Said one visiting angler, "I never would have imagined catching bass hiding around tombstones, but that's exactly what happened. My wife, Theresa, cast a purple plastic worm, let it sink, and worked it through the headstones. On six casts, she caught six bass weighing 2 to 4 pounds. Then, much to my great pleasure, I hooked one of the biggest hawgs I've ever landed...a 9-pounder that fell for a deep-diving crankbait wiggled past a tall cross.
Also read about a fella whose son, Josh, an Arkansas avid bass angler in his own right, who often fishes a spot in eastern Arkansas the locals refer to as "The Bass Hammock." He doesn't know how the honey hole got its name, but it refers to a large tractor tire that was pushed into a broad bottomland creek. The tire produces a bass nearly every time Josh fishes there.
Josh also fishes a spot on another creek where an old peanut picker was sunk. "I hook a bass every time I fish it, but at least half the time, I break off my line trying to get the bass out. A peanut picker," he explained, "is kind of like a mansion with many rooms. Somehow, a bass can get you from the front porch to the basement quicker than you can set the hook."
Peanut pickers aren't the only vehicles that attract bass, either. As Josh further noted, "My friend, Daniel, told me there's a Chevy S-10 pickup sunk in Black River in north Arkansas that usually has some fish in it, including some dandy largemouth bass."
And a retired Arkansas Game and Fish Commission wildlife biologist tells a great story about finding a stolen vehicle in Mallard Lake in Mississippi County during a year of low water. "When we had the car hauled from the water by a wrecker service," he said, "we noticed the windows were down. Upon opening one of the front doors, a deluge of water poured from the interior, carrying with it 17 slab crappie and a 6-pound bass. The tow-truck driver wasn't happy when I released the fish back into the water, since he thought he should have had 'salvage rights.'"
Finally, there's bass pro Greg Hackney, who believes the best place to catch a large bass is where no one else is fishing...and possibly where no one ever has cast a lure. "These types of places may not be as remote as you think," he said. "If you're more concerned about how you'll get a bass out of structure than you are about a bass biting, that's where you need to fish."
Hackney goes on to describe one of the biggest bass he ever caught as coming from the center of a giant cypress stump. "I'm sure that plenty of other anglers had cast lures all around the sides, the back, and the front of that stump," he said. "However, I doubt that anyone ever had fished right in the center of it. This underwater stump had a hole in the top and bottom. From the surface, it looked like it might have been solid below the water. For some unknown reason, I threw a red-and-shad-colored worm right in the center of the stump and caught a 7-and-a-half-pound largemouth. This was how I learned to fish weird places for big bass."
When asked to tell this story, Hackney says he's usually asked how he managed to get the bass out of the stump. His response: "I pulled the boat right up next to the stump, got the bass close to the surface, and then reached down in the stump and grabbed that bass by the jaw. The stump was as big as the hood of my truck, and I couldn't believe it was hollow all the way to the bottom. I could just about guarantee that no one else was dumb enough to fish a lure right in the center of that stump...which probably is why that bass lived long enough to grow as big as it was. What made this stump even more special was that it was right out in front of the boat launch. More than likely, thousands of fishermen had driven past that stump without ever fishing the hole in it."
Continued Hackney, "I fish a number of places and structure that many other anglers also fish for bass, but I try to fish those regions in a different way, or with a different lure or presentation. "The biggest bass I ever caught in a tournament was on Lake Amistad in Texas. That fish weighed 11 pounds 11 ounces. I caught it on a Strike King Shadalicious swimbait. It was holding in the top of an underwater tree in about 25 feet of water. I was slow-rolling that swimbait through the treetop when the fish snatched it and got hung up. The water was very clear, so I could see the fish, which, at first glance, appeared to be about an 8-pounder.
"Once I finally worked the bass out of the tree, it came to the surface and jumped. I'd never seen a bass that big in my life. That same year, I caught an 11-pound 7-ounce bass during a tournament at Falcon Lake, also in Texas.
"As a result, I've learned that fishing weird places with various tactics that others weren't using could pay off with big bass," Hackney concluded.
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