10-13-24 - Professional Bass Fisherman Wes Thomas

On tonight's show, Jim's guest, Professional Bass Fisherman Wes Thomas talks fall full bass fishing techniques.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:23):
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(00:44):
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Outdoors on news Radio eight forty WHAS.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Good evening, everyone, Jims Trader here, Welcome on board the
Jimp Straighter outdoors tonight. I've got a very special program
for you if this weather change that is coming. I
know a lot of you fishermen have been waiting for this,
and bass fishing in the fall is probably, for my estimation,
one of the most consistent times to catch really nice fish.

(01:23):
They're on the feed, they're fattening up for winter, and
they're in gangs at this time of year. But what
I mean by that they're schooling. And I've got a
special guest tonight. It's Wes Thomas. He's been on a
program with us frequently through the years, and as most
of y'all probably remember, West was the winner of the
World Series of Bass Fishing at Ross Barnett.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Many many years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
He's fished as a ranger pro staff members since nineteen
eighty four. He's a two time Indiana state champion. He's
this Hoo's your Open Angler the Year two times, Who's
Your Senior Open Angler of the Year twice, and he's
a member of the Indiana Bass Fishing Hall of Fame.

(02:09):
Most importantly, he's fresh off another win you the Who's
You're Open with his partner Kenny Bortline, and they were
fishing Lake Monroe and he's going to tell you how
they won that tournament fishing what I call old school.
What I mean by that is fishing shallow stalking fish,

(02:31):
doing things that too many anglers have forgotten how to
do quite frankly in this era of the lipscope fishing.
And this was a big tournament. There was fifty something
boats in the tournament. So West is going to share
exactly what they did, why they did it, and what led.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
To them winning that championship.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
So he's also going to talk about some recent changes
in the Ohio River. He's going to talk about some
big changes have been rolled that really points a very
very good things going forward in some of those fisheries.
And he's gonna talk about his favorite baits and techniques
for fall bass fishing. So you hang in there with

(03:14):
us and we'll be back right after this break. This
break is presented by s m I Marine that are
eleven four.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Hundred Westport Road. Go see him.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Get your boat ready for winter before the rush, talk
to him about a trade if you're interested in a
new boat, and remember you never get soaked by my
friends at SMI Marine. Welcome back to the show, buddy,
you'd like to have you.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
On case ed. Jim always like to come and share information,
kind of get the word out there. You know, well,
this is, as we both.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Realize, a very very important time of year for bass
fishermen because it's one of the most consistent weather patterns
time of the year. By that, I mean you don't
have the big rainbow outs that you have so much
as a fall excuse me, in the spring of the year.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
In the spring, you know, high money water put a
wrinkling thing.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
But most importantly, uh, with this weather change coming and
you come and fresh off at tournament within which congratulations
and you thinking, Jim, and you're a longtime partner Kenny
board Line and you had another who's your open championship
to your credit and knuckles on that.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeh, A little surprising, but not real surprising. We've done
good at Monrod several times and we had been up there,
been up there several times in the fall this year
so far fishing other tournaments been doing fairly good. And

(04:50):
the lake, as some of your listeners may I know,
has got the beautiful, most beautiful grass beds on the
main lake that you could go find. I don't care
where you go look, they won't be as good looking
at those ones at Monroe. That water's clear, that grass
is green, thriving fisher in it, baits in it. But
I couldn't catch him and practice. Me and Kenny's got

(05:13):
to where we each take our boat and we'll decide
where we're going to practice. And the friday before this tournament,
Tattoo one was on Saturday, and Sunday I went out
there on that main lake and spent six hours trying
to get bites, trying to catch him. I had one
good fish blow up a frog, and I caught another

(05:34):
one about ten inches long on a spinner bat. Kenny
had fished. He actually fished about seven hours. He's going
to stay a little longer and he didn't think I'd
put it enough time. But when he came in, he
caught one three and a half pounder and one spot
about fourteen inches or fifteen inches. And he said, what
do you think we all do? And I said, well,

(05:57):
if you're going to fish with me tomorrow, you better
get prepared because we're going up the creek. I'm not
going to come out here and do this again in
these grass beds. I said, it's like hunting, almost like
hunting a needle in a haystack, because there's just so
much pretty grass. And I know in my mind, if
you happen to.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Pull up on the right little place and those fishery
in that bunch of you'll catch it, right.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
But I didn't know that little spot to go to necessarily.
And he was a little reluctant to want to go
up the creek because he thought we could catch bigger
fish on the lake. And I said, well, I'm not
going out there. We're going up. He said, well, we're
taking your boat. Then I said that'll be fine. Uh.

(06:41):
Progressing into the next day, we head up the creek
and we get up there. I catch a keeper pretty quick,
about a two and a quarter pounds or some great,
great good way to start. Now, would you catch it? First?
Fish on a sinko, black and blue sinko. I throw

(07:01):
a little black and blue sinko religiously to save the least. Yeah. Yeah,
And that's good.

Speaker 4 (07:09):
Reason for that fish probably come out of ten inches
of water on a little land long, okay, pitch it
up there and falls down, and pick it up and
fall again and come swimming out. So we go ahead
and fish some other places and we get up there.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
Kenny loves to throw a buzz bait and he's good
at it, and I put him in the front of
the boat. I said, you throw your buzz bait up there.
However you want to throw it, it don't matter. And then
I caught another keeper. And it wasn't long after I
caught that second keeper. Kenny catches went over five pounds

(07:46):
on that buzz bait, and the fish was in less
than a foot of water right obviously, right at the
bank croat. This is right at this particular place. We're
just going down on a bank that's really void of
most cover. But we're on the way to another place,

(08:07):
you know, another hundred yards down there, and there's another beava.
That's what caught those first two fish out of it
was a beaverra. So we get down there fishing along there,
and we stayed hung up for a little while on
those three fish. We got over into another section that
we knew we liked real well, and we started seeing

(08:29):
shed a little stretch of bank there had shad flicking
on it. You could see it be a little water,
maybe as big as a five gallon bucket or something
swimming around. So he ties on a pearl white structure.
Bud puts five sixteenth ounce weight on it. He goes
way out across his flat and he just reels it,

(08:52):
not up on top, and it just reels it slow,
so it's kind of walking on the bottom and banging
over to some of the wood that's out there's not
and he catches one ways five fourteen. Now we're all wrong.
Now we've got Now things are working. We've got four fish,
two of them over five pounds. We're fishing along and

(09:17):
we get up to another little place that we like
and I'm looking over there up there's a little a
little bit of a run end coming in, but it's
all silting in flat. You can see the bottom easily,
but there's one log laying along the edge and Ken
he throws that buzzbait up there around that log and

(09:39):
starts bringing it in. Another one over five pounds. So
we got three over five pounds and fishing around and
we're pretty excited about that, you know, but you got
it in these turnaments no matter. If you do have
those five pounders, you need to bring in a limit.
And then the hoosiero when they fish a six fish

