Bass Fishing Apr 2017 | Page 23

The Initial Drop Short Rods The casting technique Devere employs was developed to fish snaggy rock bottoms. To avoid hanging up requires careful timing and control, starting with the initial descent. “You want to try to twitch it at the same time as it hits the bottom,” Devere explains. “It’s kind of a timing thing. You don’t want to let it lie there or you’ll hang up usually. You just barely want it to touch a rock or whatever you’re fishing.” It’s unusual these days for a professional bass angler to use a 6-foot rod for nearly any technique, but Devere says that’s just right for casting a jig. “I’ve been trying to use longer ones, but the longer it is the less control you have on the jig,” he says. “When you pull it, if you’re not careful you’ll jerk it too fast.” Working the Jig The twitch described above is accomplished with a short lift of the rod tip that pulls the jig over the rocks. It’s not a horizontal drag, like many anglers use to cover water with a foot- ball jig. Exactly how far you pull it varies based on the area you’re fishing. “It all depends on how steep the bank is,” says Devere. “If the bank is pretty steep, like a vertical bank, you don’t pull it much at all [because it’ll fall farther after each pull]. I would guess it moves maybe 6 inches to a foot at the most each time. You don’t want to swoop it real fast. Keeping it going enough so it doesn’t get hung up is the main thing. “As soon as it hits a rock or the bot- tom you move it,” he adds. “You don’t just let it sit there. Just keep it crawling as a crawdad would. You’re pulling it to make it pop off the rock, and that’s when the fish hit it usually.” When he encounters brush, Devere tries to work the jig around the edges of the cover first. Then he casts right to it. That way, if he does hang up, it happens after he’s already made a productive cast. A jig with a heavy fiber weedguard might come through wood cover better than a jig with a wire guard, but Devere says a fiber weedguard jig’s action just isn’t right. He reserves a heavy fiber weedguard for flipping. “With that Stan Sloan jig, with just two little bitty wire guards on it, the wire does protect it from snags a little bit, but if you pull it really fast into a log it’s hung,” Devere adds. “If you run into something like a log, don’t jig it really hard. Just use a little pressure to bring it over the log.” ■ APRIL 2017 I FLWFISHING.COM Wood Cover 21