Like many tournament anglers, Brad Smith has a standard starting point for trying to get bedding fish to bite. He pitches a Texas-rigged 7-inch white or watermelon YUM Zellamander into a bed and watches to see how the fish on the bed responds.
“Hopefully the fish will bite within a few pitches,” said Smith, an Arkansas River guide and serious threat to win any tournament on the river. “If not, I need to figure out what it will take to catch that fish. They say every bedding fish is different, and it’s my job to recognize those fish that are really different.”
Often, getting bedding fish to bite simply requires persistence or possibly a change of colors or offerings. Occasionally, however, the fish’s behavior dictates something a little more different. That’s when Smith may change from a Texas rig to a drop-shot rig or do an extreme down-sizing to offerings designed for crappie fishing.
Smith turns to a drop-shot rig when fish won’t move down in the water column to look at a Texas-rigged bait. He’ll space his hook and weight so he can suspend the bait right at the level that the fish is using, and then he’ll shake the offering right in front of the bass.
Defying stereotypes about drop-shotting, Smith’s set-up for sight fishing is not a finesse rig. He uses 20- or 25-pound-test Silver Thread Excalibur, the same 1/O to 3/O Tx3 Point Wide-Gap hooks he would use for Texas rigging, and half-ounce Tg Drop Shot weights. “I like the 1/2-ounce size because I can really shake the bait without moving the weight,” he said.
Smith often stays with a Zellamander but downsizes to the 5-inch version, having found that fish too often will just grab the big Zellamander by the tail when it’s fished on a drop-shot. If the bass respond adversely to a Zellamander, Smith will instead use a Baby CrawBug, which has far less action when it’s shaken. He’ll also commonly a 3-inch Wooly Hawgtail with the drop-shot approach.
Smith’s other “oddball” technique is to down-size offerings dramatically and fish his baits on crappie-style leadheads. When fish spook readily or when they’ll only grab the tail of a bait, he’ll pick up a spinning rod rigged with 8-pound-test Excalibur and a 1/4-ounce leadhead and string a tiny YUM Wooly bait on the hook.
“The great thing about small baits rigged that way with finicky fish is that if they grab the bait in any way they grab a hook,” Smith said.
For finesse bed-fishing, Smith often will begin with a YUM 3-inch Wooly Hawgtail. However, he’ll pinch out the curled center tails to minimize the bait’s action. If that gets the bass looking but they still won’t commit, he’ll downsize to the true crappie baits, using 2-inch Vibra King Tubes and 1 1/2-inch Wooly Beavertails and Wooly Curltails.
“Other guys see my crappie rig and can’t believe I’m fishing for bedding bass, but sometimes that’s what it takes to get the fish I need in a tournament to bite,” Smith said.