(10:01):
in it. Okay, So we're thinking about turning around and
going back out where we'd had those other bikes, and
I said with Kenny, let's go on up around the
bend a little bit. There's one stretch up there where
I had some pretty good bikes the other day in
practice and never set the up on any of it. We
get up there and at the very end of that stretch,

(10:23):
Kenny flips that structure bug over there, four or five
inches deep, little piece of wood laying there, pops it
up a little bit to the surface. U lets it
fall down and just take takes off two and a
half pounder. So we're down there. We only need one
more keeper going around the bend there and Kenny says,
let's don't go any further. Let's let's turn around. I said,

(10:46):
we see those two stumps out of the pair. Heeadoes.
I said, let's fish those to those two stumps, and
then if you and Lee will leave the last stump.
We come to a pitched sinko over there, don't it
comes swimming out about a two and a half pounder.
So that made our six fish still have plenty of
time to fish. So but we decided that and another

(11:06):
thing that was important about this deal. We were the
only boat that went up there. Everybody else there was
two or three guys who went into another little creek
there or something that me and Kenny fished all day,
never saw another boat all day, and I said, get
I said, Kenny, we don't need to beat just to death,
cause we got to come back up here tomorrow and

(11:27):
kitch fish. So we kind of dilly daddy around and
went back out, and we had twenty one pound twenty
one point five to four pounds. The second closest team, too,
is had sixteen pounds, so we had a pretty substantial lead.
A lot of good fishermen in this term, that's what

(11:50):
some of the real good fishmen in Indiana was in this tournament.
And some of them were really good fishmen on the road.
They knew how to fish. And so we stewed about it,
stewed about it, and Kensey's ripped me all to go
out on the grass tomorrow so we can, you know, catch.
Kenny went out of it, so I think he might

(12:14):
have just been kidding me. But anyhow, we go back
up there the second day there again nobody comes up there,
and we weren't fishing two minutes, Kenny catches a keeper
on that buzzbait. Not much of a fish, two pounder,
but it was a keeper. We go on up little
ways on another bank, and I shut the big motor

(12:35):
off because there was some wood up there. I wanted
to fish, but I liked it. I don't want to
get too close to it, some shallow. I don't want
my wash to get it right. So he jumps up
on the front of that busbait and the bank has
nothing on it, mud eight inches deep. You might could
have picked up a half a dozen rocks, the side

(12:56):
of a softball or something, but there was nothing there.
He throws up buzzy bait over there and it hits
practically in the mud. It makes about four cranks. And
I've never seen such a top water bake in my life.
I mean a gorilla blowed up on that buzz bait
and missed it. Oh you could. You could have took

(13:18):
a feather and knocked. Kenny had a boat he was.
He said, how did I miss it? I said, well,
he just missed it. Kenny come out of water, but
he said he missed it. So luckily when we moved
on up there, I caught it. Keeper, so we had two,
but we didn't have that big one. You know. For
about an hour, Kenny just went on and on about

(13:39):
missing that big fish.

Speaker 5 (13:40):
We had to have that big fish. I said, Kenny,
get that a mine. We got the rest of today,
get that cashed. Get your get right. Yeah yeah, And
so he kind of did. And we needless to say,
we fished all those same places that we fished the
day before, caught plenty of fish, caught keepers, but the
big fish we had was about three and a half pounds.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
We didn't have them big ones. Again, Kenny kept saying,
they're just going to catch them out on that grass
out there on that lake, and we're gonna get real.
Ain't gonna finish in the money. I said, you never know, Kenny,
you just never know if they got to catch him first.
And I said, with our lead that we had and
what we've got today, said we've got about twelve pounds.

(14:23):
I said, they're gonna have to catch a twenty pound
bag or something, you know, to get in that neighborhood.
And he fretted it all day. And we come back
in and we were coming in and I stopped at
one little tree that we stop at all the time,
and I lose one about three and a half pounds.

(14:45):
So Kenny said, well, we've lost it for sure now.
But anyhow we get on the end, everything's fine. And
the four or five teams that are that had the
good fish the first there standing on the dock and
he said, well we got six and they said, well
you're gonna win that ain't Nobody got nothing. One team
had seventeen pounds, but they didn't have very much the

(15:06):
first day. So to wrap that up, we had just
under thirty five pounds and one bo over five pounds,
and the second place guys had twenty nine pounds. So
I mean we won substantially, and we and we never
caught a fish out of more than a foot of water.

(15:26):
Is that right? That's true? All right?

Speaker 2 (15:28):
What's the key in your mind that you want to
share with the audience about what happened? It was the
fact there was baiting those creaks that would be.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Where all those big fish come from, especially those big fish.
We could see little pods of shed out there flicking
around in the water, okay, and they were flats off
the main channel. It's hard to explain to you, but
when you get up in that creek, it's just a
water bank to bank. You could go up the middle

(15:58):
of it, fish low sides, right. But every once in
a while, when that think makes a bend or something different,
there'll be a twenty or thirty yard long stretch of
flats where it's only no water, right, And that's where
the fish were at. They were on those flats.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
So to describe that in my mind, I'm trying to
visit what you're describing here for the audience. They were
probably tramping that bait on those flats.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Sure, they were running in flats and that bait, and
every once in a while you'd see the shed, you know,
only something running flat. Yeah, So that's what kind of
gave us the confidence to stay in there. Plus we
were catching enough fish to you know, we weren't going
long times without getting a bite. Yes, yes, And the

(16:46):
and up in that creek there's places where there's huge,
big stumps right on the edge where the creek would
drop off, say into five six seven foot the water.
And we that's what we've targeted a lot because we
thought that's where they were going to be. But that
didn't that wasn't the case. Every fish came out of
almost no water, either the beaver hunt or off these flats.

(17:11):
Those those fish canny car the first day, and then
that big when he caught off that structure of bed.
None of them were you wouldn't have got your kneecaps.
We had to do the walk over there.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
And the key to these things beyond the baby is stealth.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
As well well well by not having any boats.

