The Need For Speed

Dealing with Short Strikes The pros usually keep another rod ready with a follow-up bait in case a bass misses their high-speed offering. “You can cast the same bait back again, but most of the time you’re better off with something like a tube, worm, or lizard,” advises Jimmy Houston. When buzzing a frog around vegetation, he prefers following up with a tube, since it slides through weeds better than other soft plastics. Tim Horton has more bass follow his waking spinnerbait than short-striking it. “Have a follow-up bait like a soft plastic jerkbait or a grub on a jighead ready if you spot following bass,” says Horton. When bass strike short on his Timber Tiger, Bill Roberts casts back the same crankbait but in a different color.

If bass ignore a high-speed approach, Parker changes the pace. “I start by running the buzzer at a slow pace yet fast enough to keep it on top. Then I burn the bait, followed by a pause. This approach is deadly over submerged boulders, such as at Grapevine Lake here in Texas. It seems that variation in pitch brings bass up and out of the rocks.”

Braided line is a key component of Parker’s burning tactics, because its low stretch allows her to set the hook by continuing to reel the lure rather than jerking her rod when a strike occurs. She favors 40-pound-test braid on a 7-foot 2-inch medium-heavy action Setyr rod and Shimano Chronarch 50MG baitcasting reel.

Waking Spinnerbaits

Alabama pro Tim Horton has found that winding a spinnerbait at high speed is deadly on clear lakes. “Don’t reel it so fast that the blades come out of the water, but enough so they bulge the surface,” he suggests. Horton’s favorite spinnerbait for waking is a 1/2- or 3/4-ounce BOOYAH model with a white, chartreuse, or white-and-chartreuse skirt and two small metallic willowleaf blades (#31⁄2 and 4 or two #4s). “The heavier spinnerbaits run straight at a fast retrieve and these larger blades create a big bulge,” he notes.

Horton wakes spinnerbaits over grassy points or flats where the vegetation hasn’t reached the surface. “On northern lakes like Champlain and St. Clair, it’s absolutely deadly for smallmouth around vegetation,” he says. “You can’t reel it too fast and it generates bone-jarring strikes.”

Waking a spinnerbait usually works best on cloudy and breezy days, but the tactic also tricks some fish in sunny conditions, especially if the surface has some chop. Horton wakes big spinnerbaits with a 7-foot medium-action All Star rod and Pflueger President LP (6:3.1 gear ratio) baitcasting reel with 17-pound Silver Thread fluorocarbon line. “Fluorocarbon helps make long casts, and since it has low stretch, you can set the hook better,” he says.

The former BASS Angler of the Year uses a # 4 treble as a trailer hook when waking spinnerbaits in open water. He selects a single 1/0 or # 1 hook for a stinger for fishing around vegetation.

Speedy Spooks

Whenever he spots bass busting baitfish on the surface, Horton burns a Heddon Super Spook Jr. on top. This tactic has triggered plenty of strikes for him from schooling bass on the clear waters of Missouri’s Table Rock Lake and Lake Hartwell in South Carolina.

He reels the lure quickly so it just skims across the surface for about 4 or 5 feet, then he slows down and twitches it a couple of times. If this fails to induce a strike, he starts speed-reeling again. “A lot of times you don’t want the fish to get a good look at the lure, so that retrieve works better than the usual walk-the-dog action,” he says.

A clear or clear/blue back Spook works best for Horton’s burning trick. He uses the same rod and reel as for waking a spinnerbait, but he switches to 20-pound Silver Thread mono for working a Spook.

A speedy retrieve isn’t always best—there’s no question that slow rolling and deadsticking have their place. But particularly during warmwater conditions, burning a bait can pique the appetite of big bass. There’s no faster way to bag a limit.

*John Neporadny, Jr., is a writer and angler from Lake Ozark, Missouri.