(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.)
One of the toughest situations that any tournament angler can face is suspended bas, over deep, clear water in cold temperatures. For a while, the Alabama Rig seemed to be the cure-all for what had previously ailed us, but when many tournament circuits banned its use, it was back to square one.
That was the conundrum that confronted veteran pro Dave Mansue when he headed to Lake Amistad this past February. He’d done decently the year before under similar conditions with a dropshot, but he was convinced that there had to be a better way to key in on larger fish. Putting the puzzle pieces together, he realized that a “spy bait” or “spin bait” was the way to better catches.
“It excited me because it was a way to catch suspended fish in cold water,” he said. He worked with the Duo Realis Spinbait 80, which is weighted so that it can be counted down to the desired depth, and then retrieved in that zone. It wobbles side-to-side as you move it forward and the blades turn subtly. “It’s not a big, powerful spin on it,” he explained. “It comes through the water on a horizontal plane.
The key is to make a long cast and then go slow. “If you feel like you’re reeling it slow enough, slow down,” Mansue said. Sometimes the fish will eat it on the fall, but otherwise the best course of action is to constantly keep a bow in your line, much as you would with a swimbait.
He throws it on a Castaway Skeleton Series dropshot shod, which has the proper length and action to allow for long casts, but also enough forgiveness to allow the fish to get hooked. Many times, the bass that fall prey to a spy bait are in a negative mood, so they won’t inhale the lure but rather slash at it. He said that small-diameter line is critical to elicit the proper fall rate and action. “You don’t want to impede the sinking nature of the bait,” he said. He prefers 4- to 8-pound Vicious fluorocarbon, never going above 8, which deadens the lure. Lately, he’s also experimented with a braid-to-fluoro connection, especially on lakes like Toledo Bend that have both submerged grass and large populations of big bass. It provides not only more power, but also a lot more feel. That can be critical when strikes are light – sometimes you’ll just lose contact with the bait, and the low stretch of the braid gives you a better chance of feeling somethingg under those circumstances.
Since that February initiation to spybaiting, Mansue has learned that this hardbait finesse technique isn’t limited to just cold-water suspended fish. Of course, he’s seen the tournament results from last year’s mid-summer smallmouth smashfests up north with it, but in his own backyard he’s seen multiple other applications. One came after the spawn, when he could see fish cruising in 6 to 8 feet of water. Normally those fish are considered “uncatchable” but he was surprised at how often they fell for a smartly-presented spy bait.
If you want to learn some of the other keys to Mansue’s spybaiting system, check out his full video, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
