Bass fishermen who spend their days bass fishing highly popular waterways must learn how to set themselves apart from the pack. Let's look at how long-time professional angler Wes Thomas contends with crowded conditions.
Wes Thomas expects to find half a dozen other boats whenever he turns into a cove on any of the lakes near his Indiana home. “It there are half a dozen pieces of cover in a pocket, everyone just sort of rotates, taking turns fishing them,” Thomas said.
A long-time professional bass fisherman from Hanover, Indiana, Thomas is accustomed to dealing with heavily pressured bass. All the lakes in his part of Indiana are small, and the Ohio River, while vast, offers very limited bass habitat in backwaters off the main river. Every stump and fallen tree gets hit repeatedly, according to Thomas, forcing anglers who want to catch fish to “get picky.”
To get picky, in Thomas’ lingo, means to get in tight to a piece of cover and pick it apart – hitting it from every imaginable angle and finding subtle features that hold fish in very specific locations. Getting picky also involves downsizing offerings and presenting lures the fish aren’t used to seeing.
“Any given laydown may have a hundred regular-sized spinnerbaits swam beside it in a day,” Thomas said. “Fish the right spot on that same tree with a
small BOOYAH spinnerbait or a tiny jig and YUM Chunk , and a bass might just surprise you.”
The key spot might be a barely detectible hump in the trunk of a tree lying flat on the bottom in a foot of water. Over time, wave action from boat wakes and wind will create a little depression around that hump. It might only be 6 inches deeper than the rest of the water is around that tree, but sometimes that’s all it takes.
“People sometimes say that these fish back off when the pressure gets extra heavy, but in many of our lakes there’s really nothing for the bass to back onto. They have to be in the shallow cover, and they have to eat. It’s the fisherman’s job to get those fish to bite.”
One of Thomas’ absolute favorite lures for picking apart cover in heavily pressured waters is a Rebel Humpback, a classic little crankbait that many anglers have forgotten all about. A very small bait, the Humpback looks like an easy meal to the bass. It also stays very shallow, so Thomas can fish it way back up in the pockets.
Despite the
Humpback’s double-treble configuration, Thomas will cast it absolutely anywhere. He wants his lure kicking off wood and going under cover as much as possible.
Thomas commonly wins local tournaments, bringing in limits on days when most anglers get skunked or catch only a fish or two. “They’re always sure that I have some kind of secret spot, but around here there are not secret spots,” Thomas said. “I’m fishing the same coves as everyone else. They just don’t take the time to learn to get picky.”