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> When fishing tubes (especially), and when deep jigging. In depths of 15 foot or greater, here's a tip to detect light bites/strikes. Use braided line with a fluorocarbon or copolymer leader. 3 - 5 feet long is fine.
> When open water frog fishing, using a lighter 30 lb braid will allow your frog to walk easier through the water without dragging down.
> A great way to catch numbers of Smallmouth is with the Carolina Rig. Try small 4 inch worms, centipedes, flukes, and lizards.
> When the bass are keying on shad in the early summer and again in the fall, a rattletrap is your BEST way to catch these fish. A spinnerbait is good but a rattletrap is the ultimate.
> A crankbait is your best tool for fishing wood and timber. You may think your crankbait will get hung up and stuck, truth is, if fished properly it won't. Fish the bait slowly through the branches and stumps. If you feel pressure on your lure and it begins to bog down, just stop reeling for a moment and the lure will rise up over the cover, then continue your retrieve. Or simply continue reeling through the branches and obstacles allowing the lip of the bait to deflect the lure off of and over and obstacles.
> The jig-n-pig is a wonderful bait. Instead of vertically jigging the lure, try this. Try swimming a jig. Cast far, let your jig settle to the bottom, now reel the jig back in a foot or two off of the bottom on a straight retrieve. When you contact structure, instead of stopping and jigging, just continue "swimming" the jig right through the cover. You're trying to get a reaction strike by deflecting the jig-n-pig off of things. Just reel the jig back, use a few little twitches of the rod tip on the retrieve but be sure to keep the reel moving the whole retrieve. Guaranteed, you're going to get more bites!
> When fishing stumps you must fish the root system too. Bass don't always relate to the main stump, many times they will relate to the roots than run for a few feet around and away from the stump. Often you can not even see the roots, so when fishing stumps, fish a few feet around them too!
> If fishing a wood pile, fish the outside first then work your way in. The fish on the outskirts of the wood will be more active, catch them first with a spinnerbait or crankbait. The after that, move in gradually towards the heart of the pile with a worm or jig probing all the nooks and crannys.
> When fishing spinnerbaits, jigs, buzzbaits, or anything with a skirt ... especially spinner and buzz baits ... if you're getting a lot of short strikes, trim down the skirt a bit. A quarter of an inch should be good. Now the bass will get the hook when the nip at the lure.
> Switch your Carolina Rig weight for a jig. A jig will do just as good a job as a weight would with the added bonus of offering the bass two lures at once. With the jig as a weight in front of your rig, the bass gets the effect of a a predator chasing some prey.
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