No-Motion Philosophies for Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass

During a dozen trips to a new spot, largemouths always bit. Big ones. Well, for mid-Minnesota. Something over 4 pounds, at least. And they bit on a variety of techniques, indicating they might be a tad untutored. So it became The Spot for a time. It had all the makings.

A spot could be a lake. It could be an area within a lake. It could be a specific piece of structure, or the spot-on-the-spot on a piece of structure. The Spot was more of the latter, only slightly more defined. Rather than a spot-on-the-spot, it’s more of a spot-off-the-spot-on-the-spot. Such spots exist by steadfast laws. Law One: Spot will fail when least convenient. I took a friend fishing for the first time, decided to share The Spot, and the bass, of course, wouldn’t bite. I knew the rest of the lake was good, with some other likely spots, but nothing like this one.

I turned off the electronics and pulled out the anchor. To my friend’s frown, I announced, “The bass are here. We could go all around the lake and have the same thing happen. So we’re going to deadstick a prime spot until you can’t take it any more. Then we’ll get a burger.” He was sold, but obviously puzzled. In his mind, bass equate with reelin’ and dealin’ spinnerbaits, cranks, and topwaters.

But where to deadstick? If the lure is just sitting on bottom for long periods of time, it has to be in the right spot. When you know an area well, the decision-making process is simple: Drop the bait into the thickest cover in the smallest area producing the largest number of fish in recent weeks. Whether bass on The Spot were driven off the bite by conditions like changes in barometric pressure, a big wind event, or intense fishing pressure doesn’t matter. Some largemouths always seem to bury themselves in the weeds on the same key spot where they’ve been feeding heavily in recent days.

We positioned the boat to cast downwind and anchored, so the wind wouldn’t pick up our lines and move the baits. We rigged Texas-style with Berkley Power Craws and no weight. Scent-impregnated plastics and scent products are right for deadsticking. After shape, size, and color, scent and taste are the only attractors left when the bait sits still, on bottom, for as long as it takes. And it took about ten minutes and six comments about burgers before one of our lines began to trail off to the side. It was slow, tedious, and meticulous angling, and we had to reposition the boat a few times; but we put several 4-pound largemouths in the boat that day.

Some anglers deadstick more often than they realize. Most of us fish plastics in some kind of twitch-pause fashion. When the bait is moved and the fish is already on it, do the bass react to the plastic only after it sits still on bottom for a few moments? The only way to know for certain is to deadstick on purpose. The question is: How long? Depends on conditions. In cold water and after cold fronts, when bass are less active, the bait can’t be left sitting too long. In cool or warm water, facing active bass, a few seconds might be all it takes.

Nothing is the word. The arm, the rod, and the lure do nothing. If that’s all there is to deadsticking, strapping on your equipment and pointing yourself downhill is all you need to know about skiing. While the tactic is pretty much a do-nothing enterprise, the real key to deadsticking is ultimate location. Sometimes that means knowing the spot-on-the-spot, and sometimes it means knowing a general area. Delivery boys who can’t hit the doorstep with a newspaper rarely get tipped. Deadsticking in summer is all about putting the paper on the porch.