Breaking Down a New Lake: The Finale

Part 3 of "How to Breakdown a New Lake" picks up right where part 2 left off. The duo move into the Eastern arm of Lake Sonoma in search of shallow water largemouth. They begin by fishing in the marina where they flip a senko into boat slips and skip a keitech swimbait into shade pockets. 

Almost immediately Tim and Matt encounter a wolf pack of schooling largemouth bass along a shade line. If you look closely in the lower corner of the video you'll see a 6-8 lb bass swimming out of a brush pile toward the boat. They are able to lure a topwater explosion from the bass on a hollow body frog but they it doesn't fully commit. After plying other offerings like the senko, keitech swimbait, and even a wakebait they agree to return to the marina later after the fish have settled. 

After leaving the marina the pair briefly fish the bridge pilings. 
When summer bass fishing in a lake with bridge pilings, this is a key place to catch large numbers of fish. Largemouth, smallmouth, and especially spotted bass love to school around vertical structure.  Matt throws a senko on the pilings while Tim is casting an Alabama Rig, both to no avail. They quickly move on to another set of docks where Tim catches back to back bass fishing with a 2.8 Keitech coupled with a Revenge Dart Head. 

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After leaving the docks behind Matt and Tim fish cove after cove and point after point in search of schooling fish on deep ledges or shallow shade pockets. They spend much of the afternoon fishing standing timber in open water but aren't able to get consistent bites. Finally, as the redwoods began leaving large shade lines on the water Matt is able to catch a nice largemouth on a hollow body frog lure. After a few more stops Matt and Tim return to the marina and head for home. 

We hope you were able to take valuable information out of this video. Whether you are bass fishing in California, Texas, Alabama, or New England, we tried to fish different types of cover and with different techniques that could be applied to every location.

Breaking down a new lake and learning how to find bass is not an easy task. However, If you follow the steps we outlined in this fishing video, you should be able to locate bass much more quickly in the future. We hope this helps! 

Baits used in this video to locate and catch fish...

Yamamoto 5" Senko (Green Pumpkin)
Keitech Fat Swing Impact 2.8"
Revenge Darter Head
Yamamoto 5" Senko (Natural Shad)
Alabama Rig- Yum Ultralight
River2Sea Bully Wa in “Dirty White”

Equipment Used:

Tim's Keitech Combo:
Rod- Dobyns 742 Champion Extreme 7'4"
Reel- Daiwa Fuego Spinning Reel
Line-Power Pro Braided 15 lb
Leader- Sunline Leader Material 8 lb

Matt's Frog Combo:
Rod- Dobyns 736 Champion
Reel- Shimano Curado 70
Line- 65 lb Sufix 832
Leader- None Used

Top 5 Spring Search Baits

Despite the freezing temperatures in much of the country the West is seeing record highs. The bass are already moving to the shallows in anticipation of Spring and the bite is turning on. The transition from Winter to Spring is one of the best times of the year to target both quantity and quality of bass. Learning to cover water and locate fish is the key to success.

This week Tim and Matt break down the top 5 baits they use in the Spring to quickly locate and catch schools of bass. In no particular order they are:

1) Squarebill: The Squarebill is a great bait for covering water and triggering reaction strikes from early-season bass. It can be fished in heavy cover but can also be ripped through grass, much like a lipless bait, resulting in violent strikes. We've found the River2Sea Biggie and the Strike King KVD to both produce extremely well in the early season.

2) Spinnerbait: The whole concept of a spinnerbait is to imitate a fast moving, compact school of baitfish. This is a perfect profile to present as bass are bulking up for the spawn. When the water is murky the spinnerbait will outperform virtually every other reaction bait. Our two favorite are the Revenge (Try the Deep Runner with its small blades for a burning presentation) and the River2Sea Bling.

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3) Jerkbait: In the West we call them Rip Baits but whatever you call them, they are deadly. A super slow retrieve in cold winter temps will give way to a fast, erratic retrieve as the bass start to spawn. Try the Staycee 90 as the bass are transitioning into the shallows and who could forget the Megabass Ito Vision 110? Throw the Ito whenever, wherever, its practically a fish magnet!

4) GlideBait: The Glidebait combines the benefits of the jerkbait with the drawing power of a big swimbait. These baits are the perfect transition bait to catch both numbers and size. Whether you're looking to win a tournament or catch the biggest bass of your life, you should have a glide bait ready to go this Spring. We throw the S-waver, GanCraft Jointed Claw, and the Slideswimmer. Look at your budget and take your pick, they've all produced GIANTS in the Spring!

5) Alabama Rig: Love it or hate it, its a producer! Rather than rambling about the A-rig we'll just point you back to The Alabama Rig Video

Whether you're wearing shorts and flip flops already or dreading shoveling the snow off the driveway again, Spring is coming. We hope these tips help you cover water quickly and find the biggest bass of your life. Good luck!

Whats New with Alabama Rigs?

Love 'em or hate 'em the Alabama Rig is here to stay! Its been questioned, argued, bashed, and even banned... but the A-rig just keeps catching fish for the anglers that have stuck with it.

We thought it was time to revisit the Umbrella Rig now that all the dust has settled. We know you can't use it in most major tournaments but that doesn't stop you from prefishing, fun fishing, or trophy hunting with the rig. This week's video covers some of the changes that have come along as companies have fine-tuned their approach to this awesome technique.

The two biggest differences from rig to rig in today's market are blades vs. no blades, and the number of baits a rig can hold.

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer when it comes to these various options so you need to be prepared for every circumstance. The bladed rigs like the Yum Flash Mob or Flash mob junior seem to work best when the water is stained or you have overcast conditions. Once the skies and waters clear I prefer using a more finesse rig like the Boss "All wire" or Frenzy Baits Sniper.

If the fish have seen a lot of rigs it might be time to go custom. There are plenty of small manufactures making ultralight rigs with 6, 8, 10, and even 15+ baits on them. While this may seem excessive, if you're looking to fool the wariest of giants it might be worth considering.

The one part of the rig that we haven't changed our minds on at all is the hardware and baits. We're still using the Dirty Jigs Swimbait Head (usually 1/8 oz) and coupling it with either a 4.8 Keitech Fat Swing Impact or RI Skinny Dippers. The specifics of how we rig them is still the same as last year's video which you can see below.

We know this isn't a new topic but with all the changes and refinements that have been made to these rigs over the last few years we thought it was time to touch on the subject again. We hope this helps!