It's the Little Things That Count

Whether you're a pro bass fisherman or just a weekend warrior, I think the vast majority would agree it's often the little things that determine how much success you enjoy any given day on the water.

I recently asked my fishing buddies to share some of those little things they do to make our sport better, easier, simpler, etc. Unfortunately, only a handful responded, but I decided that some is better than none, so here are their inputs:

Morris Worrell says, "I like to cut off the wire and spinners from spinnerbaits to where there's about a half-inch stub left. Then I get some needle-nosed grippers and wrap the stub until you have an 'o' for a line-tie point. Partly because there is no weed guard, the bait seems to act a lot better in the water. I finish the job by attaching a nice skirt. I usually work these baits around shallow structure, popping them up and so on--almost like you'd fish a creature bait but out more from the structure."



Chris Fretard says, "I like fishing soft plastics. If a certain type of bait is producing, I'll create a mold and handpour half a hozen baits for field trial. I'll tweek the shape, color, scent, and salt content in an effort to target a specific characteristic the fish are focused on. Sometimes, these subtle changes result in bigger or more fish."


Charlie Bruggemann says, "I have lost fish because the braid pulled out of the eye of my EWG worm hook. I did a Google search and found this solution to the problem: Wrap a piece of braid twice around the eye of the hook at the gap. Tie a knot, and put a small dab of Krazy Glue to seal the gap and hold the braid. I have yet to lose another fish since I started using this fix.

"Charlie also has this tip for repairing those expensive plastic worms that big bass and toothy pickerel like to tear up. He got this fix from Ray Scott. All you do is heat both halves of a Senko or other plastic with a butane lighter, press the halves together, and hold for a second or two. They will fuse, and the worm will be back in business. It may not look pretty, but it works.

"Finally, Charlie offers this tip: When using a tube bait that doesn't have a solid head for inserting a hook, simply cut off a short piece of old Senko and slide it into the head. It'll provide the solid backing you need."

John Goodman says, "With very few exceptions, I change out the hooks on crankbaits right after buying them. The majority of hooks being sold on crankbaits are cheap knock-offs. While I'll usually replace these cheap hooks with quality ones of the same size, there are instances where I increase the size of one or more hooks. Pop R's come to mind. I have a terrible time getting hook-ups with the Pop R's no. 6 hooks. I move up to no. 4 on the front, and that seems to increase my hook-up ratio.

"When I develop confidence in a certain bait, I buy a sizeable inventory of it, so that next year, when the manufacturer moves on to other things, I will have a supply in my inventory.

"Since I have a quality shed to store my stock of baits, etc., I only put in my boat what I expect to fish with any given day. You'd be surprised at how much dead weight you can be carrying around all day with you. I recently weighed 27 lbs. of crankbaits that I had taken out of my Ranger. The same thing goes for rods and reels. There's no sense in dragging around a flipping/pitching stick when I plan on fishing crankbaits and spinnerbaits. When I'm fortunate enough to fish with someone else in their boat, I carry my tackle in a tupperware box about 6" x 12" in size, and I limit myself to three or four rods.

"In similar fashion, I rarely, if ever, put more than a half tank of gas in my boat. I see no reason to carry around all that extra fuel when fishing locally. That reduced level saves me more than 100 pounds of dead weight when trying to put the boat on plane, as well as creating a significantly smaller footprint when fishing extremely shallow water. If I'm fishing out of the local area, I never gas up my boat before leaving town. Why tow that extra weight?

"I bring my own food, ice and drinks for the day. I stay away from buying anything from the stop-and-go type businesses.

"I don't stay in high-priced motels on those rare occasions when I fish out of town.

"Finally, while I may appear interested, I don't rely on dock talk, nor do I pay any real attention to the latest hot lure, line, rod, etc. There are two exceptions: I learned a lot in my early years of bass fishing from my friend, Don Foreman. I soon learned what he told me was gospel. The other exception was advice rendered me at the first tournament I fished against Wayne Hayes. He gave me a lure and told me to try it. I did and managed to boat a 7.5-lb. bass at Lake Smith. I didn't win the lunker prize, but it sure hooked me on bass fishing. Thanks, Wayne."

Tucker Blalock says, "I know people will bend up the hooks on topwater frogs a little bit to get a better hookset. I also know some folks trim the skirts on jigs. They trim the skirts thin for fishing clear water on sunny days. They keep the skirt thick on cloudy days and when fishing muddy water."

Skip Schaible says, "I take off the rear treble hooks on my stickbaits and replace them with the next size up. This makes the baits sit lower in the water, and they pop when you twitch them.

 

"On some small topwater baits, I use red fingernail polish on the bottom to imitate a bleeding baitfish.

 

"If the bite is tough, I'll take a white paddletail worm and spit the tail, which gives it a strange flutter in the water."

 

Ken Testorff says, "I've always known that braided line gives you an edge in landing big fish or pulling them from that snarly stuff. During a tournament last year, though, I discovered a new use for it. I just had heard my partner on the back seat say, "Aw shit!" only to turn around and find that he accidentally had lost his rod over the side of the boat. Using the landing net, he made repeated sweeps of the shallow bottom to no avail before finally telling me to 'forget it' and move on.

 

"I hadn't much more than engaged the trolling motor when I noticed some line laying on top of the water. Reaching out with the crankbait tied on my rod, I snagged the line, which, as it turned out, was the line from my buddy's rod and reel. In the way of an explanation, my buddy just had made a cast, so there was a fair amount of line out when the rod went to the bottom. I was well aware of the floating qualities of braid but never had given any thought to the fact it might save you a trip to the store to replace a rod and reel, as it did my buddy in this case.

 

"And while we're talking about retrieving gear lost overboard, here's another idea to keep in the back of your head, whether your 'lost treasure' is a rod, a pair of glasses, etc. The materials you need are simple: one of those old metal stringers, a couple ounces of weight, and a heavy-duty rod--a flippin' stick will work just fine. Tie a swivel to the line (braid gets the nod here) on your flippin' stick, open the swivel, and attach both the stringer and weights--always put the latter at the front of the stringer to hold the entire contraption against the bottom. Open all those clips on the stringer, toss it into the water, in the area where the gear went overboard, and start dragging it along the bottom, much like you would if you were fishing a Carolina rig.

 

"If you feel any pressure, keep reeling slowly, so that whatever you've snagged stays hooked up. On a few occasions, you'll get hold of something someone else lost, but in most cases, you'll recover what you lost, too.

 

"Finally, if you're one of those folks who fish a lot of spinnerbaits or buzzbaits, especially the kind with the open line-tie point, here's an idea that can come in handy if you prefer using a snap, instead of tying directly to the wire. Just slip a piece of small-diameter surgical tubing, or as I prefer, a piece of model-engine gasoline tubing that you can find in almost any hobby shop, over the open point, then attach the snap. I prefer the gasoline tubing because it seems to last longer than surgical tubing. Something else that I've found to work equally well in a pinch is a small split ring. You probably will have to compress the wire a little to get the split ring to slip on, but it seems to stay on and works just as well as the tubing."