The Art Of Finesse Fishing

By Jonathan LePera
Special to BassFan

There are times when a spinning rod and a box of tricks is the only saving grace for a bass angler. Factors such as fishing pressure, weather, water clarity, barometric pressure and even the mood of the fish are enough to cripple an angler’s best game plan, unless they can adapt.

What follows is a closer look at how three established bass anglers employ finesse tactics to salvage a day or a tournament.

Let’s Go Swimming

One of the top young competitors on the Bassmaster Elite Series, Chris Zaldain learned during his youth in California that sometimes finesse fishing is all that works. He’s carried that knowledge over to his pro career and it’s come in handy on several occasions.

“If I’m going to a lake I know that receives a lot of pressure, I’m already in finesse mode thinking that I have to catch fish behind guys,” Zaldain said.

He identifies two types of pressure that impact bass: High barometric pressure or above-average fishing pressure. When faced with clear water, whether targeting largemouth, smallmouth, or spotted bass, fish can see the line, hooks, and weights from a greater distance away.

During his days as a co-angler, he learned patience and tactical execution were crucial when the bite was tough. Zaldain knows it’s a numbers game and by day 3 or 4 of an Elite Series event, sometimes the fish are so beat up or his spots depleted that he just needs to get bites. He’ll often forego rigging his power-fishing rods and just use finesse outfits, challenging himself to get as many bites as he can by 3 p.m. to have a decent day.

When fishing an area that someone has already gone through, he’ll pay real close attention to what they were throwing, how fast they were fishing, and where in the water column they were targeting.

“I like going behind guys and showing the fish something different,” he said.

Zaldain pointed to his 2015 win on Sturgeon Bay at the Angler of the Year Championship. It was a post-frontal fall tournament that ushered in the region’s first cold front. The air was cold, but the water was still warm translating into some pretty confused clear-water smallmouth. Couple that with the immense fishing pressure that smallmouth receive on that body of water and the odds were stacked against the 50-boat field.

For Zaldain, his ace in the hole was a 3-inch Megabass Spark Shad swimbait.

“I felt like I could go behind anyone in that tourney whether they were fishing a jerkbait, a tube, or a dropshot, and catch fish,” he said. “That tourney had both high-pressure situations and clear water. Those swimbaits I was throwing perfectly imitated those real small baitfish.”

When fishing flats on the Great Lakes, around grass, an algae bloom, or anytime a typically clear water fishery becomes stained, he’ll opt to rig the Spark Shad on the Megabass Okashira Screw Head jig.

“That screw head has long and short blades and has a lot of thump to it reminding me of a mini-Chatterbait type bait,” he said.

Regardless of which head-style he is fishing with the Spark Shad, Zaldain likes putting his bait in areas where he knows fish live and draws them to it.

“I want to present that bait in the most natural manner possible,” he said. “They’ll swim from so far away, once they get closer and closer, they don’t see line attached to it since I’m using light fluorocarbon line. They hardly see the head because it’s a small 1/8-ounce head with a really light-wire hook. The Spark Shad is so realistic – with the eyeballs on it – and the subtle wag of the tail just drives them nuts.”

Real is a color that works best when he’s fishing clear water and when trying to replicate transparent baits like smelt and shiners, especially when the forage is small as it has a transparent belly with an olive brown colored back. Albino and Hiuo work best when fish are feeding upward as the white provides “a nice contrast to the blue sky or a dark sky if a storm is coming bright white is a nice solid silhouette contrast to that dark, stormy sky,” he noted.

Rod selection is critical to this finesse technique, Zaldain says. A rod that’s too soft won’t drive the hook home while a rod that’s too stiff will pull the bait away from the fish. He opts for the Megabass Orochi XX Shaky Head spinning rod paired with a Shimano Sustain 2500 spinning reel spooled with 15-pound Seaguar Smackdown braided line tied to a 10-foot leader of 6-poun Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon line.

“I scale down line not because I don’t want fish to see the line but I want the bait to act as natural as possible,” Zaldain said. “The thinner the diameter, the less water restriction and the more realistic that swimbait is going to appear.”

