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A Saltwater Solution For Freshwater Bass By Outlaw Baits Staff Writer I had to slide my glasses down my nose and squint to see what I was doing, The sun hadn’t quite made it up over the Sierra Madre Mountains that towered around the beautiful Mexican Lake. There would be plenty of light in another 15 minutes. Right now I was eager to get the big hunk of plastic I was fixin’ to feed the bass rigged up and ready. I was departing from what is often standard procedure where early morning fishing on Mexico’s El Salto Lake fishing is concerned. The dawn’s early light is usually the best time to take bass off the top wherever largemouth are found. I’ve boated enough El Salto fish early in the day to know that’s just as true at this famed bass fishing paradise as it is in countless other bass lakes. But that’s not what I had in mind this morning. My friends at Outlaw Baits in my former hometown of Florence, Oregon knew I was headed for El Salto. They had provided me with some big plastic grubs they wanted me to try. These baits, they were 8-inch curly-tailed grubs, had actually been made for saltwater fishing. The plastic used in their construction is about twice as tough and hard as that you normally find in grubs designed strictly for freshwater use. Saltwater plastic baits better be tough. If they aren’t those toothy critters that frequent the sea rip ‘em up big time in very short order. Jeff Staggs and Tony Tantalo, the president and vice president respectively of the Oregon bait-making company, were interested in how their big grubs would work for largemouth. I welcomed the opportunity to try them in what is probably the best bass lake ever known to man. I was just as curious as Jeff and Tony. I wasn’t the least bit concerned that the overgrown hunk of plastic I finally managed to get hooked up Texas Style would be too big for El Salto bass to tackle. One of the top-producing baits there for years has been a 10-inch plastic worm. I had mixed emotions about the hardness of the plastic. I really didn’t know how that was going to work. Would the bass hang on as long as they would with a softer bait? Could I expect to get a solid hook set after having to drive my hook free of the tough plastic before it could sink into the mug of the bass that grabbed it? It didn’t take long to find out. Our guide, and he was one of the best of the capable Anglers Inn guide crew, pulled our boat up within casting distance of some submerged trees. “Donde?” I asked. The guide pointed to a cluster of limbs that jutted up out of the water a bit off to the right. I flipped the big grub into a small opening near the center of the cover, then stripped line from my level wind reel to let it fall straight on its drop to the bottom. The distinctive tap-tap of a fish came almost as soon as the grub touched down. I hesitated half a heartbeat, then snapped my rod back. Fish on! Well, let’s reconsider that “fish on” part. The bass had been there for a couple of seconds all right, but I hadn’t got a solid hook up. It was off as soon as it was on. I reeled in to find the grub balled up on the shank of my hook. The hook I had been using was a Gamakatsu EWG 5/0. That hook had worked great with larger soft plastic baits I’d thrown before at El Salto. I wasn’t sure it would get the job done with the sizeable upper body of the big and durable Outlaw Baits Grub. I snipped the hook off the braided line I’d been using and replaced it with a Gamakatsu EWG 6/0. I figured that the larger hook would give me a better shot at getting a solid hook up. Did it work? Catch my next column and I’ll give you the details. I’ll also tell you why I’m hoping I can talk Jeff and Tony into marketing this big saltwater grub in a softer plastic for freshwater bassing. I don’t have to guess if it will work for big fish---I already know! That big grub, it’s 8-inches in length, is tougher than boiled owl manure. As aggressive as those El Salto largemouth are, I knew they weren’t going to tear the grub up as they do some of the softer plastics. But that overgrown grub is big in diameter as well as being tough. If you read my last column you know I was using a Gamakatsu Extra Wide Gap 5/0 hook when I missed the first fish that hit. I immediately reeled in, snipped off the hook I’d been using and switched to an EWG 6/0. I rigged the grub Texas Style behind a 7/16 th-ounce slip sinker. As experienced bassin’ men know, there’s more than one way to rig Texas Style. We all insert our hooks in the head of the worm or grub, then swing it around so the point can be driven into the body of the bait. Not everybody does the same from there on. I have friends who simply insert the hook point into the body of the worm and leave it there. That’s not for me. I much prefer to run the point all the way through the body of the bait. I push the hook point far enough so it rides on top of the bait. After the hook point is exposed, I also make sure I poke it just under the skin so it won’t hang up on whatever cover I work it through. Once I had that Gamakatsu 6/0 rigged the way I wanted, I took time to daub it with scent before flipping it back to the same spot where I’d missed the fish I told about in my last column. This time the strike came before the big grub got all the way down. I didn’t feel the hit, my line just slacked then started sneaking off to the right. I snapped my rod up and back. This time the “fish on” part was for real. As soon as that bass made its first surge down and away I knew it was a good one. That didn’t come as a surprise. As I mentioned in my previous column, big plastic baits have a deserved reputation