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My Tails Are On Fire By Outlaw Baits Staff Writer The friend I’d taken along on a bass fishing trip earlier this year hadn’t made a cast for at least five minutes. I swung around in my bow seat to see what he was up to. He had a towel across his lap and was busy dunking some of his tube baits into a jar of liquid. “What the heck are you doing” I asked. “I’m dyeing the tails on these tubes,” he replied. “I’ve heard that the bass sometimes really go ape over tubes with a chartreuse tail. You ever tried ‘em?” I didn’t answer that question. Instead I reached into my container of plastic baits and grabbed a handful of tubes. “Here,” I said, “Try these new tubes I got about a month ago. I really like ‘em. Quit fooling around with that dye and get back to fishin’. These tubes already have a chartreuse tail. They’re made that way.” Be careful, friend! That's a piece of dynamite you've got in your fingers. Well, maybe not dynamite but new Outlaw Baits FireTail tubes like this often work about as well where both largemouth and smallmouth bass are concerned. The tubes I gave my companion to try that day were the new FireTail tubes that Outlaw Baits introduced in early 2005. My friend asked me some questions about the Fire Tail tubes that I couldn’t answer at the time. I can now. I can because I just got done talking to the guy who brought them to market. The man I’m talking about is Jeff Staggs, the president of Outlaw Baits. Outlaw Baits is based in Florence, Oregon. That’s the community where I once lived myself. I always enjoy talking to this genial bait maker because he just doesn’t sell baits---he fishes the darn things! He’s in an excellent position to do that. I know executives of certain other bait and lure companies who spend more time on a golf course than they do in a bass boat. Not Jeff. He lives smack on the shore of a small lake just north of Florence. Don’t expect to find him parked in an easy chair watching television when his work day is done. He’s more apt to be out in his bass boat experimenting with the plastic baits turned out in his Outlaw Baits plant. Jeff provided the answers I didn’t have for my friend on that morning I told about in the beginning. “We decided to make tubes with a different colored tail,” Staggs said, “because we knew the combination had worked well in some of the other plastic baits. The reaction we’ve had to our FireTail tubes has been just great.” That’s not hard for me to understand. The first time I tried the Outlaw Baits FireTails was on a trip to Mexico’s El Salto Lake earlier this year. You don’t hear that much about tube lures when you’re at El Salto. Most of the anglers I’ve seen down there often spend their time throwing large lures or plastic baits---something like 10-inch worms or 5-inch swimbaits. Those lures are effective, especially for anglers concentrating on larger fish. But don’t try to tell me tubes don’t get their share. Every now and then they get more. That was my experience at El Salto the first time I threw tubes there several years ago. My fishing partner was Mike Pedersen, of Longview, Washington. Mike and I flat clobbered those El Salto largemouth on a grayish blue flecked Outlaw Baits tube made to resemble the tilapia baitfish those El Salto largemouth gobble. My introduction to the new FireTails was every bit as successful. On my first eight casts with one of these new tubes---and my fishing partner will verify what I’m saying---I caught a bass. I’ll grant you that El Salto Lake is loaded with bass, but even there the fish aren’t always all that eager to bite. I didn’t do any fancy rigging with the FireTails I used at El Salto. I simply rigged them Texas Style behind a half ounce slip sinker. I used that heavy a weight because the fish were holding 10 to 20-feet down in submerged timber. Most of my hits came as soon as the tube hit bottom and I wiggled my rod tip to move it a bit. There are a number of other ways to rig these Outlaw Baits FireTail tubes. I’ll get into more details in that regard in my next two columns. I’ll also detail how Jeff Staggs uses them in his own fishing. In the meantime, if you’ve not already laid in a supply of these dandy little fish catchers, I recommend you do so. My own experience with them indicates you won’t regret it. The bass fishing bait maker who introduced FireTail tubes to the fishing world usually throws these fine little lures with a spinning outfit. That man, as I mentioned in the first portion of this three-part column, is Jeff Staggs, the president of Outlaw Baits. The Outlaw Baits plant is located in Florence, Oregon. Jeff lives on the shore of a nearby bass lake. He does his own lure testing and lots of it. “I fish our new FireTails much the same way I fish our other tubes,” Jeff says. “Usually that’s with a spinning outfit and 6 to 8-pound line.“ These Outlaw Baits FireTail tubes are loaded with salt. Bass grab 'em and hang on. The Outlaw Baits FireTail tubes are currently made only in a 3 ½-inch size. “I most often rig my tubes with one of the small weights designed to fit inside the tube body,” Jeff says. “Sometimes in the spring, a time when the bass are up in the shallows, I’ll rig with a 3/0 hook and fish the tube without additional weight.” If you’ve done much tube fishing you’re likely aware there are a number of different sinker styles designed especially for use with these dandy baits. The weight Jeff uses most is called Uncle Walt’s tube skirt glider head. This weight is flat in shape and is available in sizes 1/32 nd to 3/8 th-ounces. Pictured are the Uncle Walt's sinkers Jeff Staggs prefers to use in much of his own tube fishing. These weights are designed to fit up inside the tube. The makers of this weight say