Hey everybody, fresh off my Bassmaster Classic win. Man, what a great week
it was. A lipless crankbait was a huge deal for me here this week, prespawn time of year,
that's when a bait like this Storm Arashi Vibe really catches some big fish, so, hop in here with me,
we're gonna break down exactly how I did it to win the Bassmaster Classic.
Prespawn to me, I mean automatically means a hard bait. You know, I'm thinking a crankbait. I'm thinking a jerkbait.
I'm thinking the lipless crankbaits -- those baits in the prespawn time of year
that's just for me where I grew up in East Tennessee,
that's what we fish a lot of. It seems like those bass that time of year
they really like a hard bait, something that's imitating crawfish as well as a bait fish. A lot of guys in this event were fishing a crankbait, you know a standard crankbait, a DT-4,
a DT-6, you know flat sided baits, whatever it may be. A lipless might seem like kind of an odd choice.
This isn't a Sam Rayburn, this isn't a Toledo Bend, a Guntersville, a grass fishery. That's not what this is here.
This is primarily rock on the bottom that we're fishing around, but for me, these areas that I'm fishing are really really flat
so the bottom doesn't have a lot of taper.
I may be sitting in four or five feet of water throwing up to two or three,
so I'm fishing places that are really flat and the lipless crankbait for me
is just more effective in those places where you're fishing, and there's not a lot of depth change.
I'm able to control that bait extremely well with 17-pound fluorocarbon line.
That's what I was using on it and just able to control the depth with the speed that I'm fishing the bait as well as
my rod position and I can really almost worm that bait through those areas where those bass were holding.
The thing you always hear with the crankbait,
especially a lipped bait is that you need bottom contact to trigger a strike. For me where I was fishing this lipless bait,
I was doing the same thing.
I was wanting to make bottom contact to where the nose of that bait would hit those rocks and it would cause the bait
tooccasionally hang in the bottom much like you do when you're fishing grass that'll hang on the hooks,
then you pop the bait free. The nose of that bait would dig into those rocks hit them a little bit,
then I would kind of just ever so slightly pop that rod tip
I wasn't trying to rip the bait up two feet and then let it flutter back down.
I was trying to just get that bait to come up three or
four inches and then it would pause on back down just a little bit on the fall and
that's when a lot of those bites would come especially the smallmouth. Those places where I was fishing
I'd catch both species.
It seemed like the smallmouth
always came after I popped that bait off some rocks and just kind of half turned the reel handle,
that's when those big smallmouths will get it. Don't ever think that this is just a largemouth bait.
Think about it this way think about a dying shad or even a crawfish
which is probably more what I was trying to imitate with the color
I was using. That crawfish is down there scooting along the rocks,
something spooks it he's going to flare up off the bottom and then he's going to kind of coast back down.
That's exactly what this bait was doing.
Has to be in my opinion why those largemouth and smallmouth were both eating this Arashi Vibe this week. For me in this situation,
and why I chose this bait as well is that it does have a pretty tight wobble. This water temperature that I was fishing was
anywhere from as cold as 51 to maybe 53, 54-degrees
so I wanted to bait that had a real tight wobble a real tight shimmy, even though this water was off-colored
I didn't want a bait that made a whole lot of noise.
I know these fish are pressured and I'm not expecting one of these fish to come a great distance to kind of eat my
bait, I already know where he lives, I know right where I need to throw it,
I just need a bait that looks pretty natural. That swims just exactly how it needs to like
this one does and has a little bit of flutter on the fall
so when I pause it, it just shimmies a little bit on the way down. That's when some of those bites would come.
Okay, so when you hit the water and you're gonna be throwing a lipless crankbait
The first thing that I always do is check the water temperature
and the reason I want to know that is it just gives me a starting point for how fast I expect to fish that bait
Most of my crankbait fishing is done with a 6.8:1 gear ratio
Some type of a Bass Pro cranking stick whether that's a 7 foot or seven foot six inch medium heavy
But I'm gonna make it cast out there and sometimes if I'm trying to fish that bait four or five feet deep
I'll initially let it sink on the cast
But then it's going to be a slow to moderate retrieve if that water is anywhere from you know
say 50, 52, 53-degrees.
