Tube Baits may be one of the best baits for catching big smallmouth and largemouth bass. Here are five simple little tricks we used this summer to put bass in the boat.
The tube can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. It has thousands of uses. Tactics that work for a tube include drifting, gliding, vertical jigging, flipping, pitching, dragging... You get the picture. Even with all those techniques and options it isn't without its flaws. An exposed hook on a tube jig has the potential to snag when drifting or dragging. A texas rigged tube has problems hooking a fish due to the way the tube is designed. Suspended fish won't leave their mid water position to hit a bottom dragged tube. Once again you get it.
So after a long summer of using a tube here are some tricks we used to catch bass with the tube.
Stuff your Tube Jigs with Sponge and Add Scent
Early on I was having trouble with fish biting and dropping the tube and me missing the fish while I was drifting or dragging the bait. Part of this could be me not paying attention, but lets blame the bait. I would add scent to the bait hoping to get fish to hold longer but it would disperse right away. The cure for instant dispersion was adding a chunk of sponge by running the hook through a small chunk of everyday sponge and inserting it inside the tube. I than used which ever scent I was using that day, usually Yum!, and was able to give myself a few more seconds to set the hook.
Add a Rattle
Stroke it and Get a Reaction Strike
Somewhere around July I discovered stroking a football jig. I was getting frustrated looking down on my electronics seeing fish suspended two or three feet from the bottom and not eating my drop shot. What I found was I could stroke a football jig up into those fish and get them to react. So one day when the wind was blowing and I was drifting a hump in about 20 feet of water I noticed once again the bass were suspended at about three feet. I immediately began stroking the tube and put five fish in the boat in five casts! Stroking is no more than pulling the bait off the bottom and repeating the motion two or three time before letting it hit the bottom again. The fish react to the quick upward motion and hit it usually on the fall. Rattles really help here because when the bait lands it sets the rattles off.
Use the Tube as a Spinnerbait Skirt
I laughed when I first heard of this. I thought why would a fish ever hit this? Then one day I wanted to down size a spinnerbait and was pleasantly surprised when I used a tube to do so. The trick here is to get the tube over the head of the spinnerbait so all that is exposed is hook and tube. A good pair of bait scissors and super glue will do the job.
Cut the Bait for the Texas Rig
This summer I rarely Texas Rigged the tube since I wasn't doing a lot of flipping but a pretty cool litte trick I learned for Texas Rigging a tube was cutting a slit in the back of the tube and then Texposing the hook. See pictures below.
Those are five of my favorite Tricks to do with a Tube Bait. There are thousands of things an angler can do with these super versitile baits! What are some things you do with your tubes? Let us know in the comments and be sure to like us on Facebook!
