Contest Question of the Week Archive

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Week of 4/12/00 #128 It’s early summer. The sun is bright and water is in the high seventies. With the high barometric pressure and bright sun you figure that flipping is the way to go. After boating several nice fish you accidentally step on and break your favorite flippin’ stick. When you get over your tantrum it’s back to business. Since flipping is going to be tough using 14 pound test, your heaviest remaining rod, you figure out another way to get those blue bird sky fish to bite. What did you do? Winner Take your reel off of your flipping rod and put it on your next heaviest rod.. Week of 4/5/00 #127 Your depth finder indicates a school of baitfish suspended in 10 feet of water over a 20 foot depression. You cannot see any cover in this 30 to 40 foot hole. The surrounding water is about 12 to 14 feet deep. Water temps are in the low 60’s and it is a bright sunny day. You have marked the edges of the depression and pulled back 25 feet or so. Even though you see no marks indicating bass you figure that there has to be fish either in or on the edges of the hole, especially with baitfish there in quantity. What would be your first, second and third starting patterns to entice these bucket mouths to bite. Winner I would first start out with a jerkbait/minnow imitation and work the entire area on top. If that did not work I would go to a suspending jerkbait and work the area. Finally, I would switch to a deep diving crankbait and work the entire area with that. Week of 3/27/00 #126 You are fishing a deep, wide, slow moving river. Your primary target today is smallmouths. The water temperature is in the high sixties. The locals have told you that the best way to catch them at this time of the year is to fish the deeper pools that have eddies created by rock or fallen trees. You have located a stretch that seems to have a number of these type of locations. What is your approach to catching these bronzebacks. Winner   First, I would throw a marker to the deepest part of the eddy. Then I would see if the fish were active by throwing a rebel wee crawfish to the marker. After combing the cover, if no takers with the crawfish crankbait, I would switch to either a hair jig-and-pig, or a three inch grub and craw them over the rocks, against the current and with the current. As a final effort to entice these fish, I would throw a compact, 3/8 ounce chart./white spinnerbait.   Week of 3/22/00 #125 You have located a drop off in 8 feet of water that drops steeply into 12 feet. Along this drop off your depth finder shows a piece of cover that has a number of marks on it, indicating bass. You have marked the area with buoys and have backed off about 30 feet. The water temperature is 70 and the clarity is good. You are not sure what type of cover is down there but you are guessing that it is possibly a rock pile with some surrounding weed growth. How is the best way to fish this opportunity? Winner I would start with a crankbait that would reach the depth of the structure to look for active fish, probably a natural pattern, shad or crawfish. I would fish outside edges first for any structure not showing on the LCD, then actually try to deflect the crankbait off the structure itself. I would do this from different angles to be sure I covered the structure completely - front, back and sides. If I had no takers I would switch to a carolina rigged lizard and again cast to the structure, all edges from several angles. Finally, I would try a texas rig worm or jig n pig to slow down my presentation and to thoroughly fish the structure, again covering all edges and angles.   Bass Fishing USA Home Page