(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.)
Many pros prefer locating their bass during practice with power techniques like a square-bill crankbait or a spinnerbait, but Elite Series rookie Patrick Walters often lets a soft plastic stickbait do the heavy lifting during his search. The South Carolina pro calls Santee Cooper his home waters, so his inclination is to start back in the thick stuff and work out.
“I start as shallow as I possibly can,” he explained, later adding, “If you’re not skinning bark, you’re not catching fish.”
He believes that a weightless approach is typically best way to get bites because the key is to have the lure hover in a fish’s face as long as possible. He can fish it as deep as 30 feet, which requires patience, but he’ll also add weight when that improves his chances. Often that’s a VMC nail weight, up to two or three at a time (especially when fishing on deep current spots like on the Tennessee River), but he’ll go to a lighter finishing nail from the hardware store when less is more.
One advantage of this technique in practice is that he doesn’t have to hook the fish. He’ll often tie his line directly to an O-Ring so that the fish will never feel the sting of a hook point. Sometimes the fish will hold the bait for 10 or more seconds, even against light pressure. Sometimes they’ll drop the bait and then come back and grab it again. Walters keeps a second bait – this one with a hook – on the deck, so that after getting five or six bites in an area he can set the hook on one to make sure they’re the right species and the right size.
He utilizes a VMC straight-shank Neko hook for his wacky worm rigs – a No. 2 on Trick Worms and a No. 1 (or occasionally a 1/0) on Senko-style lures. Because the hook penetrates so easily, it doesn’t require that he apply much pressure to get a solid hookset. Although he feels that generally he gets a better hookup percentage without the O-Ring, when he’s in heavy cover or going through a lot of soft plastic baits he’ll typically rely upon one.
Many Bass University students may be surprised to learn that he uses spinning tackle almost all the time in this situation. “I’ve caught more 7-pound fish from Santee on a spinning rod than I have on anything else,” he explained. He’ll use a main line of 15-pound braid and a 10-pound fluorocarbon leader.
The beauty of this setup is that you can go behind a flipper “and just clean house.” While straight-bodied lures are his go-to selections, the baits you can use to find fish wacky rigged are only limited by your imagination. “I’ve actually done it with a Magnum Fluke.”
If you want to learn some of the other ways in which Walters uses a soft stickbait to find the fish for money finishes, including his ultra-simple color selections, check out his full video, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.