Tournament proving grounds – At a prespawn Tour event
on South Carolina’s Lake Murray, three-time AOY David
Dudley fished a buzzbait pattern that’s as unusual as it is
effective. To hear him describe good buzzbait conditions is to
appreciate what a tremendously instinctual fisherman he is.
“The thing about a buzzbait bite is that there’s a certain feel-
ing in the air,” Dudley says. “It’s a tool that you’re not going to
use all the time, but when the time is right, it’s hard to beat.”
There were scattered thundershowers that day on Lake
Murray. Dudley and his co-angler picked up an early limit
with other techniques and had a decent catch early, but he
knew better fish were available. That’s when Dudley looked
to the skies and felt the makings of a buzzbait bite.
“I could see a thunderstorm in the distance and decided to
run to it,” he explains. “I fired up the outboard and ran until
I was about a mile ahead of it. Then we started fishing. The
mile lead gave us about a 15-minute head start on the bad
weather, and the fish were killing the buzzbait.”
When the weather got too rough in that spot, Dudley
scanned the heavens again and ran to another set of clouds.
By the time his day was over, he had more than 20 pounds of
buzzbait bass.
Gearing up – “I was throwing a big, black-skirted
buzzbait with a black blade and a clacker that added a lot of
noise,” Dudley says of his Lake Murray tournament. “To fish
it, I like to use a 7-foot-3, heavy-action Favorite Fishing
Summit casting rod with a high-speed baitcaster.”
Dialing in – For Dudley, the buzzbait is a lure for all sea-
sons – prespawn to late fall. Early in his career, he considered
it a low-light, cool-weather bait, but now he won’t hesitate to
fish it in the heat of summer, especially when pattern win-
dows open up – for instance, in advance of a storm. He also
uses it when panfish moving shallow to spawn are luring
hungry bass with them.
“They call bluegills ‘sunfish’ for a reason,” he claims. “You
can usually find them in shallow water – especially during
their spawn in warm weather – and if they’re shallow you’ll
find bass close by. It’s all about the food chain. And even
though a buzzbait doesn’t look anything like a bluegill, it’s a
great tool for catching bass feeding on panfish.”
David Dudley: Storm Chaser
Cumberland Pro Lures Buzz Bait with Clacker
APRIL 2018 I FLWFISHING.COM
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