When bass miss lures or turn away from them, professional anglers rarely cast the same offerings back to those fish. Instead, they keep "follow-up lures" on hand.
"Cast to that log!" your buddy calls out with urgency.
You fire a cast to the spot, thinking little about it, and immediately get hammered by a stout-feeling bass.
"How'd you know?" you inquire with a grin as you fight the bass your friend called.
"The same fish missed my
Pop-R , and I knew it would be more likely to grab that YUM Dinger than the same topwater lure," he replies.
Veteran anglers always keep follow-up lures on-hand, knowing that bass often are more likely to hit something that has a different look after they have swiped at lure but missed it or followed a lure and then turned away. Follow-up offerings are especially important for catching bass that miss topwater lures, crankbaits or spinnerbaits. Something slower and more subtle often will invite such a fish to come back.
Massachusetts bass pro Mark Burgess favors a
YUM Houdini Shad as a follow-up lure, and he likes to use a Houdini Shad that matches the colors of the lure he is throwing. For example, if he is working a blue shore minnow Heddon Super Spook , which has white sides and a blue back, he'll have a pearl white/blue back Houdini Shad ready to throw back at any fish that misses.
"It resembles the lure that got the fish's attention in the first place, but it looks like a much easier to target," he said. Burgess typically will cast directly to where the fish hit and just let the Houdini Shad fall. Often it doesn't fall very far.
Other highly favored lures for following strikes include YUM Dingers and
Houdini Worms . All these offerings have irresistible dropping actions when cast directly to where a fish stuck and allowed to fall freely.
Texas pro Alton Jones always tries to see which direction a fish goes when it misses his bait or follows a plug but does not strike. If the fish turns down, he wants a follow-up bait that will drop quickly to the bottom. In that case, he'll follow with a Texas-rigged
3-inch YUM Mega Tube . If the fish stays up, he wants a weightless floating offering like a YUM Jitter Worm . Either way, he tries to lead the fish with his cast and cut it off.
Jones also watches closely for multiple fish when he is fishing with an aggressive offering like a
BOOYAH Blade spinnerbait . If two or more fish are following the same bait, he assumes they are competing for food, and he wants to put the same lure back in the strike zone as quickly as possible.
In addition to keeping follow-up lures rigged and ready, anglers should be aware of what one another are throwing. By suggesting a quick follow-up by a partner instead of trying to grab another rod and get off a good cast, an angler often puts fish in the boat that otherwise would not have been caught.