Speaker 6 (17:31):
Up there running around, because a lot of times when
we go for a people there, they there might be
eight or nine other boats and they're all run anything,
So you get those banks get washed and the fish
get kind of scattered out on it. But by not
having anybody out there nest sure the fantastic.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
All right, coming back from break, we're gonna talk about
this transitioning fall, and we're gonna talk about the Ohio River,
which is that's a really interesting going on right down
that's close to home to almost everybody or something there.
All right, folks, holding to break here. This break is
presented by Boss Hill Property, part Real Peat. Paul Thomas

(18:11):
is a broker. Check them out m O P H
A r T. Some interesting things are going on with
Ohio River right now, and one of which is the
reamergence of good grass beds, which is a huge, huge
positive things.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
Uh. The grass bes that men you talked about off air,
they're in our pool, the Louisville Pool from from Louisville
up to Carrollton, above Carrollton to the dam up there. Uh.
I've been seeing them coming on ever since about midsummer.
The river has been so stable. We have a what

(18:50):
we call the river camp down on the river down
below where we live. And if I'm not there, my
wife and people are there every day during us so
I can always ask her did the river come up
or go down or whatever? And I think we've only
moved our dock one time all year. We moved it

(19:10):
up about a foot, no kiding, so and last year
it was up and down like oh yo yo crazy right,
and the river got clear. I could walk out on
my dock and look down in four foot of water
and see the bottom. And then that grass started coming. First,
it was just a little trump here and there. And
as the summer went on and no strange dealings in

(19:34):
the river with high water and stuff like that to
wash it out, it started getting thicker and thicker all
the time. And it's good high drilla grass too. It's
not that little spending the kind of grass that nobody
likes to fish in. And I would say that this fall,
if you're going to fish in the pool and you're
going to be down towards Bethley Ham and on towards

(19:57):
Handover and Madison, you better be And it's looking at
the grass because it's going to be there. And bait
gets in that grass. It's not very deep. Maybe some
of it's a foot deep, but a lot of them.
That's everybody says. I said, well, you know these saying
these guys that were after ain't very tall. There's long,

(20:18):
So I said, that's plenty of water if that's where
they want to be. Yeah, And I think that's going
to be a tremendous deal. And the small mouth fishing
in our pool there again has been tremendous the last
three or four years and just keeps getting better. You know,
I want to speak to that in a wrinkle.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
What I mean by wrinkle is I want to give
folks a little tip if you will.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
You know, in this era of expensive gasoline, travel.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Has become very very expensive, and the Ohio River at
this point is definitely a close affordable destination that is
well worth fishing, especially this fall.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Right, and if you're just out there and you don't
have to be a hardened term and angler to go
on the river and have a good time catching fish,
because there's numerous species out there that will bite. You know,
we catch a lot of catfish on artificial baits down
there when the timing is dry. Old drum stuff like that.

(21:23):
I mean, young kids and stuff, and take them out
there and let them catch four or five of them
big drum and they've had the time of their life. Yes,
and it's very simple to do. It's not rocket scientists
at all. But we kind of got onto that deal
years ago trying to find out where those small mouth
went when they weren't on the bars and stuff. Whenever,

(21:44):
when the conditions were perfect for small mouth, where did
they go? So we started searching around off those out
in deeper water, off those rock bars and places, and
ended up finding out how many drum there were in
the river that you can catch on a silver butter
And I'm talking. I've seen times two people in the

(22:07):
boat who catch two hundred and fifty pounds in an afternoon. Yes,
any type of blade bait or jiggen spook. Yeah, and
we've progressed that into to take it one notch further.
Our Bass Club takes kids from the Boys Club in
Madison fishing once a year. Been doing it for thirty

(22:28):
five years, maybe thirty nine years. Oh, I've lost track.
But those kids, most of those kids has never caught
a fish. At the very most maybe a little bluegill
or something out of their pond or something, but they've
never caught something that could pull. And I've been I've
been up there with y'all several times, and it is

(22:48):
a good time. Oh yeah, them kids are screaming and hollering.
One little boy one day caught it a gar and
alls he could say is I've caught an alligator. I've
caught It's a good time and the kids really enjoy it.
And we get a lot of support from our local

(23:09):
businesses and stuff up there, and we gave it. In
the years we've been doing it, we're probably in the
neighborhood of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars donated back
to the Boys Club. It's a great, great deal. But
getting back to where we were at, uh, the what
you got to understand about the Ohio River is our pool.

(23:30):
Fish is completely different than the pool above Carrollton up there, Yes,
complete and completely different than it does at New Albany
on down. Yes, the creek up above, I mean the
river up above and the one here that goes down

(23:51):
towards Rocky Point down or whatever I called it. Tell city.
The closer you get to that dam, the more stable
the water is in both of those pools. The up
river up above up there, like at Tanner's Creek, and
I think it can fluctuate two or three feet all
the time, you know, up and down down at Craigs Creek.

(24:12):
I've never seen it fluctuate more than six or eight
inches at anything. And the same way down at Rocky Point.
Those like Deer creeks and those right down there don't
fluctuate very much, right, And it makes it stable and
the fish you can pretty well pattern the fish according
to those creeks. You get up river from those creeks

(24:32):
and it's totally different animals. And that's what a lot
of people don't understand. And a further way you get
from that damn is where the small both are going
to be. They don't want to be done there in
that still water. They want to be up there around
in rocks and then bends and rock bars where there's

(24:55):
current and stuff that position them. Bride Ross Spider Ryan.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Ross Batten is a really really good Ohio he's a
good fisherman period.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
But he's got mouth on the river, he's got it.
He's got it plugged in on that lower pool, there's
no doubt about it. He just does good. He's caught
some tremendous small mouth in the last few years. And
in the Madison Pool. If you get up you want
to get up there about Bethley ham On up all

(25:29):
the way up to Carleton. That stretches where you want
to catch a small mouth. You'll catch a large mouth too,
of Kentucky's. But that's where mostly in small mouth live.
And if you're if you know what you're doing, you
can go up to the tail races below the dam.
It's got to be really careful out there. There's a
lot of rock piles out there that you think it's

(25:49):
open water and it's not. But writing them tail races
below that bad you can catch them, especially on them
get old hot days, the water new them generating oxygen, yes, sir,
and you'll go up there and catch it.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Uh, well, I want to diverge a little bit because
this has been a stable in the Louisville Pool, right,
and it's and it's getting even better. Not only the
small mouth good, but the spider bass have always been
a mainstead And now that I can't explain why they're

(26:24):
a little bit heavier children bigger fish.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
Yeah, can you speak to that there again, I think
it's to the water being stable. There's plenty for them
to eat. They can forge pretty much whenever they want to,
and that's that's really important. And to be honest with you,
there's not a lot of pressure on them. I mean
there's there's river rats that fish, but they fish all
the time, but it doesn't have a tremendous amount of

(26:52):
bass fishing pressure on them.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yes, yes, Now the small mouth below a little down
around Brandon Burn, down in that area down Rocky Point.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
They've got some full groom ones down there.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
I mean these are good small man that that well,
you speak to it because you've seen them talk.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Well that is really Yeah, he's got them tuned in.
He knows he knows to go where a little change
in the fluctuation of the water or something that I
don't mean flood stage to nothing, but I mean just
a six inch rise that's enough to make an okay
place loaded up with it right, that little bit more current,

(27:37):
we'll do that too. And there's guys like loss Bottom
in that upper pool too that know how to catch him.
They had their bfl double up turning up there a
couple of weight a couple of weeks ago. And I
know the guy that wanted and he ran all the
way up to the mind all damn up above Cincinnati
when he caught six fish that they weighed eighteen pounds.