Once he gets bit, he’ll reel down to the fish and ease back, sweeping the rod over his shoulder. Once the hook is past the barb, it’s almost a guarantee the fish is coming in the boat. He’ll set the drag at 85 percent on the hookset but will back off if the fish is big and he’s in open water.

Lintner’s Dropshot Trick

It’s no secret that Bassmaster Elite Series pro Jared Lintner loves to flip and punch heavy cover, but he doesn’t always have that opportunity. Like Zaldain, he grew up in California and learned his craft on heavily-pressured smaller lakes where he learned quickly to become versatile or he wasn’t getting paid.

“I’ve won so much money around my local lakes with a spinning rod,” Lintner said. “Some of my buddies would tell me how they flipped all day and couldn’t get a bite. I catch a lot of big ones on finesse applications, I’m just not letting a lot of guys see me doing it.”

He once won a boat on Clear Lake, catching 24 pounds while dropshotting tulle clumps with 6- to 8-pound test behind three other teams who had been fishing with big baits and big line.

Once he figures the bite to be tough, he readies himself mentally.

“I get into a zone and pay attention to every cast, every subtle bite, or mush bite,” he said. “It happens so quick that if you’re not paying attention you are going to miss those bites and that hurts if you’re only getting five or eight bites and you miss four of them.”

Sometimes fish will go into a post-spawn funk, like he experienced in 2006 during his first year on the Elite Series at Lake Guntersville. He could see largemouth cruising around with little interest in biting. He tied up a dropshot rig, which they hadn’t typically seen before, and cashed a check.

In 2014, when the tour visited Toledo Bend, he fished a Ned Rig on 6-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper, which facilitated super long casts. Using that finesse tactic, he culled out everything he’d caught flipping.

“That lake is big, but not that big, when it comes to productive water, so with the Elite guys, you were constantly fishing behind somebody,” he said.

Lintner knows that sometimes a spinning rod is all that will put food on the table. He sees anglers fishing a finesse rig going through the motions often, especially back home. He admits that it’s not his favorite technique, but he also know it takes a total commitment to make it work. He will mix in a big swimbait to try for a bigger fish and reset.

Zaldain and Lintner concurred that on heavily pressured waters, they’ll study how other anglers fished the area and what angles they used. Even if it means unorthodox casts, they produce bites when the easy-pickings are gone.

“Get up on the bank and throw out or approach from an angle that the fish aren’t used to seeing,” Lintner said. “It’s shocking to me how many fish I’ve caught doing that and that applies to a variety of techniques. Where I grew up, there might be five points on a small lake that these fish live on. Everyone is fishing them the same way. Maybe 10 fish get caught off a point all day. If you approach them at a different angle, you might get six of them."

When choosing finesse baits, he thinks outside the box. Where many anglers in California might opt for the tried-and-true Roboworm, a proven fish magnet, Lintner opts for a green weenie-colored 3- or 4-inch Jackall Crosstail Shad rigged on a #1 or 1/0 Lazer TroKar dropshot hook. He believes it offers a different shape and size that might appeal to fish that haven’t seen it before. Sometimes he’ll rig it wacky-style or an inch down from the head of the bait where it is typically rigged.

He’ll also fish a Jackall Flick Shake 5.8 on a shaky head or a dropshot can draw bites from finicky bass also as opposed to traditional rigging.

When fishing shallower open water, he’ll rig up a 7-foot medium-action G. Loomis NRX spinning rod paired with a Shimano Stradic Ci4+ reel spooled with 6-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper. When fishing shallow targets like bushes, docks, and tulles, he’ll fish 10-pound Sunline FX2 braid with an 8-pound fluorocarbon leader.

Lintner has noticed some anglers are using rods far too stiff for finesse fishing. Using the right tools for the job is imperative as is their approach to landing fish in cover with light line.

“The more you try to fight that fish, the more it is going to want to go the opposite way,” he said. “I’ll lean into them on the hookset then keep tight, steady pressure. Naturally, 4- to 8-pounders want to swim away from where they’re at, but if you try to wrench them in, then they’ll want to go right back. I’ve had so many swim out in front of my trolling motor right to deep water, then they’re done.”

