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Learn why Bassmaster Elite Series pro Micah Frazier keeps a Devil’s Horse handy throughout spring and how he fishes this classic topwater lure.

If you think the Smithwick Devil’s Horse is a one-trick pony, listen to what Bassmaster Elite Series pro Micah Frazier has to say. In his view, this three-hook prop bait is a bona fide attention getter with broad bass fishing applications — particularly during the spawning season.

Effective at riling up big bass in all three stages of the spring ritual, the Devil’s Horse employs a bold, intrusive presence that quickly wears out its welcome. Far more flamboyant than a walking topwater, this bait’s drawing power and deal-closing potential is unquestionable.

Pre-spawn bass fishing approaches are pretty straightforward: Cover water and look for fish staging on docks, laydowns, rocky points, grass lines, etc. Once the spawn begins, the fish will move much shallower, and while sight fishing certainly plays a big role, it’s not the only game in town.

“In the springtime, this bait is one of the best ways to catch the big females without looking at them,” Frazier said. “A lot of times, if you can get that bait over a bed, or around a bed, a lot of times, the fish will bite it before you get up there and spook it. With a blade in the front and the back, it aggravates those big females into biting.”

Regarding locations, Frazier said, “When you’re in a spawning scenario, you want to throw that bait where you think there’s a high likelihood of there being a bed. If there’s a hole in the grass, a little protected pocket on the bank, or a laydown — just something where you think the odds are that there’s a bed.”

Learn the secret to catching pre-spawn bass in a broad range of situations.

Early spring can be a daunting time to catch a good limit of bass, but not if you implore the Bandit “system” of crankbaits to probe each section of the water column. The system I speak of is the Bandit 100, 200, and 300 Series crankbaits, which dive anywhere from 2 feet deep all the way out to 12 feet. By having all these models tied on, you have a sure-fire system to find bass in many different pre spawn zones.

In the article below we will go through the three major scenarios/water depths to target for early spring bass fishing so you’re completely in the know the next time you’re on the water.

Learn to find and catch early spring crappie when they begin migrating from winter holes toward spawning areas.

Crappie go on the move when daylight hours lengthen and the water warms in early spring.

The longer daylight hours lead to warmer air, which starts warming the water. The warming water triggers early spring crappie to start moving from their winter haunts, according to Dan Dannenmueller, an Alabama tournament competitor and publisher of CrappieNOW! online magazine.

“That water temp is the key,” Dannenmueller said. “When the water temp starts getting up to 55 degrees the crappie are going to start to move, and as they approach closer to 57 to 58 you will see the males move up, and then the females right after them.” 

Whether he is fishing a natural lake in Florida or a highland reservoir in the Midwest, Dannenmueller notices crappie spend their winter in the deepest holes they can find and start moving during the first prolonged warm spell in the early spring.

“If there is a 5-foot hole and that is the deepest water in a creek that is where crappie will be or they will go to somewhat deeper water and sit on the bottom,” Dannenmueller said. “They are going to move in to those first ledges that warm first.”

When early spring crappie start moving out of winter holes and toward spawning grounds, here are four techniques to intercept them on their migration route.

Choosing the right float and rig allows for targeted presentations that produce excellent catches of sea trout and other inshore saltwater species.

“It’s the old time way to fish for trout around here. What everyone use to do,” Chris Holleman said as we stood side by side on the back deck of his boat, watching pole floats drift slowly away from us.

“And it’s a great way to catch fish,” he added with a smile as his float shot under and he set the hook into a sea trout.

Float fishing with large slip-style floats like Thill Big Fish Sliders and Weighted Pole Floats, allows you present live bait just off the bottom, where trout like to feed, and to effectively work areas to locate schools of fish. It produces well year ‘round but is especially effective during winter, when spotted sea trout (also commonly called speckled trout) tend to congregate in deeper holes in tidal creeks, rivers and canals.