if it is used as they recommend it causes a tube lure to glide down and forward as it drops. Your hook goes through a hole in one end of the weight and the sinker remains in position inside the tube at the head end. I my earlier column I mentioned using a ½-ounce slip sinker with the FireTail tubes I fished so successfully at Mexico’s Lake El Salto. Those Mexican bass were 10 to 20-feet down among submerged trees. I didn’t want to waste time getting my bait down where they were, hence the heavier sinker. My El Salto set up wasn’t fancy, but by golly it got the job done! Like Jeff, I use an entirely different set up when I’m using spinning gear and fishing clear water. My favorite tube sinker under such conditions is an Eagle Claw Quick Clip weight. These little weights come with a metal eye at the top. You simply stick the weight of your choice inside the tube and push it up to the head end. The next step is to run your hook down through skin of the tube and through the wire eye of the weight. Then you push the hook on through the bottom of the tube. Now just turn the hook and rig the point Texas Style in hind end of the tube. I often do something else with the Quick Clip weight before I slide it up inside the tube. That “something else’ is to attach a few strands of bright Flashabou material to the ringed eye at the head end of the weight. I cut these strands so they are the same length as the tube’s skirt. Why do this? Because those little strands of Flashabou reflect lots of light. Drop a tube that’s rigged that way into the water alongside your boat and hop it a couple of times. You’ll see what I’m talking about. Those Flashabou strands give off the same sort of flash a baitfish gives off as it flits along the lake bottom. Combined with the already bright tail colors of the FireTail tubes they sometimes make these nifty baits even more effective. As I mentioned, Quick Clip weights are available in different sizes. If the water’s not deep I much prefer to use the lightest weight possible. These weights come as light as 1/32-ounce and that’s the one I use most often. To get the most out of any quality bass bait you have to know how to fish it in the most effective fashion. I’ll provide details in that regard in my third and final column dealing with the new Outlaw Baits FireTail tubes. Jeff Staggs, the likeable president of the Oregon-based bait making company, does indeed have suggestions for us. I know because I asked him to share his thoughts in that regard. “I usually cast and let my tube drop,” Jeff says, “then I use a twitch-and-pause routine as I work the bait back to the boat. I avoid using big movements of my rod tip. I try not to move the tube more than 6-inches at a time during the retrieve.” The Oregon bait maker recommends taking it easy when a bass picks up your FireTail tube. “I like to give it a heartbeat or two,” he says. “Sometimes bass just bite the tail. You want to give them time to get all of the tube in their mouth before you set the hook.” There’s something else you’ll want to build into your tube-fishing program. That’s to be a first class line watcher. It took me awhile, and cost me a few good fish, before I finally came to realize just how darned important line watching is. Oftentimes the only warning you’ll have that a bass has picked up is a tiny “tic” of movement in your line right where it enters the water. Other times you may see the line sneak off left or right ever so slowly. You won’t feel a darn thing where your rod is concerned. The only warning will be that bit of line movement. That slight line movement has nothing to do with the possible size of the fish. Large bass can and will sneak away with baits as readily as do smaller fish. When Outlaw Baits put its FireTail baits on the market for the first time earlier this year they were available in only six colors. “We will be adding other colors,” Staggs says. “We’re planning to add tubes with a black body and a blue tail as well as a black body with a red tail.” If you’re reading this column, by all means take a look at the FireTail tube colors shown at this web site. The man who markets bass baits is always the best one to go to when you want to find out which color is the best seller. I also asked Jeff Staggs that question. “The best selling color in our FireTails ever since their introduction,” Jeff says, “has been the green pumpkin with an orange tail. The second best is green pumpkin with a chartreuse tail and third place goes to a black tube with an orange tail.” How does a certain color or color combination get to be the best seller? There’s usually an easy answer to that one---it’s probably catching the most fish. If you’re picking up some of these new tubes for the first time you’re not going to go wrong selecting the colors Staggs mentioned. Finally, and this is something that gets my attention big time, is hearing Staggs say that Outlaw Baits will likely market a 5-inch version of its FireTail tubes during the coming year. I’m eager to get my hands on some of those larger models. I say that in part because I’m hoping to go down south of the border again for another whack at those broad shouldered brutes in Lake El Salto. Let those other guys throw their big worms and deep diving cranks. I’ll feed ‘em tubes for breakfast. I show our Mexican guide one of the bass I caught on an Outlaw Baits FireTail tube at El Salto Lake. I hooked seven bass on the first eight casts I made with these baits at the famed Mexican lake this past summer. I already know they like the Outlaw Baits FireTails in the smaller sizes. Experience tells me old grandma bass down there in those submerged El Salto trees doesn’t eat often, but wants a mouthful when she does. I’m fixin’ to give her just what she wants! |
