Tarheel pro shares secrets to getting bites after fish leave the beds.
Bass fishermen hate the thought of having to catch fish that have just finishing spawning and are often acting sickly, but sometimes they just have to figure out how to catch these finicky fish.
Bass pro Tracy Adams of North Wilkesboro, N.C., who has won tournaments on both the FLW and B.A.S.S. circuits, turns to three lures — a white jig, a Pop-R or a buzz bait — when he’s got to catch postspawn bass.
“I like to swim a white jig around docks from 2 to 8 feet deep,” he said.
When he uses his topwater of choice, he chooses small Pop-Rs instead of the larger models.
Adams said postspawn bass often suspend under floating docks or under the platform of anchored docks, so getting a lure back inot these areas and keeping it close to the surface is a tough task.
That’s where a jig comes in.
“I like to fish a ½-ounce, white Shooter jig with something like a white Zoom Super Chunk trailer,” he said. “I think what you’ve got sometimes is the shad spawning in the mornings at the same time that bass are in the postspawn; I think that’s why it works.
“I’ll try to pitch it up around a dock, and I want to keep it within a foot or 2 of the surface; I want to keep it in sight.”
Adams fishes a Pop-R around riprapped or rocky banks, particularly those on secondary points or any corners of pockets that join the main lake.
“I want to cast within a couple of feet of the riprap and work that Pop-R,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be riprap — it can be a rocky bank, that’s most important — but you want it to be on some corner or bank that’s coming out of a spawning pocket.”
Last but not least, Adams tries to draw reaction strikes from postspawn bass that are oriented to laydowns or other wooden cover with a Shooter buzz bait.
“This works better right when they have come off the bed, but the water has got to be warm,” he said. “I like to fish it around any kind of wood: willows, bushes or laydowns.”
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