(27:59):
Oh my, and he wanted to double up up there.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Well that's really really good. Now I'm gonna go to break.
Come back from break. You're getting ready fish? Yeah, Ohio
River tournament, right, And I think for folks that have
interest in the river or river fishing in general, would
benefit from hearing what your strategy is gonna be. So
I'm gonna go break.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
Here.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
It's presented by SMI Marine. Tim Addington and his staff
are great troubleshooting. Any problems you've got with your boat,
go see them to get your boat ready for winter
before the rush, and remember you'll never get soaked by
my friends at SMI West. We were talking about the
Ohio River and what's going on with it in terms

(28:43):
of the species and the grass and what have you.
There's a regular who's your open coming. You're gonna fish
in it. It's up in Tennis Creek, right up up
river there. Talk a little bit about that, and you
know what your strategy will be.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
You're gonna be a different partner Michael Trueblood Right. Yes,
I got a lot of faith in him. You know
he'll be up for practicing by hisself. But if he
comes and tells me he had eight good fish, I
don't him question. Fine, he's such a good little fisherman.
He ain't little. Hell, it's forty years old now, but

(29:19):
that's that's just a pup bear to me. But by
the conditions that the river's in now, in this cool
weather coming in next two or three days, supposed to
warm back up towards the end of the week, over
the weekend should be prime. Prime fishing should be uh

(29:42):
And in this tournament, by it being the classic as
much like the one men Kenny fish, I don't want
to go out on that man like and fish in
that grass and maybe catch two or three, and we'll
finish twenty fifth. We come to win, and I thought
we could win up the creek, and we did. And
in this deal, I'm probably gonna do all my fishing

(30:05):
in Craig's Creek. Uh just a minute, oh Man, Bryant's Creek,
Craigs Creek, and probably try to find four or five
at least four or five good places on the river
to just like a milk run to run, run to

(30:26):
them or something. Try to pick up an early fish,
or you'd be surprised. You probably can't. You catch several
three pounds plus fish in the river, you know. But
I already know pretty much what I'm gonna have tied
on my deck. I'm gonna have a buzz bait. It's
gonna be about a quarter ounce when the one I'm
gonna throw it is probably gonna be black. I'll have

(30:48):
true blood to a white one just to see. I'm
gonna have a sinkole tied on, and I'm gonna have
a it's gonna be black and blue flake Mike accidentally
beat green pumpkin if everything's real clear. And I'll even
probably have a some kind of little shallow running crank

(31:09):
bill crank bait on A square bill is a square bill,
and then I'll definitely have a little spinner bake tied on. Okay,
that spinner bata is in the buzz bait, and sinko
is gonna be in the creeks. Okay, when I'm out
turn the river, I'm gonna be throwing like a pop
bar type bait. Might be a rico or something, but

(31:32):
it'll be something like a pop ar. And I'll have
that buzz bait tied on out in the river, and
I'll probably have if I if I can find the
right kind of stuff, I'll have a little tube tied
onto to pitch into the thick places and let the
current move a little bit. You don't get it down
in there. Uh, but that'll be it for me. I
pretty well know that for everyding set foot up there,

(31:53):
I feel like I feel like we can catch them
in those two creeks to those two creeksas yeah right,
yeah they are. They're just making flat.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, they're more like a uh an embayment at Kentucky
Lakes or Bulkley or somewhere there's a big.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah, there's not much channel left in them anymore because
they're all sealed it in correct, and you got to
know a little bit about how to get in Brynch Creeker.
You ain't going to get in, it's that bad up there.
But I know the areas in there, Michael knows them
where we can cover it with a buzz bait and
spinner bay. If we get to a place that you know,
maybe get to or three bucks, we may slow down there.

(32:33):
I can throw my sinko or something in there. And
you were wanting to know how I do a sinko
earlier and how and why I do it? Uh, it'd
be Texas rigged with most likely a three sixteen cent
weight and about a four ot hook, and I fish

(32:53):
everything up there on eighteen pound test line sunlines. When
I use eighteen pounds and you flip a you know,
I hate to sound like a broken record, but we're
going to be fishing less than a foot deep nine
time that you want to find a little nest in
the water, like you know, some kind of conglomeration. It

(33:13):
can be a lawn chair or a limb food, It
could be anything. Trust I've thought them out of everything,
but something And I like to if the fish are
not actively chasing the bait. You can come in there,
pitch that sinko around, and wear a mat. If this
was springtime of the year or early summer, I'd be

(33:35):
fishing at same sinko, but I'd be fishing at wacky style.
I love to fish a wacky style sinko pre spawn,
spawn postpond. Once it gets away from that, I like
to use the Texas rig because I want more of
a reaction bite. I want. I want to pitch that
sinko in that little tree top over there that you're

(33:58):
going to think, Boy, if you get one on, what
are you going to do with it? Well, at sinko,
I can pitch that thing in there and I'll worry
about getting him out after I get him on. Yes,
you know the rods that we're using in the line,
Like I say, a lot of my rods, eighteen will
probably be the smallest line diameter in the creek. Now

(34:20):
out in the river, I'll probably dropped down to fourteen.
We're using floor carbon, Yes, definitely florid carbon. You can't believe,
relating back all these years I fished, and all the
partners I've had and stuff like that, you just can't
believe how many co anglers come to the river and
they said, well, I put on big line for this,

(34:41):
and I said what you got and he said twelve
pounds test line. I said, son, let me tell you
right now, you need to get some wine on there
that you can do something with it. These fish up
here usually the water is dirty, like I say, it shallows.
They don't care. They're not I'm not going to buite
that that's only got ten or twelve pound test line

(35:03):
on it. That ain't the key. And I said, yeah,
you get bit, but you won't get him in the
boat half the time. And I've convinced several co annglers
that they need to fish heavier line and get out
in the river because you're not. It's a little bit
more of an open water type thing. A lot of

(35:23):
times I want it, especially for some curt that lighter
line won't let won't let the current wash it out sequip.
That heavier line catches more current. And I want it
to fall down around that old brushy pile there, or
that stump that's on them with two three logs jammed.
I want it to fall down there and let me
bounce it around down there, not pitch it in there.

(35:44):
And before I can reeld the handle over, it's done
four foot below from the current. So so what size
do you use?

Speaker 2 (35:51):
That?

Speaker 3 (35:52):
Fourteen? Fourteen? Okay, yeah, that's just don'tnd like a lot,
but that's just enough to help you in the current, sir.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
And uh the smalls which he doesn't resent and log
them out will hit those Oh yeah, oh yeah, I
mean there was a good multi speech here.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
And that I want to fish into the current. Got
to go to.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Break Break presented by Mashield Property Star Realty. Paul Thomas
is a broker kick out their listening to.

