When It's Chilly, McClelland Slows Down

By Jonathan LePera
Special to BassFan

(Editor's note: This is part two of an occasional 3-part series on cold-water jerkbait tactics employed by pro anglers. To read part 1 about Jeff Gustafson, click here.)

Bassmaster Elite Series and Major League Fishing angler Mike McClelland knows the catching power of a properly-worked jerkbait.

In conditions where one might prefer a jerkbait, an umbrella rig can create some serious activity, but its Achilles' heel is that when water gets too cold, largemouth will not commit to it. Enter the jerkbait, which will produce bites not only during the umbrella rig season, but it will carry through once the water temperature drops below 38 degrees.

When SPRO gave McClelland the opportunity to design a series of jerkbaits, he left nothing to chance. He’d fished jerkbaits long enough to know that once water temps dip below 45 degrees, some will start to sink due to the density of the water.

“I would dump bags of ice into my tank and I’d throw my bait in there to make sure that we had a bait that was going to suspend in those lower 38- to 40-degree water temps,” he said.

Properly sizing his jerkbaits to mimic the forage that the bass were feeding on was another key. When bait is smaller, the McStick 85 will work better than the 110 (his favorite of the three sizes), which works best when larger bait are prey. When targeting 10 to 13 feet where fish tend to suspend, the smaller, two-treble McRip 85 excels.

Sold with No. 5 Gamakatsu hooks, the 110, 95 and 85 sizes can all be outfitted with No. 4 hooks without affecting the action of the bait, McClelland said. Should he need to weight his jerkbait, he’ll add a split ring to the hook hanger behind the hook, or he’ll upsize his hook.

Key Situations

During the spring, if McClelland can find water that is 35 or 36 degrees and a warming trend bumps it closer to 40 degrees, the jerkbait will shine. Rarely will he throw the bait on a cooling trend toward 38 degrees unless it’s during the fall.

While he knows many anglers prefer cloudy conditions when throwing a jerkbait, McClelland prefers sun with a ripple on the water to deflect the rays of the sun to make the bait appear more natural.

He also relies on his electronics, especially when fish are suspended.

“Garmin Panoptix is going to make me a better jerkbait fisherman than I’ve ever been,” he said. “I can look out in front of the boat with Panoptix and see the fish and what depth they’re setting on.”

He’ll also evaluate whether they’re sitting on a brush pile, a bridge piling and what depth the are holding at.

“I can literally see how those fish are reacting to it and whether I need to move it faster or slower.”

That first bite helps him dial in the cadence and barring any significant changes in weather, it should hold up all day.

Bass are a fickle bunch, though, and McClelland pointed to the 2013 Bassmaster Classic at Grand Lake as proof. It was a true cold-water Classic and he said after in talking with other top-10 finishers, including Kevin VanDam and Hank Cherry, they all worked a jerkbait differently during the event.

“The one thing that was common among us that caught them on a jerkbait was that the bites came on the pause,” McClelland said “Kevin and Hank were jerking their baits real hard. I was twitching my baits real soft, just flashing it. The big thing was the pauses – that’s what really created the bites.”

Moon Dictates Cadence

McClelland religiously follows which phase the moon is in. Whenever he knows he is in a peak feeding period, he’ll speed up the cadence to see if the fish are feeding more aggressively. If they don’t, he’ll slow it down, pause the bait, or even completely dead-stick it, allowing it to suspend in the water column. Other times, he’ll add enough weight to that bait that it’ll slowly sink.

“The bait might fall a foot every 15 to 20 seconds,” he said.

Once he gets it down to 7 or 8 feet, he’ll pause the bait and it will sink down to 9 feet in 20 seconds and 10 feet 20 seconds after that.

“I can dictate the depth of the bait because of how I have that bait weighted,” he added.

To get his bait down there, he’ll crank the reel six to 10 turns before ever twitching the bait. Then, he’ll pull the bait, pause, then twitch the bait twice, followed by an extended pause.

“The less you work a jerkbait, the better off you are,” he said.

A pull is only 5 to 12 inches because McClelland figures the longer his bait can hang in front of them, the better the odds they’ll eventually bite.

“If I’m throwing that bait beside a boat dock, a standing tree, a rock pile, when I know that bait is in the strike zone, I’m going to start with a 15- to 20-second pause in that cold of water,” he said. “A jerkbait in that cold of water may not be two or three casts. It might take eight or 10 casts to a target before you get the fish to tell you what they want.”

McClelland is convinced that regardless of the season, when a full moon rises, fish will look shallow, well aware that they won’t be spawning in 38-degree water.

“Mother Nature calls and they tend to move vertically or horizontally any time that moon phase changes to that full-moon phase,” he said.

It’s a key period for fishing a jerkbait and he religiously studies the lunar charts to identify prime feeding phases.

“I always make sure I’m never running my boat down the lake during one of those prime feeding periods,” he added. “I’m going to be somewhere I feel confident that I can get a bite.”

Gearing Up

Few techniques require such critical gear setup as a jerkbait. If the rod is too stiff, it’ll move the bait too much and not absorb the power of a surging fish, even in cold water. McClelland’s signature series jerkbait rod (MMC 516A) made by Falcon has some backbone, but a super soft tip.

“You don’t want to take that bait away from fish when you are hesitating that bait while sitting with a bow in your line,” he said. “You want the fish to take the bow out of your line, but you want the rod tip to bend to that fish before you ever react.”

Using a Cabela’s Verano bait caster with 5:1 gearing forces him to fish the bait slowly. He also prefers 8- to 12-pound Sunline Super Natural monofilament line in this scenario.

“If you throw straight fluorocarbon in water that cold, you are going to pull that bait down every time you stop and hesitate that bait,” he added. “A lot of people run a jerkbait too deep and once you get a lure under fish, very rarely will you get bit.”

His electronics help him keep the bait no more than one or two feet above the fish. Any deeper and they won’t eat it. He also backs off on his drag setting.

“Generally when I lean on a fish with a rod sweep, I want my drag to slip just slightly,” he added. “In cold water, they’re temperamental and nip at a bait. I don’t set the hook hard.”

For color options, McClelland prefers opaque colors like natural herring or Norman flake, gold with black back, and midnight blue on darker, cloudy days. When it’s a bit brighter with clear water and less wind, patterns like spooky shad and clear chartreuse excel. The clearer the water, the more translucent the bait he’ll use. On lakes like Table Rock, Lanier or Bull Shoals, cell mate gets the nod, while Table Rock shad and dirty bone can produce spotted and smallmouth bass consistently.

Notable

> In cold-weather jerkbait conditions, McClelland makes sure to dress properly. He uses Cabela’s Polar Tech base layer with a weather-proof Guide Series outer shell. Finding a warm and functional pair of fishing gloves isn’t always an easy task, but McClelland worked with Mustang Survival to design the Traction line of gloves that also can be used with touch screens. He’ll drop a heat patch inside the palm or on the backside of his gloves to keep his hands warm.