(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.)
Bernie Schultz has been fishing at the top level of competition since the 1980s, but one of his favorite lures is even more senior than that – the Rapala Original Floating Minnow. It’s a lure that’s often thought of as something for beginners, and Schultz acknowledges that it “accounts for a lot of first fish for people worldwide,” but it’s also a viable tournament producer.
The Original Floating Minnow has always had a mystique among anglers. “In the very beginning, only a few were brought over,” Schultz said, noting that they traveled from Finland to Minnesota nearly 60 years ago. Anglers would rent them for $25 a day to preclude theft or loss. Once other similarlyshaped lures came on the scene, it lost a little bit of its popularity, but not its effectiveness. “It works in so many situations,” he added.
Of course it’s exceptional over vegetation on Florida’s weed-choked lakes, where it offers “the ability to pull fish to the surface.” It also works around riprap, docks, lily pads and cypress trees, really any kind of cover as long as fish are positioned to look up.
But is it a real tournament tool?
“To me it’s an essential tool,” Schultz answered. In 2003 he finished 3rd in a B.A.S.S. event that Terry Scroggins won flipping. Schultz, meanwhile, was fishing boat trails that the bass were using as highways with a three-hooked Rapala in size 13. He had the fish on to win, but the combination of the light line needed to throw it a long distance and the heavy vegetation around him meant that he lost some key bites.
He throws it on a 6 1/2- to 7-foot medium action rod, noting that you “need a little forgiveness” for both casting the lure and fighting the fish, and he typically uses 10- to 12-pound line, sometimes as heavy as 14. If he wants the lure to float high, he’ll use monofilament, and if he’s trying to make it dive he’ll employ fluorocarbon. He’s also concerned about the rate that it ascends after being submerged, stating that there are “times you want it to dance,” and other times when you want to “slow the float coming back up.” In the latter instance, he’ll sometimes use Storm SuspenDots or other weighting methods.
The way that you likely learned to fish this lure as a kid is probably still the best way to fish it. Cast it out, let the rings dissipate, and then pull it forward. Each day you’ll need to “let the fish show you what they want.” The key is to remember that subtlety pays off, and a slow retrieve usually does as well. If you exercise patience, and the water color is reasonably clear, this is an old-school lure that “will provoke fish when others won’t.”
“If it’s a tough bite, I always try it.”
If you want to learn some of the other ways that Schultz uses and modifies the Rapala Original Floater and its brethren to catch fish all over the country, including spots and smallmouths, check out his full video, filmed at the Bassmaster Classic in Alabama, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