Speaker 7 (36:20):
The m O T h a r T Realty dot com.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
All right, we're talking again with Wes Thomas.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Winner of the World Cheries bass Fishing and two time
in Indiana state champion, who's Bass Fishing Hall.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Of Fame member in West.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
We've talked at the beginning of the program about fall,
the transition into fall, and Doddius knows how fond I
am of October. For years and years, I've called it
October because everything's popping. But to tonight's theme, bass fishing
really really gets good as the true fall period comes

(37:00):
upon us, and baby it's coming this week. This week
let's talk about that and what changes are going to happen,
and how folks need to readjust their thinking because it's
gonna be true fall fishing, I think going forward from.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Now, well, for the most part, to start with, you're
gonna have to find some bait. When you find that
bait clusters and stuff, the dass will be in there
because it's their their last big hurrah before wintertime comes
to put on a bunch of good eating and stuff
to kind of sustain them because there won't be the
opportunity to be those heavy feeding periods. Uh, And I

(37:39):
don't care. We've talked a lot about the river. It'll
be the same way in the lakes. You find find bait,
you'll find the fish. What you've got to do is
kind of figure out what they want. Some days it
will blow up on any kind of piece of top
water you throw out there, they'll eat it. Other times
they won't eat a top, but they'll hit a buzz bait.

(38:03):
A lot of swim bait fishing going. It's gonna happen
here just anytime, and in the rivers especially, it'll it'll
stay good in the rivers until it gets cold enough
that you don't want to go. Yes, sir, you know
that you go. I don't know if I want to
about this cold or not. But if you did, you

(38:24):
still catch fish right. And and people ask me a
lot of times, well, what what do you use or
something like that, and I always want them to understand
that what I do is not the only way to
do it. You've got to be open minded about it. Uh.
You could have the right bait a lot of times,

(38:44):
but you may have the wrong weight on it if
you're pitching plastics or something. Uh. We experiment with that
on practice days quite a bit. How fast we want
the bait to fall. Uh. Sometimes I mean, and you're
fishing in foot of water and brush piles like beaver
huts or something. They're so thick that if you got

(39:05):
too light a weight, the bait won't penetrate the cover.
It'll go down to hit something or something, and then
it'll get to lay in there and you have to
jiggle and make it kind of go in. But you
put enough weight on two, it goes right through the
smallest little hole that you can imagine. And that's where
I want my bait. I don't want it banging around

(39:25):
on it. I want to go right in the house,
you know, let me in there. And to give you
a prime example of that, last year, I was fishing
a tournament and I went in practice, and it was
on Monroe, a lot of boats around, and I was
fishing beaver huts, primarily beaver huts. And I know several

(39:47):
other fishermen were fishing too, but in this one particular
beaver hut, I fished in there and I had three
good bikes, three good bikes, pull just pull your bake down.
And I almost never practiced with a hook. I put
a what they call a keeper spring, tie that onto

(40:09):
my line and just screw that spring down into the
head of the bay.

Speaker 8 (40:13):
That guy said, oh, you don't need that. You just
stick that hook up in there and don't set took.
I said, bull crap. In Indiana, a bite is so important.
I don't want to take no chance. I can't catch
him with that spring.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
I let him chew want it, to let him run
around him, but I don't want to possibility of hooking
that fish. That kind of leads me to tell you people,
I finally got some people convinced that they don't need
to catch him. In practice, I couldn't tell you how
many people I fished with the man I call them today.

(40:48):
On the practice day, I could have had fifteen eighteen towns.
I said, how's that they hooked them all? I said, well,
you ain't gonna catch him fish tomorrow. But then I
figure that part of it out as far as how
you want that bait to go through the cover of
your fishing, and if you're fishing fairly open stuff that's

(41:08):
not got that kind of stuff, you don't have to
go that heavy unless you want to let the fish
tell you if I get the fishing. I fished a
couple hours with say an eighth ounce on a sinko,
and I'm not really doing any good. I'll change that
to three sixteenths or a quarter just to see if
the bait falling down beside a log or something will
make it better. And the fish will tell you. You know,

(41:31):
if you fish two or three hours a certain way
a certain bait and you're not doing any good, don't
don't be afraid to try something else, because if you're
feel confident that you're fishing in the right areas, the
fish don't act the same every day. You got to
kind of kind of wake them up a little bit, right,

(41:52):
And same way with top order. I have to fish
with guys. So was there a spook until they wore
the wrist out a bike? But wouldn't change baits the
guy right beside of them throwing a pop arm and
getting all kinds of bites. It's just that you gotta
you gotta kind of get in tune with what they want.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
While we're on that subject of Papa Irish and Xera Spoot,
as much as you know, I'm a freak, yeah, I
mean that's the way I love to catch bass if
I can.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yeah. And the reason I'm bringing that up is that
in the.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Fall of the year, those are two of the deadliest
baits you can throw, and for a variety of reasons,
I'd like you to speak to that, because with the
Zerospoot you can cover a lot of.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Water and you can throw them a half a mile.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yes, sir, absolutely, And you got to work at bait.
And there's other baits, yeah, you know, similar to theer spoo.
Let's just call walking baits. We're like the better way
to describe it. I'm sure the audience knows what we're
talking about. And it's a sucker bait for big fish. Yeah,
because it never does the same thing twice that that

(43:05):
crazy dark Yeah, you.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
Gotta get, you gotta get you got to get a
cadence don Yes, you know. And there again the fish
will tell you that too. If you're just twisting it
and making it barely walk kind of taking every taking
three or four minutes to move it a foot or two,
just walking it. If they blow up on that, that's
what I'd keep doing. But on the other time, I've

(43:29):
had times when I was working it as fast as
I could work it, Yes, and they just blow up
and the small mouth will eat it, large mouth of
eat it. And and there again, if you're fishing where
there's grass, and the grass is underneath the water enough
or there's some open pockets in that grass that you

(43:50):
can throw that zerruspot, you can have a ball sometimes, yes, sir.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Now the pop bar is a little different, more of
a target right type of the tope water, but just deadly.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
And there again, you got you got to get the
right catence down with it, you know. Sometimes they want
it make it real, or sometimes they just want it
kind of skittering across the top right, and that that
just comes with the experience and fishing that bait and
knowing how to to move the bait without turning the
real handle. Yes, that's most people I see that don't

(44:25):
really know how to fish it. They're moving the bait
by turning the real handle. You need to move the
bait with twitching the rod tip.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yes, sir, it's a it's a pumping reel, pumping lumping
reels the way I described it.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
And uh, don't tie it on the same rod that
you're gonna put a that you're gonna flip with or
something like that, because it'll wear you out and you
won't catch very many fish either. You got to have
something that's got a pretty good tip on it, so
when they hit that bait and put it down, they're
gonna get it before you can take it away from them. Yes, sir.

