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Mark Hicks 19y

Spinnerbaits coast to coast

Jay Yelas had his best year ever in 2003 when he won the coveted Citgo Bassmaster Angler-of-the-Year title. After that season, he reviewed his performance in each of the 10 Tour events and found that spinnerbaits produced 44 percent of the bass he had weighed in. Yelas was shocked by this statistic. He claims that the trend today, even among the pros, is away from spinnerbaits and toward new soft plastic baits, like the soft plastic stickbait.

The weather played a role in Yelas' spinnerbait success, he believes. These lures usually come through for him in low light situations, such as early in the morning, and on overcast, rainy, windy days. The worst time to throw a spinnerbait, Yelas says, "is on a clear, sunny day."

No single spinnerbait could appeal to bass in the myriad environments Yelas must cope with as he travels from one tournament to the next. He selects spinnerbaits after considering the conditions at hand, including the cover, water clarity, brightness of the sky, wind and rain.

To give you a sense of how Yelas makes sensible spinnerbait adjustments, let's review his 2003 Tour season from coast to coast. We eliminated the Harris Chain, Clear Lake and the Alabama River because Yelas didn't catch bass on spinnerbaits in those tournaments.

33rd place; Lake Okeechobee, Jan. 16-19, 2003; 10 bass, 24-2 pounds

Yelas concentrated on a 5- to 7-acre flat where bass were relating to scattered, submerged hydrilla clumps in 3 to 5 feet of water. A severe cold front had pushed the bass off beds nearby.

"The bass wanted a fairly small bait with minimal flash in the clear water," Yelas says.

A 3/8-ounce spinnerbait with a No. 4 gold willowleaf blade did the trick, especially on the tournament's second day when the weather changed from partly cloudy to breezy and rainy. The spinnerbait was dressed with a subdued translucent chartreuse-and-white skirt embellished with blue and red flakes.

Yelas repeatedly seined the flat with long casts to avoid spooking the bass. He maintained a slow, steady retrieve that ran the spinnerbait down near the top of the hydrilla. When the bait contacted the grass, Yelas gently pulled it through the stalks. "It was a finessy presentation," he says.

16th place; Lake Seminole, Feb. 6-9, 2003; 5 bass, 24-4 pounds

"I caught my bass at Seminole in a large backwater area," Yelas says. "It was cold, and the fish were on the outside edges of hydrilla beds where the bottom dropped into depressions 8 to 10 feet deep. The water had maybe 3 feet of visibility."

Overcast, windy weather on the first day of the tournament prompted Yelas to go with a chartreuse-and-white 1/2-ounce tandem willow spinnerbait with a nickel No. 4 blade in front of a gold No. 4 1/2 Stanley Wedge blade. He added a trailer hook and a smoke 4-inch ringworm.

"I was making long casts and slow rolling the spinnerbait 5 to 8 feet deep," Yelas says. "When I hit a clump of hydrilla, I'd pop the spinnerbait free and let it flutter down a foot before continuing the retrieve."

This ploy produced four bass that weighed 22 pounds, 9 ounces, which put Yelas in first place after Day 1. His bag included a 10-pound, 4-ounce bass, the biggest of the season in Bassmaster tournaments.

The second day turned clear and cold, and Yelas tried to force-feed his spinnerbait to the bass. It didn't work. He caught one desperation bass on the run back to the weigh-in by pitching a lizard to a boat dock.

3rd place; Toledo Bend, Feb. 22-25, 2003; 19 bass, 49-10 pounds

Yelas claimed his best finish of the 2003 Tour mainly with a 1/2-ounce tandem willow spinnerbait rigged with a bright chartreuse-and-white skirt and a No. 4 nickel blade ahead of a No. 4 1/2 gold Stanley Wedge blade.

This is essentially the same spinnerbait (without the ringworm and trailer hook) that Yelas slow rolled at Seminole earlier in the month. However, it was a more obvious target to the prespawn bass at Toledo Bend because they were up in 1 to 3 feet of water.

"The rising water and the overcast, rainy conditions were just perfect for a spinnerbait," Yelas says.

He targeted shallow flats off the main lake because the water was clearer there than in flats off the creeks. The primary cover was what Texans call Johnson grass. It grows along the shoreline and floods when the water rises.

"All you had to do was wind the spinnerbait through the Johnson grass deep enough where you could barely see the blades working," Yelas says. "It was an easy pattern."

