Part 3

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!

-end-