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Tim Tucker 19y

The pros' bag of tricks, part 2

A veteran bass fisherman is one who rarely removes a lure directly from its packaging and starts fishing with it. Anglers, by nature, are tinkerers.

That is especially true of the CITGO Bassmaster pros who spend countless hours in their garages or workshops tweaking some baits and giving others a total makeover in an effort to make them more productive. Others take it even further, carrying paint kits in their boats for instant touch-ups.

Last issue, in the first of three parts, Bassmaster detailed the tricks and modifications that the pros have developed for crankbaits, jerkbaits and jigs. In Part 2, we reveal the closely guarded lure secrets involving spinnerbaits, topwaters, buzzbaits and jigging spoons.

Spinnerbaits: Bladed baits lend themselves to significant modification.

Longtime spinnerbait man Guy Eaker routinely makes several alterations. One of the most vulnerable components on a spinnerbait is the wire arm. That is the reason he puts a 1/16-inch piece of surgical tubing over the R-bend to keep the wire in shape. "That keeps the bait from flaring and stretching out and even breaking when a fish gets hold of it," he says.

In addition, the veteran North Carolina pro always employs a trailer hook, a No. 1 short-shank Eagle Claw hook painted red. The hook swings freely, although he uses a 1/16-inch piece of the red sheath of copper wiring to keep it from sliding off the spinnerbait hook. He also places a red bead between the two ball bearings on the end of the wire.

Another North Carolina angler, Skip Valentine, makes a subtle, but productive adaptation to his spinnerbaits. He modifies a straight-armed spinnerbait wire by adding an extra right-angle bend between the positions of his two willowleaf blades. When he's finished, there are two R-shaped bends in the wire.

"The extra bend allows different actions from each blade," Valentine explains. "You still get the sensation of several baitfish together, but that difference in blade (actions) will often trigger a reaction strike."

"Like most other pros, I probably doctor spinnerbaits more than any other lure," Massachusetts pro Bob Pastick says. One of his pet techniques involves fishing a small, 1/4-ounce spinnerbait in a variety of deep situations for smallmouth and spotted bass. To get the small-profile bait to run deeper, he slides a Lunker City Belly Weight onto the hook shank.

Former CITGO Bassmaster Classic champions Woo Daves and Guido Hibdon both developed a hybrid spinnerbait that has paid big dividends in certain situations. For fishing in strong current (as well as around pressured bass), Daves replaces the skirt of a 1 1/2-ounce Ledgebuster spinnerbait with a 4 1/2-inch alewife-colored Zoom Super Fluke. The same adaptation has also worked with buzzbaits.

Hibdon, a two-time BASS Angler of the Year, combines the best and most attractive aspects of both a spinnerbait and tube jig in an odd-looking spinner that has quietly caught fish in tournaments for him for several years. It begins with pouring a small teardrop-shaped leadhead with a short-armed 1/4- to 3/8-ounce spinnerbait sporting a single No. 4 willowleaf blade. Instead of a skirt, he adds a standard plastic tube over the head (using a drop of glue to keep it in place).

One of the most unusual spinnerbait tricks is Mike Auten's double-skirted special. The talented Kentucky angler often adds a second skirt, mainly during springtime conditions, for three reasons: It creates more bulk and gives the lure a larger appearance; it enables him to retrieve the bait as slowly as desired; and it gives the spinnerbait more lift as it comes through cover.

When confronted with short-striking bass, Tennessee spinnerbait expert Charlie Ingram simply reverses the color of the blades. For some unknown reason, this seems to enable bass to hone in on the bait. Veteran Georgia pro Tom Mann, Jr. takes a different approach. He puts a 1/8-inch bend in the end of a No. 3 or 5 willowleaf blade (at a 90-degree angle). This alteration gives the blade more vibration and a slightly different wobble without impacting its reflective quality.

Eaker often cups an Indiana-style blade. In clear conditions where more flash and vibration are desired, he actually flattens the blade slightly. In tournament situations when he is sharing a spot with other competitors, the BASS winner sometimes drills a 1/8-inch hole through the middle of a Colorado blade. This gives the bait a different look and sound as it is pulled through the water.

Storm's ingenious SuspenDot and SuspenStrip system of small pieces of self-adhesive lead tape has become popular on hard baits like crankbaits and jerkbaits. But Texas pro Jay Yelas has found a "killer" application for these weighty additives. "I discovered a neat little trick," the former Classic champion says.

"By adding a SuspenStrip to the blade, you can increase the vibration of the blade in the water — which is a super fish attractor at times, especially in off-colored water. Also, by adding a silver strip on top of a gold blade, I come up with a two-toned flash that can help sometimes. It gives the blade a look that the bass haven't seen very often, so it's new and unique to them."

Topwaters: It's safe to say that topwater expert Zell Rowland has developed more tricks for getting the most out of surface lures than any other angler. He is most famous for his modifications to a Rebel Pop-R. His is a painstaking process that modifies the Pop-R into a chugger that will out-produce the factory version in most situations.

