Odom on docks

Mississippi State Fishing Team member Taylor Odom has been battle-tested through a rigorous tournament series while competing against some of the top collegiate anglers from around the Southeast, and has learned a thing or two in the process.

Odom recently qualified for the U.S. Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship that was held in June at Pickwick Lake.

Pickwick Lake is one of Odom’s favorite lakes to fish, and has been a great place to learn to fish and catch fish on a variety of lures and techniques.

It’s a great place to find and catch bass on the shaky heads. With gin-clear water, perhaps clearer than any other lake in Mississippi, it’s a challenge to find and catch bass during times of extreme heat and high angling pressure.

“Pickwick is … full of bass, and you can catch them on the shaky heads until your arm falls off,” Odom said.

Odom’s shaky rig employs a Perfect Jig head and finesse worm, and it has played a big role in his success at locating and catching finicky bass under a lot of different conditions.

“If the bite gets tough and they won’t hit a crankbait or worm, I’ll switch to the shaky rig and usually be able to get a few bites,” Odom said.

When the bite is extremely tough, or almost nonexistent, this up-and-coming angler will downsize his rig with light line and a small Perfect Jig Shaky Rig.

“You can pick up a few bass on the smaller Perfect Jig when they won’t hit anything else,” Odom said.

When it’s really tough, docks can be the best place to look for those bass.

“It’s a big-time cold-water bait, and I’ll start with a shaky head during the winter when they aren’t biting,” he said. “And I don’t care whether it’s real cold or really hot, they’ll almost always hit that shaky rig.”

When oppressive heat sets in, Odom knows where he’ll throw the little rig.

“During hot weather I’m going to fish the shaky rig around docks, ledges and anywhere I think a bass might be but docks will be my first choice,” he said. “I’ll fine tune those rigs until I find just what they want and what pattern they’re on, and then try to catch as many as I can.”

Odom prefers a shaky head in green pumpkin or redbug colors while fishing Pickwick and other clear-water lakes.

Docks are really good places to fish, but they’re usually beat to death during tournaments.

That’s when shaky heads really shine according to Odom.

“Any time you have a lake with docks, you’ve got a good chance at catching a bass off that dock on a shaky head during the hot part of the summer,” Odom said.

The bass usually aren’t feeding actively then, but they won’t refuse a shaky head that falls onto their head.

Whether you’re just trying to get a bite or fill out your limit, fishing shaky heads around docks can be the ticket — and if conditions are right, you can catch them in hot weather until you just get tired.

One thing’s for sure: When the chips are down Odom will fall back on his ace-in-the-hole shaky head rig and get back to the basics of finding and catching bass.

“Fish the docks with shaky rigs and you’ll catch the bass,” said Odom.