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First, there are millions of opinions on how to approach bed fishing and it would take a novel to cover them all. I will touch based on the three tactics I employ to trigger a strike on bed fish. First, after you have spotted the bed and located the fish, the initial cast I make is past the bed allowing me to work the bait into the bed. To do this I use a J&J Jig in a 5/16 oz size paired with a Mountaineer Custom Rod with 14 pound Gamma edge. Note, the jig itself I trim the skirt to make this a very finesse jig, the skirt is only about an inch long at its longest strand. I then pair this jig with a Reins Ring Craw. The Ring Crawl is very buoyant and when you craw and stop the jig the Ring Craw stands up adding extra action. My first cast is always with this jig usually the fish strike this jig.

The second technique if they are not communist to the jig is a light Texas rigged wormed with a 3/16 Reins tungsten. Fish will nose down on a 3-4 inch senko type bait and if you up your hook one size, when the fish picks the worm up to move it off the bed they grab the hook. Third, the 1,2 punch. I say this because when the fish is fired up and running enemies off the bed, a first throw a weight fluke type bait, something like an Optimum Opti Shad, and twitch it aggressively toward the bed. If the fish hit it but does not eat it I immediately throw in a wacky rig. This year I utilized a Reins Swamp Mover, this bait in a medium size has an aggressive but subtle action when floating and twitched. I throw this right into the bed after firing the fish up with the jerkbait. (all of these products can be found on tacklewarehouse or reins website)

Fishing tournaments during the spawn on new bodies of water allows you to quickly identify unproductive water and replicate areas and patterns across a lake. This past month I competed in the BASS Carhart College Regional on Lake Norman in NC. This tournament went from prespawn to full spawn in 4 days and tested me in my ability to deviate from prefishing to analyzing current conditions . In summary, my prefish the weekend prior yielded winning stringers of prespawn spotted bass up the river on main river points with an Alabama rig. When we went back for our one day of practice before the event water temps rose 10 degrees.

We couldn’t locate any bedding fish and our prespawn bite was nonexistent. What we did do was study our navionics overlay and look for possible spawning areas with docks. We fan casted and skipped docks near sand and natural rock adjacent to deep water. We fished entirely new water both days of the two day tournament. We caught upwards of 60 fish a day but the majority were bucks and we couldn’t locate more then 4 females a day. However, we fished areas solely by looking at lake contours, never having prefished. This was an incredible learning experience. Although we fell around a pound short, fishing 14 out of 62 when the top 12 made the nationals, we were able to be consistent fishing entirely new water. This bodes large amounts of confidence for the remainder of the season.

Dissecting water, utilizing our electronics, and having the proper equipment was crucial. This tournament utilized three baits and set ups, 7′ med hev Mountaineer Custom spinning rod, with 10# Gamma Torque with an 8# Gamma edge leader attached to a 5 inch finesse worm. A 6’6″ med hev Mountaineer Custom dock skipping special rod, with 10# Gamma Torque with an 8# Gamma edge leader attached to a wacky rig. And a 7′ med hev Mountaineer Custom all purpose rod paired with a Shimano Core with 10# Gamma Edge with a 3/16 Reins tungstens Texas rig.

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My favorite thing to through Texas is a zoom lizard in green watermelon rigged on a 3 or 4/0 hook with a 1/8 oz bullet weight thrown on 14 pound fluorocarbon on a lees speed spool with a 7 ft skeet Reese. I like to work in on banks and shallow flats on the bottem with a jerk and reel than a few seconds of sitting after fishing like this it almost becomeS a natural motion. I also am a big fan of top waters because the produce large fish. The bird is my go to lure because of its design and also the plastic formula.

I like the plastic because lots of frogs such as the Matzuo frog have a really nice tough durable plastic but is fairly hard to push down. Then the koppers frog which is easy to push down but the plastic tears easily and rips making the lure useless. The bird has the best of both worlds with an easy push down to the hook yet a very tough durable plastic that will last you a while. I like to flip the bird under low overhang on the bank using 40 pound braid on the quantum escalade using a skeet Reese 7 ft rod.

Those are my two go to rigs for when I want quantity or quality fish and a little insight to how I fish them.

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My friend went to his secret spot. They only had 2 hours to fish so they didn’t have time to walk all the way down where they usually go. While they were walking they saw a bunch of shad jumping in about 1 to 2 feet of water. So they decided to go see what was going on. They started casting and there was a school of bass eating the sad. They were using shad color crank baits and they were getting hits on every other casts. When they had to leave they ended up catching 90 plus bass.

He and his friend went back the next day but they didn’t try to catch the bass eating the shad they went down to where we usually go it wasn’t as good but they still caught a lot but not a ton. The next day my friend and I decided to go we walked down to the usual spot we caught a few walking down I was using lipless crank bait on one pole and spinner bait on the other. In the morning I caught the most with the spinner bait and later I caught more on the crank bait. I switched the spinner bait with a California swim jig with a roboworm ez shad as the trailer it worked pretty well but then I lost it.

On the way back we caught a few more but when we got up to the shallows were all the shad were I started catching a ton with crank baits and spinner baits. My friend was trying to get top water fish with buzz bait but they stopped biting it so he decided to switch to a crank bait and started catching a lot. My friend told me to tie on a top water frog to see if I could get some blow ups. I was working my frog and my friend looked like he was getting ready to set the hook so I asked him are you about to set the hook and he said no but you should and as soon as he said that I got my first blow up and I got really excited but I missed that fish so I kept casting and finally got one.

Then it started getting dark and my parents came to pick us up. And that was the end of the exciding day of fishing.

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I live in southern georgia and fishing is just a part of life for me. I’ve had so much fun fishing with family and friends and have created lots of memory’s. my dads not much of a fisherman or my grandpa but my great grandad was.

Thanks to him we have a cabin in the mountains of north georgia on lake chatuge. Chatuge is not a very good bass lake actually it’s considered the worst in georgia. I have managed to find success with the spots there though. Catching fish there gives me the confidence that I can catch fish anywhere. My best memory though is when is was younger my whole family would load up in the pontoon and my grandpa would take us to a spot we called the secret fishing spot it was just a bank with tons of rocks and we would just pull out tons and tons of bream. we would catch about 50 in a hour or so they just bit better than anywhere ive eve been. Most my fishing memory’s come from fishing with my best friend jace.

We’ve been friends since we were to we grew up going to church together and were both extremely crazy about fishing. Infact when I go fishing with out him it is weird because we feed off withers knowledge to know what baits workin plus were both competitive which drives us to be the best angler we an. My beat fishing memory was with him its when i landed my 8 pounder this past summer. i was also there when he caught his 7 pounder.

We’ve created a lot of memory’s together nd are tournament partners.Now we are still best friends and still love fishing its just about all we do. Those are my fishing experiences with my family and friends.

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