FISHING
COLUMN
BIG
BASS
QUEST
Joe BaLog
joe balog is an accomplished
tournament fisherman from
the upper Midwest who relo-
cated to Florida to scratch his
lifelong itch to chase trophy
largemouths.
photos by MillenniuM proMotions, inc.
f
HoW to catcH giants WitH sHiners
or generations, bass anglers across
north America have flocked to
Florida for a shot at a fish of a life-
time. i, too, got the bug early, making
repeated trips as a youngster with my
dad, and later moving to the sunshine
state to pursue some of the country’s
biggest bass. over time, i’ve followed the
pursuits of many of the area’s best big-
bass fishermen, from obsessive loaners to
successful guides.
in recent years, likely no Florida profes-
sional has fulfilled the dreams of more
vagabond bassers than capt. sean rush
of salt springs. primarily focusing his
efforts on famed rodman reservoir near
ocala, rush has hoisted hundreds of dou-
ble-digit monsters over his gunwales,
topped by four certified bass surpassing
13 pounds caught by his clients.
to the untrained eye, rush’s approach
and those of just about every Florida tro-
phy hunter appear very simplistic and
similar: Grab a livewell full of big, frisky
shiners, find a good-looking weedline to
hoist them toward and wait it out.
Further investigation proves rush’s meth-
ods are far from ordinary, and his atten-
tion to detail often exceeds that of his
competitors.
Born to be a guide
30
rush has bass fishing in his bloodline.
his grandfather, Gene Moore, was an
early guide on rodman, and by age 18,
rush was guiding too. however, even
after working 300 days a year for more
than three decades, rush is still a student
of the game.
“i still learn something every day, a new
hole, or a new drop-off,” he says. “As
much as i’ve been on rodman, i bet i
know less than half of what’s out there.”
it should be known that rush’s chosen
stomping grounds are unique, to say the
least. impounded in 1968, rodman still
has large sections that were never cleared
of timber, and it features the winding
turns of the oklawaha river channel, as
well as acres of floating and rooted vegeta-
tion. it’s been said that a bass angler could
fish rodman his whole life and never cast
to the same tree twice.
rush breaks things down systematical-
ly to locate lunker bass.
“A lot of it is visual,” he says. “i like to
find a mix of things.”
Keying on the heaviest cover in the lake,
rush looks for areas where numerous
types of floating cover come together. the
primary vegetation types are water lettuce,
hyacinth and pennywort, but mixed cover
offers the best concentrations of multiple
forage types, drawing panfish, shiners and
bass to the area. in addition, rush believes
the biggest bass like to get up under hori-
zontal cover and feed using bold, dark
ambush points.
fLWfisHing.com i spring 2019