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panfish “popping” or “spitting.” It’s a
sound you’ve probably heard when
fishing around shallow grass, and it’s a
sound that often alerts nearby bass to
the presence of fish that could be
either food or foe.
“The bluegill is the natural enemy of
the bass during the spawn because
they eat the bass eggs,” Frederick
adds. “It just mimics the bluegill.”
During the spawn, bass can be
ultra-aggressive toward any number of
predatory fish that could pillage their
beds. With his prop bait of choice,
Frederick is effectively forcing bass into
being territorial and aggressive and
ending up with a mouthful of hooks.
im Frederick is an expert
Florida bass angler. A fifth-year
pro on the Tackle Warehouse
Pro Circuit, Frederick – who hails from
Leesburg, Fla. – has a Pro Circuit win
to his name on Okeechobee and fin-
ished 25th in the second event of the
2020 Pro Circuit season on the Harris
Chain of Lakes in February. When it
comes to fishing in Florida, he’s got
plenty of tricks up his sleeve for weigh-
ing in big bags.
One of those tricks involves a bait
many know of, but few probably under-
stand its full potential: the prop bait.
Frederick used to use the
Smithwick version of the bait – the
original Devil’s Horse – but the compa-
ny discontinued his favorite color, and
Frederick was forced to split a bulk
order with a buddy, Larry Petty, just to
get some in the “spotted ape” color (a
flashy mix of greens, oranges and
blacks) they both liked.
“Smithwick made it, and it was
good,” Frederick says. “They quit mak-
ing it, and you had to order 700 of them
to get that color.”
Petty taught Frederick a lot about
how to set up and fish the bait, and so
the duo decided it might be time to
branch out a bit. Luckily, they had
another friend named Bryan Heaberlin,
who, as it turns out, is pretty good at
making custom baits.
“He [Heaberlin] started making
them, and he’s pretty crafty – he makes
all kinds of baits,” Frederick says. “He
buys the wood, and he’s got a lathe. He
trims them down, he sands them, he
paints them. He’s become really good
with an airbrush, so he’s matched all
the colors perfectly, and he’s created
his own colors, which work really well.”
With a friend who had the ability to
make one of Frederick’s favorite baits,
the 50-year-old pro had an avenue for
customization he never had with the
Smithwick version.
The Setup
Heaberlin customizes Frederick’s
prop bait to very exacting specifica-
tions, including length (4 1/2 inches)
and hardware. Frederick likes the
Mustad KVD Elite Triple Grip short-
shank hooks Heaberlin attaches to split
rings – a departure from the Smithwick
version, which uses screwed-on con-
nectors that need to be removed
entirely to add split rings or swap out
hooks.
In addition, Frederick wants his
Devil’s Horse imitator to float a very
specific way.
“You want it to sit in the water not
level, but just a little weighted in the
back,” he says.
From there, it’s all about the one
backward prop that somehow mimics
bluegill sounds perhaps better than
any other topwater.
“I like it a little bit more subtle with-
out the prop [in the front], plus your
line will get wrapped around that one
in the front. So, this way, I get the
sound of two props with one prop by
turning the back one backward.”
How to Use It
The applications for the Devil’s
Horse – and Frederick’s custom ver-
sion, especially – are many. In addition
to fishing it around bedding bass, he
also likes to target areas that might be
holding fry-guarders and around big
mats and pad fields.
“Anywhere with hydrilla and stuff
like that around it works really well,” he
says. “If you’ve got a big mat, you can
parallel the mat, and it will actually call
them out from under the mat to eat it.”
Frederick will even use the prop bait
in place of a walking topwater around
schooling fish, though he prefers his
custom model to have a white feather on
the tail for that task to give those school-
ing fish something flashy to target.
“Louisiana, Florida, even on [Lake]
Seminole – I crush them on Seminole
on that thing,” he says.
In Action
For Frederick’s most common appli-
cation – fishing around shallow beds –
it’s all about presentation. It’s not a bait
Frederick ever wants to burn across
the surface.
“To modify it to get the sound Larry
and I like, we don’t put a front prop on
it, and we turn the back prop back-
ward, so it spits water and makes the
sound like a bluegill popping in a pad
field,” Frederick explains. “That’s just
what works for us.”
Frederick’s applications for the bait
all involve mimicking the sound of
Bluegills and Beds
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