Don’t overlook small stick-ups,
either. Even a small stick poking up
from the mud can draw in a bass.
“Especially on a mud bottom,”
Dunkin adds. “A lot of people underes-
timate that mud and how quickly it can
warm up that time of year. I’ve caught
them with mud on their bellies.”
This pattern isn’t generally going
to produce 20 bites in a day (it’s win-
ter, after all), but you can get some
really big bites doing it.
“I’ll throw it through March into the
prespawn, when the water temp gets
into the 50s,” Dunkin says. “It’s a neat
little bait that people don’t think of.
Everyone throws a Shad Rap, but that
little square-bill [Shallow Shad Rap] is
a totally different deal.”
The Presentation
Dunkin categorizes this pattern as
a reaction-bite deal, but he tries hard
to make them react by firing repeated
casts at each target. He reasons that
the fish aren’t likely to chase due to
the cold water, but if you can bring
one by their face, they’ll eventually
react and eat it.
“If it’s a laydown, I’ll cast across the
end of it first,” he says. “Even if it’s 3
feet of water they might suspend in it
because they’re just up there lying
around not using a lot of energy. So I
position the boat where I can cast
across the end of it a few times. A lot
of bites come that way. Then I’ll posi-
tion the boat to cast down each side
of the log.
“The bait just has that super-tight
wobble, and when it comes by them,
they smash it,” he says. “You’re not
deflecting it really. It doesn’t get hung
a lot because it comes through really
good. And it’s not a typical square-bill
that hunts. It tracks tried and true like
all Shad Raps but stays up in the col-
umn really good.” “You get that super slow 5.8:1 gear
ratio on most spinning reels, so it’s
going to force you to slow down,” he
adds. “You can loosen the drag for if
they make a big pull, and the rod has
a lot of give to it so if they load up
you’ve got them.”
Spinning tackle is the best choice
for the balsa baits, though the plastic
ones could be fished with casting
tackle. Dunkin typically slings balsa
with a 7-foot, 3-inch, medium-fast
Wright McGill Skeet Reese
Tournament Series Drop Shot rod
with a Skeet Reese Victory II spinning
reel and 8-pound-test fluorocarbon. Probably the most important piece
of advice for this pattern is to be will-
ing to go as shallow as a foot or two in
the winter when the conditions are
right. Once you find the likely areas,
keep a finesse-cranking strategy in
mind. Don’t overpower them. Use the
right equipment, and see if you can
crack a few cold-water heads.
Tackle choices
6th Sense Crush
Flat 75X
Finesse Cranking
6th Sense Cloud 9
Series C6
Old School
Balsa Baits
Wesley Strader
W2
Rapala Shallow
Shad Rap
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FLWFISHING.COM I WINTER 2019