for taking larger bass. That’s as true at El Salto Lake as it is elsewhere. Earlier this year I interviewed a man from West Virginia who had taken 27 bass of 10-pounds or more in just six days at the famed Mexican lake. What you’ve just read isn’t a misprint. It’s for real. Imagine that! Twenty-seven bass of 10-pounds or more in just six days! The guy who established that almost unbelievable record told me 90 per cent of those pot-bellied heavyweights were caught on 10-inch plastic worms. And two of those 27 fish were whopping 15-pounders! The man who made that fantastic catch was Les Melton. Melton, a lifetime bass angler and obviously a darn good one, has made dozens of trips to El Salto Lake. I’ve interviewed him on more than one occasion. Every darn one of those fish he caught was weighed on a Boga Grip scales. If you’ve used those scales, and I do, you know they give you a weight that’s right on the money every time. Melton doesn’t trust digital scales and I don’t either. I’ve got a couple of the darn things but I don’t trust either one. I mention Melton, big bass and big baits because it’s an established fact really large bass are most often caught on large lures. The biggest bass I’ve ever caught came the same way. Decades ago I participated for five successive years in the Oregon Bass & Panfish Club’s annual largest bass contest. I won that contest all five years I competed. Big baits often mean big bass. You’ve probably seen and heard that statement before. I’m satisfied it’s true. Why? I’m not basing my own comment on what somebody else has experienced. I proved it to myself years ago. As I mentioned in my last column, for more than three decades I lived smack on the shore of Western Washington State’s best largemouth lake. Silver Lake is located about 35 miles as the crow flies due west of Mount St. Helens. Every year it kicks out some of the largest bass caught in the Evergreen State. The Lake record is 10-pounds, 2-ounces. Almost every year I lived on Silver Lake’s shore I managed to catch some of the larger bass the lake produced. I’ve got the trophies to prove it. In one stretch I had the five largest bass taken by a member of the Oregon Bass & Panfish Club for five successive years. Most of those fish were between 8 and 9-pounds. All were caught on big baits. Sports Afield magazine used to annually award certificates for the largest bass caught in each state. I have some of those certificates for fish I caught at Silver Lake. I mention this not to thump my own tub. I do so because it provides proof of what I’m saying about big bass often coming on big baits. Every darn one of those prize-winning bass I caught were taken on big baits. Some of them came on big Bomber Waterdog crankbaits. Instead of using the little spinner that came on the hind end of these baits, I removed the spinner and attached a little snap in its place. Then I hung a 5-inch strip of white Uncle Josh pork rind from the snap. That made the plug and its trailing strip of rind about 9-inches long. I took some of my best fish on that lash up. Others were caught on a big and ugly looking plastic bait called the DeLong Weedless With. The Witch was about 8-inches in length and equipped with a pair of weedless hooks. Just to glance at it you’d figure it would scare more fish than it caught. I mention all of this for a purpose. Just as soon as I started using that larger hook on that big Outlaw Baits grub at Mexico’s Lake El Salto, I started catching more of the fish that hit. Some of them were dandies. But even using the larger hook I still didn’t get into as many fish as solidly as I wanted. I’m convinced a softer texture in that same lure would be next door to dynamite for larger bass. And not just at spots like Mexico’s El Salto Lake, but anywhere else where large bass are a possibility. The way I see it, those pot-gutted whoppers that fall into the trophy class don’t eat often. When they do they want a mouthful. I remember once when Washington State fish biologists applied rotenone designed to wipe out the entire fish population of a lake near the community of Camas. One of the biologists in charge of that project was a personal friend. There was a scattering of good-sized bass in that lake. Evidently the rotenone affected the smaller fish first. They started floundering around and the big bass went bonkers. My biologist friend brought a pair of 6-pounders for me to see that he’d picked up after the rotenone got them too. Both of those fish had the tails of a whole bunch of small perch jammed into their gullet. They hadn’t been able to digest these baitfish before the poison got to them. The tails of those small fish were still sticking up out of their gullet like so many tiny fans. That added weight to what I’d already determined where big bass are concerned. They may not feed often, but when they do Katie bar the door! Jeff Staggs, the likeable president of Outlaw Baits, tells me it’s possible to make that big saltwater grub in a softer plastic. He’s hasn’t decided for certain to add a freshwater version to the Outlaw Baits lure line up, but he’s thinking about it. That big grub he designed for saltwater use has great tail action. The color those Mexican bass were interested in was black with a blue flake. You’ll recall that’s the same color combination that has worked so well for others who’ve taken big fish there. Be assured I’m hoping Staggs does add that big grub to the Outlaw Bait lure lineup. They’ve already got some dandies. If it happens you can also be assured I’m fixin’ to let you and rest of the fishin’ world know about it. Right after I get done hammering my own whoppers with it, that is! |