When the sky grew lighter during the tournament, Yelas switched to a 1/2-ounce spinnerbait with a gold No. 5 Colorado blade and a black-and-chartreuse skirt.

80th place; Eufaula, March 7-10, 2003; 8 bass, 21-1 pounds

"I was scrambling at Eufaula," Yelas says. "But I knew if I kept scratching around with a spinnerbait I could catch a few bass."

Due to Lake Eufaula's stained water and big bass potential, Yelas selected a 1/2-ounce chartreuse-and-white spinnerbait with a No. 3 nickel Colorado blade in front of a No. 7 gold Indiana blade. He dressed the hook with a white Berkley Split Tail Eel.

Yelas ran the spinnerbait past a variety of shallow cover, including riprap, flooded willow saplings and isolated stumps. Though the partly cloudy weather wasn't conducive to a hot spinnerbait bite, he caught bass up to 6 pounds that earned crucial points for the Angler-of-the-Year race.

47th place; Santee Cooper, March 20-23, 2003; 10 bass, 35-5 pounds

Yelas caught all his bass from dollar pads in a shallow, tannic-water spawning cove that he shared with 10 other competitors. Heavy overcast, rain and thunderstorms encouraged him to stick with spinnerbaits, a decision that helped him outfish all but one other angler in the cove.

Three gold-blade spinnerbaits allowed Yelas to give the bass different looks as he continually refished the same water. The smallest was a 1/8-ouncer sporting No. 1 and No. 2 Colorado blades and a black-and-chartreuse skirt.

The next size up was a 1/4-ounce spinnerbait with No. 3 1/2 and No. 4 willowleaf blades. The clear skirt had copper flakes and a few black strands. A 2-inch chartreuse Berkley Power Grub adorned the hook.

A 1/2-ounce tandem willow was the largest spinnerbait. It had a No. 4 blade and No. 4 1/2 Stanley Wedge blade. A bright chartreuse-and-white skirt made the bait easier to see in the stained water.

"The wind, clouds and rain would come and go," Yelas says. "If it was breezy, rainy and dark, I'd go to the 1/2-ounce spinnerbait. When the wind laid down and surface slicked off, I went with the little 1/8-ounce bait. I used the 1/4-ounce spinnerbait when conditions were kind of in-between."

Yelas also showed the bass various presentations, including buzzing a spinnerbait just under the surface, ripping it through the pads, and "floating" the 1/8-ounce bait just under the surface with 25-pound monofilament.

28th place; California Delta, March 31-April 4, 2003; 10 bass, 29-12 pounds

"A friend fished with me one day in practice when a south wind blew in clouds and rain," Yelas says. "Since I was looking for bass, I kept the electric motor running on medium-high."

The duo fished fast with spinnerbaits, covered a lot of water, and caught 40 bass from tules. Since the water clarity in the backwaters ranged from 2 to 5 feet, Yelas chose a 3/8-ounce tandem willow model with No. 3 1/2 and No. 4 gold blades and a chartreuse-and-white skirt.

When the tournament began, clear, sunny weather killed the spinnerbait bite. Yelas caught the bass he had found with a spinnerbait by pitching soft plastic baits to the tules.

17th place; Hamilton, May 1-4, 2003; 10 bass, 19-7 pounds

Yelas found big balls of shad coming up early in the morning to eat algae growing on floating docks and retaining walls.

"I'd fish those places with spinnerbaits for the first hour and a half of daylight and catch three bass or so," Yelas says. "They were always my best fish of the day. Then I'd go to other techniques."

To match the silvery shad, Yelas rigged a 1/2-ounce spinnerbait with a No. 2 nickel Colorado blade and a No. 4 1/2 nickel Stanley Wedge blade. A clear silicone skirt with silver metalflake and a few pearl strands completed the shad pattern. To eliminate short strikes, Yelas added a 2/0 Mustad Siwash trailer hook.

"I'd run the spinnerbait no deeper than 6 inches next to docks and retaining walls," Yelas says. "I was fishing over 10 to 20 feet of water, but the bass were up near the surface feeding on the shad."

Spinnerbait Tackle

Yelas wields the same Team Daiwa baitcasting outfit whenever he fishes spinnerbaits. It consists of a 7-foot medium heavy action graphite spinnerbait rod and a TD-X103 reel filled with 20- to 25-pound-test Trilene XT monofilament, or Berkley FireLine.

"I go to FireLine when I'm making long casts in clear water around vegetation," Yelas says. "FireLine has no stretch, so it gives you a great hook set and a better handle on the fish."

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