Brush Up for Winter Bass

WHEN THE FRIGID temperatures of January engulf Texas, all bass, not just the Florida strains, get a little finicky. They not only don’t like the cold, it makes them uncomfortable, and shuts down their will to feed.

New Jersey pro Pete Gluszek deals with a longer cold season at home and has fished throughout the south when snowmobile suits are the fashion du jour. When the fronts come through, he probes manmade brush piles with a jig.

“To be consistent as the temperature plummets, I like to downsize and take the action out of my trailer,” he said. He prefers Missile Baits Ike’s Mini Flip, which comes in sizes up to a half-ounce, but retains a finesse profile. “That allows me to fish deeper and stay in contact with the cover, even in bad weather.”

In warmer conditions, he’ll tip that same jig with either a Strike King Rage Chunk or a NetBait Paca Chunk. In the old days, he would have used pork, but now a traditional Zoom Salty Chunk gets the nod. He keeps his colors simple. Green pumpkin is one choice and black is the other.

“The more black it is, the more I like it,” he explained. “I’ll even pull the blue strands out of the skirt if they’re in there.”

He fishes the jig on a Cashion F904-76 paired with a Lew’s Tournament Series baitcasting reel that has a lightning-fast 8.3:1 gear ratio. He’s changed to that reel on all of his flipping and jig rods. The high-speed is not for the retrieve, which is done with the rod, but to enable more casts and to catch up with fish swimming at him.

He’ll spool it with 20-pound test Gamma fluorocarbon most of the time, which he characterized as “super-tough, super-sensitive and great at managing big fish.” However, in extreme circumstances he’ll switch to braid.

Of course, the hardest part of finding the fish is finding the key piles. Gluszek is apt to spend hours and hours looking at his Humminbird Solix depthfinders, primarily but not exclusively using side-imaging. He finds that often he can pattern which piles the fish are using based on their depth, their location (bays vs. points vs. channels) or their composition.

Even those around or under docks can be patterned. Sometimes the fish want them in the bay, or under the platform or off to the side. It can vary day by day or even hour to hour. Using his Humminbird Mega 360 units, he can identify their outlines, their vertical components, and then pick them apart.

“My first cast is often right at the heart of the brush pile, where the biggest fish usually hang out,” he said.

Of course, that cast requires finesse to get the lure through and out of the sweet spots within the cover. He said the Mini Flip comes through branches exceptionally well, but there are still times you’ll get hung up. Cedar trees and Christmas trees, he explained, tend to be “stickier.”

If you learn which way the branches or logs are positioned, you may be able to avoid pulling your lure into “the crotch” where they’re more likely to get hung up, but nothing is foolproof. You will get hung up at least occasionally.

“Feel is huge in this situation,” he added. “That’s where the rod and the line come into play. When you feel your line go taut, and you’re starting to get hung up, some guys start pulling harder. I’ll drop a little bit of slack into it and allow the bait to fall two or three inches, then pull it up. By releasing it, you create enough separation so that it gets off more often.”

Even if your lure comes through the brush cleanly, when you finally get the bite you’ve been waiting for, it’s critical to get the fish moving upward in a hurry. If there’s no clear path for them to the surface, you’ll need to exercise caution.

“If they get around a corner or over a limb, you just have to hold it,” he said. “You’ve got to be patient and keep pressure on them. They’ll often swim out. But you don’t want to panic and pin them. That’s when they get leverage and get off. Try to get a different angle or stay calm and they may work their way free.”

Once he winches a big fish out of the brush pile, there might still be others in residence. Gluszek will fire another cast back in, but if he doesn’t quickly get a result, he’ll “let the fish tell me what to do.” Sometimes that means going to a subtler bait, like a Senko with a light weight.

Other times it means forcing a reaction bait into the thick of it, such as a spinnerbait, or even a crankbait to trigger a strike. Frequently, though, it entails “resting” the area.

“I’ll definitely leave and come back, especially if I can see them,” Gluszek said. “I’ll put it into my rotation.”

 

Email Pete Robbins at ContactUs@fishgame.com

 

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