the smaller, compact spinnerbait, I can cast this around flooded timber easily.
As the water temperatures start to rise, a lot of floating junk that will create a mat for bass to hide under, and the best way to fish a mat is with a topwater frog, like the Northland Tackle Reed-Runner Frog. A topwater frog also mimics what will be swimming around in the flooded shallows, frogs, and mice.
With flooded timber, and grass, comes a lot of shallow water targets to pitch too. This is when you’ll find me with a flipping stick in my hand, and pitching a Texas-rigged
bait, like the X-Zone Lures
Adrenaline Craw. A compact
soft plastic bait like this will
slide down easily through the
nasty flooded cover you’ll be
fishing.
Depending on where the
bass are positioned within the
heavy cover will dictate what
size tungsten weight you’ll
use. If they are on the outside
of trees, or laydowns, a lighter
5/16- or 3/8-ounce weight
will work. If they are tucked
further back or under cover, I
like to bump up to a 7/16- or
1/2-ounce weight. I like to rig
my soft plastic baits on a big
TroKar TK133 Pro-V Flippin’ Hook.
Fishing for bass that are positioning themselves along a steep bank requires a little less moving and guessing of where the bass will be positioned. Once you have located the bass along a steep bank, they will move up in the water column as the water levels rise.
Steep banks that are composed of hard surfaces such as rock will warm up very quickly in the spring. The advantages of fishing for bass here are that they will not roam far from that bank. One thing to remember is that when fishing these types of banks, you must also take into consideration the bottom content, current and additional structure.
To be able to fish at different water depths along these banks, I’ll rely on two primary lures. The first is vibrating jig, as you can hit different water depths by changing up the weight of your bait, but also by changing up your retrieve. When the bass are up shallow on a bank, I’ll use a 1/4-ounce ChatterBait, and then as the bass get deeper, I’ll switch up the 3/8- or 1/2-ounce JackHammer.
If the bass are holding deeper, I’ll slow roll my vibrating jig, or work it like a jig and slowly drag and then hop it down
the bank. I like to use the
Northland Fishing Tackle
Eye-Candy Paddle Shad as
my trailer, as it is compact
and has a nice subtle tail
action.
Bass in the spring will
eat a Yamamoto Senko,
that is not a surprise! But
when fishing in a situation
like this, where the bass
may move up and down a
riprap bank, you may not
be able to let your Senko
sink all the way down to
where the bass are holding.
This is when you can either
insert a nail weight into
one of the ends of the