Very small jigs can make a very large difference for winter crappie fishing, whether you fish through the ice or fish open water. Learn how.

With a sub-zero forecast for a mid-winter Sunday, services were cancelled at Chris Edwards’ church. So what did he do? He went fishing, of course, and that turned out to be an excellent decision. Using double rig of Electric Chicken Itty Bit Swim’Rs on 1/48-ounce heads, the Broken Arrow, Oklahoma angler caught more than 100 crappie that day.

Winter crappie fishing offers definite challenges. Chilled fish won’t expend much energy to feed, and they can be pretty picky. Edwards has learned, however, that by downsizing jigheads and baits and using decidedly subtle presentations, he can continue to enjoy excellent crappie action through the coldest part of winter.

Landlocked stripers can be a pretty difficult puzzle to figure out in the heart of winter, but if you play your cards right you can stumble on some of the most fun bites of the year! By play your cards right I mean chucking the YUM Flash Mob Jr as much as possible, it seems to put the best cards in your favor during the coldest times of year. It is certainly the large part of the how in how to catch the most stripers.

Most anglers luck into a striper every few trips while bass fishing in the winter, but you can increase those odds with a few helpful tips. These tips all have to do with location, proper equipment, and style of fishing.

Learn to locate crappie-holding cover and the best techniques for making those fish bite.

Crappie are interesting little fish who bundle up tightly around cover in the coldest parts of the year, making them easy to locate using your graph. But how do you fish for crappie vertically? From technique to equipment, I’ll tell you how, with four helpful steps from start to finish in this blog!

1. Locating cover

This is by far the most important part of learning how to fish for crappie vertically and seems pretty simple. But, it’s not! Crappie tend to look for certain types of cover, be it free standing timber you can visibly see, or brush that has been placed in depth zones by other fishermen. The easiest finds are obvious trees sticking out of the water in the right depths. Typically, crappie dwell in the 10-20 foot range in the winter, so finding timber that exists in that zone can be very productive. The hardest kind of timber to find is sunken timber or brush piles. For these you need to use the electronics on your boat. Preferably structure scan, but regular sonar can find brush piles as well. The best places to check for sunken brush are off the edges of points, flats, or near boat docks. Identifying crappie on top of the brush is not always the easiest task, but they can be differentiated from most other fish. Crappie tend to bunch up tall on top of the brush or around it, so there will be several small dots tightly packed together.

With so many lures to choose from, making the best selections can be challenging. These five trout fishing lures provide the tools for success in a vast range of fishing scenarios.

Trout streams range from tiny, tumbling mountain creeks to vast tailwater flows, with wide variances in habitat, stream conditions, forage sources and more. Consequently, there’s no “one size fits all” trout fishing lure. That’s said, you don’t need to carry everything but the kitchen sink as you wade up a stream. You just need to carry the right lures to provide solid options.

With that in mind, we’ve hand-picked a handful of highly effective trout fishing lures that all fill different niches and that collectively provide a complete arsenal for success in trout streams of all sizes.

Heavy metal jigging lures, including spoons and blade baits are among the best lures for catching bass in cold water – IF you know the right techniques!

There is a lot of fishless water in the winter. -Frank Scalish

Sounds like a gloomy outlook, but it’s not. In fact, the opposite is true, and understanding this aspect of winter bass fishing is key to tapping into what can be some of the fastest fishing action of the year. It also explains why Scalish really likes jigging spoons and blade baits, like a Heddon Sonar, during winter.

“Fishless water is a bad thing if that’s where you’re trying to fish,” said Scalish, a legendary Ohio angler and lure painter and former nationally touring bass pro. “But where you find them, you find a bunch of them, and the fishing can be really good!”

Winter bass often relate to shad and hold tight to bottom structure, and spoons and blade baits work wonderfully for winter bass fishing because you can work that zone precisely and imitate shad that are winter chilled or even dying in the cold water.