girls, that tells me the big girls are usu-
ally on the shell beds,” Kenney explains.
“There is usually a lot of bait around
them, so that’s where they’ll stage
before and after spawning.”
That’s the exact scenario he found
at the Harris Chain event. On day three,
he got a lot of bites fishing for spawn-
ers up in the pads, though without get-
ting a sniff of anything big. On day four,
he stopped on a shell bed, caught a 7-
pounder almost immediately and had
more than 20 pounds before 10 a.m.
Another key clue is the weather;
specifically, cold fronts and warm-ups.
Florida bass tend to move offshore
temporarily when there’s a dip in the
temperature. Even if everything seems
prime for spawning, the big girls will
often stage back out on the shell beds
after a cool-down before going shallow
once it warms up again.
offshore is offshore
Fishing shell beds in Florida might
be something new for many anglers,
but catching fish on them is pretty sim-
ilar to anywhere else. Florida’s offshore
bass are triggered by the same arsenal
A lipless crankbait is Kenney's go-to lure when he's sampling a shell bed.
of baits employed on any other lake –
crankbaits, swimbaits, jigs, Carolina
rigs, etc.
For Kenney, one lure stands out
more than most: a lipless crankbait. No
matter how big the shell bed, there will
be grass nearby (it’s Florida, after all). A
lipless crankbait can be ripped out of
grass without killing the lure’s action,
which makes it ideal for throwing past a
shell bed and reeling back over it. If the
lure encounters any grass before reach-
ing the shell bed, a good rip or two can
usually clean it. However, Kenney does-
n’t let the rips stop once his lure is over
the hard-bottom clearing.
feBruary-marCh 2018 I flWfIshIng.Com
“I like to put some action into it,”
says Kenney of his retrieve style with a
lipless crankbait. “You’ll see a lot of guys
just cast it out and reel it in. I pop it,
twitch it, rip it. I never just reel it in. You
want it to look like you would a
crankbait on a normal offshore spot,
deflecting off the bottom.”
Just as the same lures used else-
where also apply to Florida’s offshore
bite, so do similar tactics. For instance,
the shell-bed bite in Florida is a timing
deal. It’s worth stopping on a shell bed
multiple times throughout the day to
determine if there is a morning or
afternoon window for best results.
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