THE BASS COLLEGE

Sometimes the best way to trick-out a bait is to fish it in an unusual way — do something different with it. After all, the idea is to give the bass something they haven't seen before. Elite Series angler Grant Goldbeck does just that with soft plastic swimbaits.

"I don't dispute that you can catch a lot of cold water bass with jigs and other traditional lures," he says. "But I wanted to try something different. During this off-season I started experimenting with plastic swimbaits. They catch fish in the spring, summer and fall, why wouldn't they work in the wintertime?"

He first started fishing them in cold water in the traditional manner — letting the bait sink and then slowly reeling it back to the boat. But he soon found that his bite was better if he maintained constant contact with the bottom.

Over time he refined his cold water — around 52 degrees — largemouth technique by stopping the swimbait from time to time. "Forward weighting of the lure seems to work best. And, using a 6-inch ABT soft series Wagtail helped, too. It's important that the lure stays upright with the dorsal fin on top. The Wagtail does that."

Maintaining constant bottom contact with these lures isn't easy, however. (They aren't called swimbaits for nothing.) And so, Goldbeck discovered another refinement that he believes makes the difference between a good day of fishing and a great day of fishing — working the lure uphill rather than downhill.

"I think that's the key to the whole thing, really. It'll let you maintain contact with the bottom on the drag and also when you stop. You don't waste so much time letting the lure fall."

Goldbeck's tackle and tips

1. Use a heavy baitcasting combo spooled with 20-pound-test Sunline Sniper FC fluorocarbon line. This will give you the power you'll need at deeper depths.

2. Use a plastic swimbait that's forward weighted and that won't roll over when you stop it. Goldbeck recommends an ABT 6-inch Wagtail.

3. This technique is most productive in cold water with the bait moving uphill, along offshore humps and other forms of permanent structure.

4. Watch your line. A high percentage of your best strikes will come when the bait is holding still, sitting motionless on the bottom

"I'm just getting started with this. There'll be refinements that I've not thought about that other guys will, and it'll get even better as time goes along. The important thing is for us, as anglers, to think outside the box when it comes to catching bass."

Hey ! This time we got it !

It's a typical north european way of fishing, we call it "vertical", a lot of people do that here for european walleye and others bottom water predators. Big results but it's a very boring way of fishing if you only do that. You have your eyes focused on the sonar, no moves, the less you shake the lure, the better it is. The most pupalrs baits for that are the finess baits. It works really good in deep cold water when fish are closed to the bottom. You can do it with livebaits too, then we call it "fireball".

Every old humans predators do that when they fish for eat, it's one the easy way to take bottom fish....

watch this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbnJWFAUEyc

(steve, if I'm totally out of the subject, please delete this post )

No Its right on.:cool:

Amazing !

Try it on walleye and perch in deep water with softjerkbaits with this rig, you really gonna take a lot of fish :

Always keep the contact with the bottom, control the drift to go very slow, the line have to make a 90° angle with the water, that's why we call it "vertical". Make really really slow moves, every 20-30 secondes, then take contact with the bottom again. If the drift is too fast beacause of the wind, take heavier jigheads. The better jigheads for that are the ones you see on the pic, I don't know the english word. Don't be affraid to put big jiheads, 20gr and more are goods, it's easier to keep contact with the bottom.

I took a 4lbs bass with a 60gr jighead like that, there's no problem for them.

I can explain more if someone want, but I told you, even if it's very effective, it's really boring

Cool French! Thats the same head thats in alot of the forward weighted swimbaits we use here.