5 Cool Tricks with a Tube Bait

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

Adding a little bit of noise to your tube presentation can really improve a fishes ability to find your bait when its on the bottom crawling like a crayfish. Many manufactures right now make tube jigs that have rattles attached. My best advice with rattles is to expirement and let the bass tell you what they want. Some days were better for rattles than others.

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!

Missile Baits Fuse 4.4 Product Review



Fuse 4.4 with claws died chartreuse

 The One Constant Producer of Decent Smallmouth and Largemouth Bass This Summer for me was the Drop Shot Rig and the Missile Baits Fuse 4.4 was the Bait on my hook. Here is why!

Great Representation of the Crawdad

The first thing you will notice when you pull out your Fuse 4.4 to put it on your hook is the two claws hanging off the back. I thought this gave a very realistic look of a small crawfish in the water. Our lakes are very clear on the Colorado River and getting that bait to match the crawfish that the largemouth and smallmouth are feeding on during the mid summer heat is critical and I think Missile Baits hit the nail on the head here.

Great Subtle Action

Any slight movement of the line or rod tip made these little claws come to life without over doing it. I figure most bait down at the bottom of a lake isn't whipping around under the water violently. They move slowly and keep their claws at the ready for any predator that comes by. To get an even better subtle action I used a VMC Ike Approved Wide Gap Spin-Shot hooks in 3/0 and 2/0. I used 2/0 when I cut some of the bait off at the tail if I decided to downsize on days when the bass could get extra fussy. Another way to bring out the great subtle action of the bait was to flip it around and run the hook through the nose. This way I had both ends wiggling.

The Colors are Awesome

Early on in the year I was using a 4 inch Luck-E-Strike Finesse Worm in Watermelon Red-Flake to catch bass on my drop shot and was having a good amount of success with that color. After losing them all as will happen to plastics in bass fishing I could no longer find that style of worm. When I discovered the Fuse 4.4 they had watermelon red flake! Since then it has been my go to color on sunny days. Other colors I've used are Green Pumpkin Red and Green Beret. Varying colors throughout the day or on overcast days was key.

The other thing I did with the Fuse 4.4 was died the claws chartreuse. Somedays it worked better than others but it worked especially well for smallmouth on overcast days.

All summer long the Fuse 4.4 put bass in my boat! It's incredibly soft and easy to use. I feel like there is a color for every situation. Let me know if you have used this bait with any success in the comments below!

4 Reasons Why Fall in Nevada is the Best Time of the Year



hotspotsarizona.com



It's a great time of year to be on the water bass fishing in Southern Nevada on our beautiful River Lakes! Here's Why!

The Fish are Fattening up for Winter

In fall as all anglers know the shad move to shallower water which means the bass are following them to feed up. This means you get to put your finesse rigs back in the rod locker and start throwing baits that move fast in the water like crankbaits, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, and even topwaters so long as they represent shad.

The Pleasure Boaters Have Gone Home for the Winter

This is especially good news if you like having the lake to yourself or sharing it with the other bassers on the lake. It's truly a wonderful thing that happens in the fall. The water cools off and everyone in a ski boat puts it up until June. The ramp is no longer crowded. The campgrounds are empty. You get to experience the lake as God intended!

The Weather has Cooled Off

This in itself is reason to get to your favorite River Lake. You can have a fire at camp, wear a sweatshirt and not sweat all day while trying to find fish. In fact a day on the lake in fall is downright pleasant!

Let's Not Forget it's Also Hunting Season

Southern Nevada and Nevada in general has some amazing hunting. Around the River Lakes but not on the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, the Nevada Department of Wildlife has established "guzzlers" for the various upland game species in the area. Dove, Rabbits and Quail all use these structures to drink water and will remain close to them through out the year. Well if you want to get off the water and see more of Nevada, grab your shotgun and go look for these species! Check your Nevada hunting regulations for various rules and don't forget to have your upland game license!

So there is just a few of the reasons why you should get out on the water or near the River Lakes this season! Tell us what you think of Fall in Nevada!