(44:59):
And I used to think that a six foot rod
was putty enough for about any of that, but I've
changed my mind over the last few years. I think
you need at least a six ' six to seven
foot rock.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Well, I've been a seven foot man, as you know,
back when on Berkeley's pro staff, and I kind of
drove the train on on taking rods in the day
from five and a half to six foot up to
seven and uh. The folks that I was dealing with said, well,

(45:34):
why why do you think it's necessary.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
I said, there's two reasons.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Number one is a seven foot rid has got tremendous
leverage setting the hook, right, that's number one. It was
based like what we're talking about. That extra length makes
it easier to work those makes.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
Yeah. Yeah. And when you do set the hook with
that seven foot rod, you got some authority, Yeah, you can.
You can pull so much more force into the fish.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Yes, or I never will forget the old television shows
that I'm not picking on because love is barely with
Dad's about falling out of the boat trying to set
the hook on the world with five foot rod, five
and a half foot rod.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
I was got, good, lord, it doesn't have to be
this hard, you know. Well, I still got my jerk
bake rods and they're five ten, is that right? And
I just do so much better with those when I'm
when I'm doing a jerk baking. There they so limber
that you think that it wouldn't be any good, right

(46:35):
when most of them jerk bake fish. And unless you
see your line twitch when the next time you go
to jerk, it just loads up and fishes on that. Yeah,
he's yeah, and I don't hardly ever lose one. And
I think it's because I've got plenty of rod there
to take him up and hold him but not rip
it away from it.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yes, that's what I attributed to it him. I'm gonna
go to quick break here. This breaking presented by Paul
Thomas and Basteel Properties Heart Realty. He's got all kinds
of outdoor properties for sale. Be glad to list your
outdoor property, your farm, or your wildlife management property. Check
out their current listings at m p h a r

(47:16):
T realty dot com. Well, we're calling back this Paul transition,
and you're setting to fallow the bait. And the good
news is the bait tends to move shallow sure, and
this is where for the average angler it becomes the
fun time to fish right and it doesn't really take

(47:38):
rocket signentry to find a fish.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Start by looking for the bait right right. You find bait,
and you find some cover that the fish can ambush from,
and that can be laying logs, stumps, rocks, whatever, and
that's where that's where it'll happen is in those places.
That's why we tend in the fall go to those

(48:02):
little flats where we can need to see the shadow
of all that structure down there. We know it's there,
and that's when, especially when we see those bake pods round,
that's why we that's why we target that real headed
and baked pods for folks that perhaps aren't familiar.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
You'll see it flicker and yeah, flipping and yeah it
all of a sudden, you'll see a woof, woof there,
my boy.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
Is the key of course.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Uh, we were talking about baked swim baits become deadly
during this period.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
I mean, if there was.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
One lure that I could tell somebody they could throw
and catch fish, it would probably be a swim bait
just because throw it. Really, I mean it added if
you're around bait, it's it's you may not get.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
As many bites if somebody else throwing the more traditional bait,
but the bites you get will be good, good good fish. Yeah,
you won't be catching very many ten or twelve inch dings,
you know, and get something bigger, right right, which is
a good thing. Which is a good thing.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
You mentioned jerk baits, and a lot of people have
the misconception of jerk baits or the cold water type
of presentation into the late winter period or very real
early spread in March, but not.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
So in the fall. It's a great search and destroy bait.
We talked about that earlier, and I'm one of the
people that normally lay that jerk bait down about April
the tenth or something, you know, after it warms ups,
and usually bait may be tied on the rod that's

(49:45):
probably in the rod box until next March again. And
I know I should be taking that bait out and
using it so that it's just it's just not my deal, right, you.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Know, Well the reason I like it, and I'll break
it down in a nutshell. If they're not hitting on top,
if they're not hitting my spook, if they're not hitting
you know, the pop oars or those type of baits,
I can throw that in shallow water and worksn't fast
very aggressively in trigger fish. In other words, I'm not

(50:19):
really I'm trying to create reaction. Bit sure, okay, yeah,
as opposed to the most subtle approach with the sea cold,
which is a slower, more methodical presentation. And the reason
I'm bringing it up is it is by one of
my search and destroyed bates. And what I mean by
that is I cover a lot of water and find

(50:40):
out where the fish are and where the bite is.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
A or if that makes sense, Oh yeah, yeah. The
especially if you're going to some place that's relatively new
to you and you don't have in your mindset where
you're going to go fish and what there for structure
that you're going to be fishing around, and you've got

(51:04):
a few days to get something figured out. Be a
great thing to use and that that works on a
lot of lakes, but you need to have some that's
bigger than what we got in Indiana. Our biggest problem
in Indiana is that we don't have great, big schools
of fish out there. And I go in this one

(51:26):
little creek and I said, boy, I'll just go into
another little creek over there. We don't have it. You
can't really pattern a big pattern that you can on
some of the And when you were talking about the
top water baits in the fall that lbl side down,
not it's got all those little pea gravel bars that

(51:46):
run out in the lake. That is Zaraspook country, Buddy.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Yeah, boy, that's what I talked about, and that's not
hard to do it.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
I mean, you can run several hours down there running
those little deals and you pick out eight or ten
of them where you got bites, and then in the
tournaments you go fish those eight or ten points over
and over again.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yes, you know something you never talk about much, but
I'm gonna bring it up because it is one of
my fault techniques, especially if I'm seeing small balls of bait.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
In other words, maybe no bigger than someone's kitchen.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
Yeah, okay, yeah, but there's scattered balls of bait like
I love for a spoot, a fluke beyond that ball
of bait, throwing it up to it, make it wag
a time or two, and then.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
Letting it drop.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
And I don't want to be really aggressive with it,
because if you do, you'll flash the bait. Yeah, and
then a lot more likely that will treating fish to
hit the bait instead of your lure. But buddy, walking
that up there and then letting it glide down, it's
like it can't quite keep up with the crowd, right.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
It could be deadly. I tell you something else we
haven't mentioned. And it's about time to start throwing it.
It's an a rig when this the water cools down,
it's pretty hard to be an a rig at like
Kentucky and Burke, especially where the small mouth are. We've
got some places in Indiana that's got some decent small
mouth As soon as that water starts getting down fifty

(53:27):
five fifty when it dips out of the sixties. Yeah,
when you start thinking you can, you can pile up
on some of these little bridges the mouths of these
creeks and stuff the bridge there, or a rocky point
or maybe a point you know, he's got some stumps
out on the end of it somewhere ideal. Put that
a rig in your hand with braided line and crank.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Now there's something else we hadn't mentioned. And we're covering
up on break but rail traps the fall buddy.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Yeah, I think guys do it. I don't know how
they ever do it, but I think guys doing it.
And I know they're taking pot and shall of port.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Yeah, the one of the few edity I like to go,
especially if.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
There's some window weight. I shouldn't go at that point, all.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Right, folk got to go to break here this break
get presented by Kim adding.

Speaker 7 (54:20):
And staff and as by a marine, they don't have
to troublecute any problem boat go in and see them
before the big run the winter risud come and remember
you never get shoked by my friends Wes.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
We were talking about circumstates and what they can produce, and.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
Uh, the type of areas to fish them, and we
mentioned grass beds and we talked about flats and in
those areas, what makes you decide which top order to throw?

Speaker 3 (54:54):
What's what's your advice you could give?