Rowland spends about 90 minutes on each Pop-R to perfect its appearance, feel and sound. "I use an electric grinder to sand the bait down," he explains. "What I'm trying to do is actually make the bait smaller in diameter.

I shave the sides from mouth to tail so that it is so thin you could crush it in your hand. By making it smaller in diameter, it changes the whole lip of the bait. It gives it a more oval look than a round look. It also makes the bait a little bit lighter and allows it to more or less walk through the water like a Spook as you work it at a medium or high rate of speed."

After using the grinder, Rowland finishes the sanding with a few careful strokes with emery cloth to remove any small blemishes that keep the sides from being completely smooth. He repaints the lure with a favorite color pattern like a light green back with silver sides.

Another of his tricks involves rubbing wax along the first 3 or 4 feet of his line when fishing surface baits. This keeps the most important section of the monofilament floating and enables him to get more action from the topwater lure.

Daves routinely files a tiny nick inside of the line tie on a Zara Spook to enable him to keep his knot on the bottom of the eye. This allows the lure to move more freely atop the water.

Fish Fishburne, a two-time BASS winner, enjoys uncanny success with cruising bass by employing a novel trick. He combines a small, buoyant Rapala stickbait with a freely moving 3/8-ounce bullet weight (which plays an important role) on 12-pound-test line.

"This is wild, but it really works," Fishburne explains. "With a cruising fish, I try to figure out which way it is moving and get way out in front of it.

"I cast the bait way out in front of the fish and then reel it up until I can stop it almost in its path. The weight then takes the lure down because the line is taut. With a tight line, the weight sits on the bottom, and the lure floats up almost vertically on its nose. As soon as the fish swims near it, I throw slack in the line and that allows the lure to float back up. Then I pull it back down to the bottom. In a depth of 3 feet, I allow the lure to float about 2 feet up and then pull on it. That lure runs down to the bottom and begins backing up again. It's like fishing a stationary jerkbait."

Joe Thomas has an unusual solution to the dead, windless days when strikes are few and far between. Thomas has found that he can coax a few precious strikes from inactive bass by adding a couple of SuspenDots to a small, 3 1/2-inch 11S Floating Rapala surface lure. That is just enough weight to suppress the bait's natural twitching action during the times when bass apparently respond better to an ultra-subtle motion.

Oklahoma pro Jim Morton was one of several enterprising fishermen to discover that by attaching two Storm Rattlin' Chug Bugs together he could create a large surface plug that snaked across the top of the water with an abundance of action. The result was a lure with a penchant for attracting big bass on top. It basically involves combining two 3 1/2-inch Chug Bugs. The rear hook on the front Chug Bug is removed and a No. 5 split ring is used to connect the tail hook holder to the line tie on the back Chug Bug.

"That big profile is the thing," the BASS winner says. "It's what makes this a good middle-of-the-day, bright sunshine big-fish bait. It is not your typical topwater bait."

Buzzbaits: Most people wouldn't abuse a buzzbait the way O.T. Fears routinely treats these bladed baits with pliers in hand. It is not unusual to see the Oklahoma pro remove a buzzbait from its packaging and actually cut it in half with his pliers. That's right, he chops it into two pieces.

Fears cuts the buzzbait wire in half about a half-inch above the lead head. He then attaches the two pieces to a split-ring by twisting the ends of the wire. It looks like a buzzbait from hell, but Fears sings its praises. "What this does is allow the bait to ride lower in the water, which increases your chances of hook-up when a fish hits," Fears notes.

Jigging spoons: In the cold months, Frank Scalish is a big fan of a 3/4-ounce C.C. Spoon, but he makes two changes to improve its fish catching ability. To both limit line twist and increase the spoon's side-to-side fluttering action, the Ohio pro adds an O-ring to the line tie and then a Crane swivel. The line is tied directly to the swivel.

"If the conditions are right and the water is clear enough when I'm smallmouth fishing, I'll dress up the treble hook with 10 strands of chartreuse crystal flash, three white chicken feathers, and two chartreuse chicken feathers," Scalish says. "I'll tie the chartreuse chicken feathers in the middle so that they're longer than the white ones. This will create a teardrop effect and give me a streamline of chartreuse in the middle of it."

All-time BASS winner Roland Martin automatically alters a spoon by replacing the factory hook with a No. 2 light-wire hook. The lighter hook enables him to recover it easily in heavy cover. Secondly, Martin adds a split ring to the line tie. This gives the spoon more action and protects the line from the stamped-out hole in the lure (which can be sharp enough to cut monofilament).

Martin also occasionally dresses up the spoon by inserting it into the hollow body of a colorful tube. The spoon falls more slowly through the water, while the tube's tentacles breathe and flare out.

Next issue: We will examine pro tips for soft plastics, Carolina rigs and pork trailers.

Tim Tucker recently released Volume 2 of the Bass Pro Workshop: How to Promote Yourself and Attract Sponsors. The three audio set is available for $69.95 from his Bass Catalog at www.timtuckeroutdoors.com or by calling 800-252-FISH.

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