It's gonna be just the slow to moderate. Now if it's more in that upper 40 range
It's gonna be more about fishing the bait with the rod
It's gonna be more that I'm taking slack up with the real and pumping it with the rod.
Now if that water is up in the 55, 57-degree range
I'm gonna be turning the real handle pretty steady, occasionally popping it along,
not letting it have a lot of pauses and if it's you know
57 plus it's gonna be chunk it out and bring it back in
So it's all about matching that up for that water temperature and how aggressive you expect those fish to be
one thing that if you watch much about this Classic you saw or heard people talking about
how much current there was flowing through this system right now and it's the Tennessee River and some folks may think that always has that
kind of current but it really doesn't. We've had a tremendous amount of rain and the current was at an all-time high.
I had to really adjust a little bit with the way I was fishing in some of the areas and just really get a grip
on how those fish were using that current. There were places that I
expected to be good that just weren't because they had so much current blowing across them. For me those areas that
produced my fish were areas that had just a little bit of current.
It was more ended up being and I figured this out throughout practice,
kind of about a back current if you look at you know an outside bend, that's a traditional place
That's gonna catch a lot of current all the time. The places I was fishing would be kind of where an outside bend would kick around
and then it would form a real big eddy and where that eddy would actually come back in and hit back on something
so, those kind of back current places where you had still a little bit of flow, a little bit of water movement
but not near as drastic as it was out on the channel and those really really heavy current places. You know a bait like this
that's the Arashi Vibe, it comes out of the pack with really premium treble hooks
I mean, those are VMC hooks
You know you fish that bait a long hard day dig it into the gravel on those bottoms, those points
are gonna get wore down even just from catching a bunch of fish. You're gonna wear those hooks down a little bit
They're not going to be quite as sharp as they once were so I'm always going to upgrade those to that
VMC Hybrid Treble, a #2 short shank is what I use on this.
I'll put that on the front and the back as well and it being a short shank
it pulls it in there tight to the bait where the fish doesn't have the leverage to be able to throw that bait like they
can sometimes. If you look at that hook up close you can see
it kind of turns in, especially out towards the point.
I feel like that actually protects that point a little bit when you're digging into those rocks and stuff.
There were times when I knew for sure
my hook would have been dull but come back checked it that was still good to go
and I think it's because of that shape also that turned in shape
that's what helps locks it into those bass jaws when you hook 'em.
Number six through a number one is what I carry for the most part regular shank as well as short shank
just depending on which size bait you're using and what fits that bait best. Those crawfish colors early in the spring
That's definitely something key that rusty craw
Or the red craw one of those ones and if you've got some off colored water and you know
those fish are keyed up on crawfish
those are gonna be the colors that I pick out then but once you get to where those fish have really transitioned on to bait,
for me a color that I use when that water has a fair amount of color to it,
you know only a foot and a half visibility may be that hot blue shad
That's definitely one that I like. One that you just can't beat day in and day out,
especially on a sunny day like this the chrome and blue, man
the flash that that puts off, chrome and blue is just your all-time go-to in a lipless crankbait of any kind.
But then when you've got some fairly clear water you're dealing with something
that's a little bit more see-through, a little bit more translucent can be extremely good
so, always having a variety of colors to match any condition and any bait fish type that you're fishing around.
There's one. That's got to be a big one
Golly.
Man that's a big fish right there now. There's no doubt about it. Here he comes, here he comes.
Golly!
Dang, look at the size of that big ol' giant. Stay on there baby. Stay on there.
Stay on there. She's got that thing sideways in her mouth
come here girl come
here
Golly!
Wow
Dude, that is a huge fish
man
lipless crankbait in the prespawn time of year
There's not a lot better way to catch a big old monster like that. What a beautiful thick
healthy fish that is
I love to fish a lipless crankbait. That cold water temperature in the low 50s. That's when those big ones like to munch it,