Matt's blog

An ultralight rig can be a compass, pointing directly at the highest concentrations of fish. The same principle works for most species, with heavier gear. The principle is to play on the aggressive characteristics of fish that are grouped. Groups get competitive, and aggressive lures will make the most competitive specimens strike. Or at least follow! That's the key. Wear polarized sunglasses and watch closely when retrieving the smallest lures in your box—those Yo-Zuri Snap Beans, Rebel Cat'r Crawlers, and tiny floating Rapalas. Crappies and bluegills almost always follow in a pack after a tiny lure intercepts the edge of a big group. If they won't bite the lure, switch to smaller jigs and bait under a float or pitch tiny tubes and grubs. The best ultralight rods are 7 feet long, have a moderately fast action, and are rated to protect 2-pound line. Spool them with 4- to 6-pound braided line, and tie in a 3- to 4-foot 4-pound fluorocarbon leader, to make the longest possible casts, covering more water faster. Remember: Panfish are always grouped. The idea is finding groups quick, so work the lure slowly all the way back to the boat.

Part 2

Jerkbaits produce best for largemouths during prespawn and postspawn. Windows of opportunity open for largemouths throughout the rest of the year, but during spring, jerkbaits rule. Big females cruise the flats over weed beds just beginning to emerge. Jerks shine in cold water because they intercept fewer weeds than in summer, but also because they have the capability to sit still, which is non-threatening. Sometimes the simple need to chase is threatening, if bass are struggling to build up energy reserves lost during winter. Apply a soft hand and subtle approach.

Want to catch your biggest smallmouth ever? Key on prime times: Prespawn and late fall. Cool water motivates the biggest bass. In fall, they stock up for winter. In spring, as the water begins to warm, females are full of eggs and ravenous due to energy deficits created during the cold-water period (winter).

Tandem rigs find crappies quick in early spring. This year, the water warmed faster than usual. When the trees are budding and robins have been around for weeks, crappie enthusiasts think fish should be shallow when they’re still deep. Crappies have their own calendar, and their responses may be cued by “day length” or photo-period, as opposed to conditions like warming water in the shallows. Look for them outside those bays where you typically find them in spring. Use sonar to find “Christmas trees” of suspending crappies over depths of 15 to 20 feet, and slowly troll through them with tandem tube jigs.

Part 1

The water is gray and unrevealing. Cool air brushes face and fingers. Trees are just beginning to emit faint green wavelengths. The sky is cloudy, threatening rain. The water temperature is 48°F, and the air is about 54°F. Largemouths are on the prowl, making up for energy deficits created throughout winter. The dogwoods won’t bloom for almost a month. Fecund and round with eggs, female largemouths attain apex in the curve that follows their weight over the entire year.

“The lure” for largemouths from early spring until the spawn and again during early postspawn is a suspending minnowbait. Worked correctly, it entices big females that bypass jigs, plastics, even live bait. A suspending jerkbait is not a dock bait. Or a tree bait. Or a precise weedline bait. It isn’t meant to target specific spots or objects. (Not that it can’t, but other things work better.) Suspending jerkbaits are coverage baits. Distance baits. In fact, long-distance baits. Tools best used to address scattered fish on flats. Ergo, 10-pound braided line is the right choice for delivery——strong enough but thin enough to cover gaping gulfs of distance far better than a much thicker 10-pound monofilament. 

Slow down for early-season smallmouths. Where you might use a 3/32- to 1/8-ounce jig with plastics in summer, back off to a 1/16th.  Choose jigs with a long shank, to accommodate 4- to 5-inch grubs and worms. Some of the best light jigs for bass are provided by TC Tackle, Northland Tackle, Owner and Gamakatsu.  Lighter heads allow for a slower drop and a slower retrieve in shallow water, where most of the bass will be until they spawn.

Nail polish. Shopping for it is so much fun. Never fails to attract a store clerk. "Can I help you sir?" Nail polish beats every other form of jig coloring for shades. Nowhere in the world of powders, acrylics, lacquers, or paints will you find this many shades. Pearl versions of every color in the spectrum. Some are flat, some glossy. Nail polish provides the versatility of an artist's palette for fishermen to use when matching conditions and water color. Cannot describe, here, how often we've caught steelhead only on one particular shade, despite trying many others. Scary stuff.

Science can't answer that with empirical certainty. Experienced fishermen, however, can answer with relative certainty. (We don't need absolutes; "close enough" is fine.) Bluegills can see plankton that are, to us, microscopic. Of this we have conclusive, empirical proof. So, of course—logic demands bluegills can see well enough to see fishing line. But do they care about the line?

Spring Steelhead: Your First Move

What season are steelhead in? Looking at your calendar doesn’t quite decipher the answer to that question. Steelhead have their own seasons, and our spring is divided in two for them: Pre-spawn and spawn. But it’s really more complicated than that. A lot more complicated.

Fall-run fish spawn early, especially where steelhead are wild, which is not to be confused with native fish or stocked fish. Stocked fish are another matter entirely, and often spawn all together in one big rush in spring. But even stocked fish that run in summer or fall can be found working the gravel early, sometimes before snow cover leaves the ground.

The summer period, for walleyes, begins after post-spawn doldrums recede. Walleyes spawn at ice-out, primarily as water temperatures first rise above 41°F in spring. So the walleye summer starts early, in April in the southern states, in May in northern states, and during early June up in Canada.