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Well, it include the buzz bait, let's talk buzz bait
pop r type of baits and walking based like.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
Yeah, uh, well like a walking bait. We we mentioned
it's got to be somewhere kind of semi open, or
at least it can have subsurface grass and stuff. But
there's nothing worse for trying to throw a pop ar
in a place that every time you try to walk
it a little bit of grass hooks up on the hooks.
Guys just hate that. So I got I'm gonna have

(55:28):
to if it's gonna be in my mind the pop
are I mean walking type bait. I'm about to get
somewhere where I can throw it. Chunk rock under the
water is good, nothing wrong with stumps and stuff, you know,
but grass it's not deep enough or too thick, makes
it terrible. So that I'm going to eliminate that bait

(55:49):
altogether now, probably also to take away almost like a
like a pop are But it's perfect for a buzz bait,
and it's perfect for like a horny toad on a
single hooks walking not walking, but slipping it over top

(56:09):
of that stuff and fish will blow up in it.
So that's one that's one thing you got to look at.
And if you're we briefly mentioned there a few minutes
ago about zero spook at Kentucky Lake, one of the
best places to throw zaraspook is on those pea gravel

(56:33):
points on the LBL side. I mean they can be
the other gravel points, but then fish love be it
in that pea gravel transition areas. And for the most
part of your boat may be sitting in twenty foot
of water, but you're throwing in two or three feet
of water most generally, yes, and that would be the

(56:53):
perfect place for a pop hoar or zero spook or
anything like that, because there's really nothing there to free
to hang on them, right, but the fish will be there.
I've talked about that really good grass at Monroe. People
are fishing over top of that grass that I tried.
Also punching the grass to where I know the water

(57:17):
is deep enough that you can punch through that with
a little bit bigger weight and like a structure bug
or a tube or whatever you want to punch me
and punch through that mat and get the bike from
underneath the mat underneath most of those grass mats you
see it all matted on top, and but in that
hydrilling and stuff, most of that has got to open

(57:40):
cavity underneath it where fish can move around and stuff
through that grass. And it's a extremely good way of
catching them is to punch through the mat. Typically in Florida, Florida,
we fish a lot of grass mats. Everybody's punching mats,
but the grass is so thick down there. A lot

(58:01):
of times they're using a two ounce weight. You know,
I'm talking a hen egg almost, you know, and you
really you got to know what you're doing or you
won't get any bites. It's a it's a unique technique
of doing that heavy pitching through that punching through that mat.
Uh when it gets much over about an ounce and

(58:21):
a half ounce and a quarter I don't particularly like
to do it because it will wear you out.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Yeah, well, be quite honest, I hate it.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
Yeah, it's just not a way I enjoyed fishing. But
it is your tournament fishing. You gotta do it in place.
It's kind of like forward fishing, sonar. I don't like it,
and I'm not gonna do it, but sometimes if you
want to win a tournament, that's what you got to do.
That's what that's the way it is. In Florida, it's
punching those mats is the big deal, not just in Florida,

(58:52):
but anywhere. It's just like it. Chickamauga. They're punching those
mats down there, the same same, the same idea. But
for the most part in our area that's not really
I was punching those mats at Pert Monroe the other
day with the three quarter rounds. Wait. I was getting
through it without any trouble, but I didn't didn't do

(59:13):
any good. So I don't know if them Indiana fish
know about punching match or not. I don't see very
many people do but I know it will work. Oh sure, Yeah, absolutely.
Talk about the importance of shallow points in the fall
where basting run bait, if there's bait nearby, how they target,

(59:37):
how they utilize that.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Because when you talk about lakes like Baron or Nolan
or Rough, even Cave Run or some of them, point
fishing becomes very very important.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Yeah, in the fall period on those deals. Some guys
are believers in jig like a pig and jig thing,
and they're going to fish those points, walking that pig
and jig down through the rocks and stuff. Very effective
way to fish. You don't see as many people doing
it now because it's kind of went to the back,

(01:00:14):
went to the back of the bus for a lot
of for a lot of guys who are not doing it.
But a lot of people in fall they're doing that.
But they're throwing a compact jig and the trailer is
not as big as what you might see somebody flipping
around in the springtime. The fish will the good fish
will still buy the compact jig. And I'm talking about

(01:00:36):
a quarter to three eighths ounce usually a tungsten heads
because it's smaller, the skirt is a lot finer skirt
on it flares out and the water really good. Just
a little bit of movement in a flare that's pretty good.
And a lot of the lot of them. I want
to throw a football head on that deal. Uh. I

(01:00:59):
used to catch a snot of them on that. Just
like I said, it's kind of went to the back door.
I'm not out there doing that much anymore. But if
I if I was to go out there and do it,
That's what I'd be doing it with. And I'd be
doing that with probably a green pumpkin purple jig with
maybe a solid green pumpkin trailer or even a black

(01:01:20):
and blue trailer, mixing the green pumpkin in the back
black and blue. The the baits have gotten so many
color patterns and stuff on them anymore, it's hard to decide.
I mean, we keep talking about these baits, and most

(01:01:43):
of the baits I'm doing it's black and blue or
green pumpkin. I may have a strand or two of
something else in there, but I'm not worried about getting
a jig it's purple, pink and blue or you know.
And guys are buying that stuff because I see it
in these stores.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
And well there's an old Yeah, I know what you're
gonna say. Lots of lures who decided to catch fish. Yeah,
not necessarily fish because they look sexy. You know, they've
got that appeal. And if that gives you confid let's
go far. But basically the old standards of light bait

(01:02:19):
versus dark bait. I'm like you, blacks and blues, Uh,
just yea kill them.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
Another thing we haven't really talked about very much. Just
take a jig ahead and put a little boot tail
swim bait on it. Uh, those things as everybody and
anybody makes them, so I mean, it's not hard to
find them. And just get a jighead that fits the
the weight that you want and stuff. And you could
pitch that baby out there and swim it back slow

(01:02:46):
like you be slow rolling a spinner bait or something,
or you can swim it up in the column, just
whatever you need. And that's real effect.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Share with people where you would throw that type of
bait because it's very easy to.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
Oh, it's eating most people the same things talking about
these points down rocky banks. It didn't have to be
I see guys doing that and catching fish at a
four or five foot of water, and I see him
doing it in twenty foot of water, right, So it's
very versatile. Cover a lot of water fishing along with

(01:03:21):
stuff like that. And you get a couple of bikes
in a one hundred yard stretch, you might want to
turn around and check that bank out of it a
little bit, because there might be more fish there that
you just caught, the ones that were active and wanted
to beat you. You know, at that particular time, readate
a little story to you years ago fishing a tournament.
It was a team tournament, and I had found a

(01:03:43):
bunch of fish along a couple stretches of the bank.
In practice, my partner had found some fish about as
far away on the other end of the lake as
you could go, and I felt real strong about my place.
He said, well, we'll go down there. Said we'll go,

(01:04:04):
And I went down there and we fished for about
an hour, hour and a half. Never had a bike
right down worth the day before. I was shaking them all.
I said, Paul, I said, didn't fish are here. I
don't know why they ain't bite me. Anyhow, We load up,
run to his place, fish their prayer for two or
three hours and had one little keeper. I said, Paul,
I know you don't want to hear this, but I said,

(01:04:26):
if we run back down there, we got time to
fish long enough to catch a limit if they're back
in my spot. Went right back down there, like at
two thirty. In thirty minutes we had a limit, fired
up and ran and got to the way in. Now
why they didn't bite the morning when we were there,

(01:04:46):
I have no idea, but was in the same place.
We never had a bike at seven thirty in the morning,
went back at two thirty and loaded the boat. Well,
I would suspect it had to do with the way
the baits it up. Something I don't know. I mean,
we're using the same baits that we were thrown before,
and the fish had just moved in or they turned on.

