(Editor's note: The following is the latest installment in a series of fishing tips presented by The Bass University. Check back each Friday for a new tip.)
When the dogwoods bloom and fish move shallow to spawn, Scott Suggs starts looking for visible bass to catch. Over the course of his career, he’s learned that each fish can be judged by its attitude, and each lake has differences that enable him to maximize his sight-fishing success.
It starts with his Popticals glasses. Many anglers start with a gray lens under sunny conditions, then move to brown when the skies darken with clouds. On some Arkansas lakes, Suggs follows that same progression, but not on others, even though the water color may be very similar.
“When I go to each lake, I don’t care where it is in the country, the first thing I do is pick out several things on the bottom,” he said. “I start changing glasses. The one I put on that goes ‘Boom!’ that’s exactly what I’m looking for, that’s the pair that I wear for that day.”
Some beds are obvious and others are not. Suggs has seen many times when a bass will stay in a limited area, and is clearly guarding something, but the location of the bed remains a mystery. Once again, he believes that his polarized glasses may be the key to solving this mystery. He’ll try to locate two or three of the more obvious beds and then rotate through his glasses until he finds something that gives him the necessary clue. “There’s a certain different glow in every body of water,” he said, and before he even picks up a rod he’ll try to unlock that piece of the puzzle.
His typical starting baits are plastics like wacky-worms and lizards, although he increasingly finds himself using a dropshot, especially for spotted bass, and a centipede is also frequently part of the equation. If he can see the bed from a distance he’ll start with natural colors, which often don’t have to be placed directly in the bed to get a bite. When he sees fish paired up on a bed, he endeavors to only catch the male as a last resort, in the hopes that the female will protect her spawning zone. If she’s not aggressive, he’ll turn to gaudier colors like white, pink and chartreuse.
He breaks down the bed into two sides and the middle and makes a pitch to each. “I never hop it,” he said. “I never just leave it laying.”
Unlike some of his competition, he’s not prone to spend multiple hours on a single fish unless it’s a true giant or a kicker that’ll make a difference.
“We’re going to get it on, or I’m going to get gone,” he deadpanned.
He’ll test the fish and taunt it until it shows signs of being ready to go. Once he’s lined up, on the next pitch he “force feeds” it, and when the snout is just a few inches from the lure he gives it one quick hop. If the fish gets hooked and he loses it, he still doesn’t give up. A territorial bass needs to defend its house.
If you want to learn some of Suggs' other strategies for sight-fishing success, including some surprising spawning areas for spotted bass and smallmouths, and how he knows when fish are bedding on the main lake, check out his full video, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