Smallies Require Stealth

Bob Izumi, arguably Canada’s finest smallmouth bass angler, is a threat in any tournament that he’s entered. After 43 years of fishing competitively, he’s fished in just about every situation, but he says the toughest is when he’s faced with clear, flat-calm shallow water and heavy fishing pressure.

He’s convinced the fish he’s targeting are either coming in to feed or to digest food and sun themselves after eating in deeper water. Making long casts is imperative as is employing stealth-like tactics.

“It’s imperative to get them on a long cast so they don’t see you, get their radar up, and get nervous,” he said. “You’ll catch more fish with longer casts and in many cases you’re going to catch them on the end of the casts halfway back to the boat working a lure.”

Using a rod with a soft tip is key, but it needs enough backbone to drive the hooks home.

According to Izumi, zebra mussels and weeds have done their part filtering water, making the water clearer than ever before. Not only are anglers getting wiser in coping with clear water, but smallmouth are growing wise as well.

“Fish are getting tougher to catch than three or five years ago because they’re getting more educated,” he said. “As they get caught and released repeatedly, they get nervous and don’t readily eat lures as easily as they might have.”

Up shallow, the need for stealth only gets amplified. When targeting shallow fish, he’ll wear a blue Columbia PFG shirt to match the sky or Solar Camo, a new color, that blends and changes with the sky. He’ll never wear black, yellow or red out of fear that the smallmouth will see it as a predator like a cormorant, golden eagle, or osprey hovering overhead. Izumi does everything possible to keep fish from sensing something negative in their presence.

“You might get a strip of sand or an inside weed line or a flat that is very small, so you want to approach it beforehand,” Izumi said.

He shakes his head at anglers roar into an area, throw a wake, and run to the front deck and bang the trolling motor down. Fish are wise to those not usually in their realm. Izumi operates his trolling motor on low and uses it sparingly.

“It’s key to throw ahead of them and at an angle,” he added. “If you throw at them and make a big splash, you risk spooking them. You’re basically leading them away while trying to enticing it to eat your lure.”

When fishing deeper, the key is figuring out how far to cast to lead the fish.

“If I see a fish in 5 feet of water, I am going to throw 10 feet past it and let the bait sink to the bottom before dragging the bait towards it,” he said. “In 10 feet of water you don’t need to lead it much because there’s that depth that you’ve got to work with that you can throw maybe 3 to 5 feet past it, let that bait sink and make sure that you are in its sight line so that the fish can see it as the bait sinks.”

When fishing with co-anglers, Izumi often advises them to make super long casts, move quietly, and upon spotting a fish, not to make any sudden movements.

“I’ll tell them, ‘At 2 o’clock, there’s a fish 10 feet from the boat.’ I’ll try to keep my hand movements to a minimum, and I’ll slowly kneel down to pick up an applicable rod to throw,” he said.

Most often, that bait will be a smoke with black and silver flake 2.5-inch Berkley Power Tube as it’s produced countless giant shallow smallmouth. He pours his own ¼-ounce jig heads on a 1/0 hook that perfectly fit a shorter tube well concealed at the beginning of the tentacles. When fishing in 6 feet or less, he’ll use a chicklet-style head and a barrel head for deeper water. To achieve super-long casts, Izumi prefers 10-pound Berkley Nanofil line with a 5-foot leader of 8-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon.

Izumi uses a 7-foot medium-light Abu Garcia Villain 2.0 spinning rod that excels getting the bait a long way out yet absorbing the power of the fish. He’ll use the same set up to fish a wacky-rigged Berkley Havoc Flat Dawg.

His favorite shallow water dropshot rod is a 7-foot Abu Garcia Fantasista Regista paired with a Pflueger Patriarch XT reel spooled with 8-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon.

He always has multiple rods rigged on deck with various baits, colors, weights, and sizes when targeting shallow smallmouth, including a dropshot rod. His rotation includes the Berkley Gulp! Hellgrammite and Gulp! Fry that he’ll rig on a #1 Berkley Fusion19 hook and a Gulp! Twitch Tail Minnow rigged on a 1/0 hook. When sight fishing or target clear shallow water, Izumi shortens the leader to 8 to 10 inches with a ¼-ounce Ultra Tungsten weight.