(01:05:08):
You know, they always talk about that little magic window
if you're at the right place from that magic window.
If I ever get that figured out, these all these
guys are gonna have a lots of trouble. But a
lot of it too is you gotta have instincts. You
gotta have some outdoor instincts. And I see that. I
see a lot of guys that know how to fish.

(01:05:31):
But they don't know how to fish. I understand they don't.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
They don't understand fish, right, they don't tech needs right,
they understand electron but they don't know what I call
the biology and.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
That that that's very very importantes it is. I guarantee
you you'll never convince me otherwise.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Well, I'm not trying to shun your shoes. But I
think that's the reason you guys just wonder who's over seriously,
because everybody else was doing what that seens. Yeah, it away,
but your instinct told you to go shallow. Yeah, and
I really believe that. I mean, it's happened with us
so many times. Absolutely, let me go to quick break here.

(01:06:14):
This break is presented by most of the old properties.
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P H A r trealty dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
Quest. These fronts get.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
A part of the weather pattern in the fall, play
a big role in bait selection and what the fish
are doing. Let's let's talk about that a bit. Is it?
It can make you scratch your head if you don't
know how to handle it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
Uh, one of the worst things you hate to see.
I see, guys, the practice the day before something to
be kind of cloudy, little wind blown and stuff, and
then said, oh man, we had a good practice. I
had a lot of bikes, tournament money. You get out there,
you look up in the sky, you don't see nothing,
then a cloud or nothing just blue, and you don't

(01:07:03):
even yeah, and you don't even hardly see a leaf
moving on a tree. Well, you better put that buzz
bake down. You better put that spinner bake down, and
you better be picking you up a tube, a sinko
or a jig and just pick that stuff apart. I mean,
if if, if it's a place and you've got confidence

(01:07:24):
in it, you put that jig in right here, in
a little hole. If you don't get a bite, and
there's another little hole a foot away, put your put
your bake in that hole. There's another little hole somewhere
six eight put it in that hole. And it takes time,
but that's how you got to do it. And later
in the day, if you start to see a few
clouds come rolling in, things change. Then you can pick

(01:07:47):
up something a moving bait and catch it, catch a fish.
We haven't mentioned the chatter bait at all, but that's
a prime bait in the fall and then the shadow
rut as a chatter bait.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
We forgot to mention that, Uh, talk about chatterbury a
little bit because it's another back that got red hot
for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
You guys have thrown it still, but yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Slacked off a bit, and a lot of the again
is do the livestop what people are doing? Oh yeah,
yeah out there, But talk about chatterbait because it is
deadly yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
Uh there again, just kind of let your imagination be
your guide as far as what trailer you want on it.
I like to I like to fish mine with either
a we've talked about a boot little boot tail swim
bait deal. I like that on the back, or I
like some of these craw dad type things with two

(01:08:40):
little pincers back there wiggling a lot. That's my two
primary trailers that I'm going to cut. And I like
to throw a green pumpkin one with a black baide,
and I like to throw a shad looking color with
a silver blade. Those are my two primary colors now.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
And tell people about your target there with that, and
you're any and you know your bass, I'm gonna fish it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
On fairly heavy line. I'm gonna fish on eighteen pound
test line, and I'm gonna throw it anywhere that I
think I can get it back without continually hanging it out.
It will hang up on you some, and it's kind
of an aggravation sometimes, but it's real good around grass
where you've got some little avenues in the grass and
stuff that there's submergent grass. Awful good in that, and

(01:09:28):
I like to throw it and stumps and stuff, but
you got to watch and not let it, not fish
it to where you're gonna ge hung up all time, Yes, sir,
but they'll knock the snot out of it. I mean
scattered lily pads or something. You know, a lot of
places you see these little pads about the size of
a plate, but they're not one on top of another,
just kind of scattery. That's a great place for a.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
Town on on crankback selection because they're just so easy
to fish.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
What are your favorites in the fall period? You like
the round trip type or you like the no I
rather throw a square bill. I'm kind of impartial to
that because it's gonna glance off stuff and what have you.
And you can if you're thinking that you're fishing around
a lot of shad, whether you can cause a shad
colored a little crankbait on if you're fishing just thinking

(01:10:23):
that you're maybe fishing from in around where there's blue
gills or or crawl dads, you can go to a
crawl dad pattern still good in the fall, and but
I normally have gone when I'm throwing that, I'm gonna
be throwing something that's got a shad pattern.

Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
Okay, fish attractors in shallow water tend to whod a
lot of fish in the fall period. With the with
the fact that a lot of anglers have turned, the
deer hiding and what have you, they don't get as
much pressure as they do other times a year. They're
kind of one of my favorites. And you can fish there,
You draw fish out of them with a pop off,

(01:11:00):
you can throw a gig. Do you target them and there's.

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
That that well, I'm well, I'm fishing say like Kentucky
Lake with all the steak bed that there is. Yeah,
most definitely that can be a really good pattern to go.
And if I'm fishing back in one of the pockets
or something not necessarily thinking I'm going to catch them
off the steak bed and I look over and I
see a couple of steak beds. I'm gonna go fishing.
I mean, they're they're just too good a deal. And

(01:11:25):
I've caught a lot of them on a sinko out
out of them steak beds, and it's it's kind of
those deals we've mentioned that the fish will kind of
tell you what they want or how they want it.
You just got to be able to be smart enough
to figure out when they're talking to you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
Yes, sir, uh, tree tops on slope bags real quickly,
because those are good places, and.

Speaker 3 (01:11:50):
I know they're good. I hate them, but I know
they're good. What's your technique there? Though? To close this
out here, I'm gonna throw sinko in there too, jigs
something I there again, Something I can get down through
those limbs, because a lot of the if it's a
big ol tree, the fish don't ness have to be
on the bottom. They can be suspended about where you

(01:12:10):
could think halfway down was or throw the way down. Sure,
and just like I said, hold the hold the hole
and get your bait down there and make it a park.
I've taught a lot of fish out of them, but
I just don't like the fish that way.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
Yes, yeah, all right, West. It's always a pleasure to
have you with us. I think you've given a suther information, folks.
Here's what I'm telling you. There's no better bass fishes
in the fault. I mean, it's prime time and it's
the fallers. The weather change covering in the frigate. So
hopefully that is timely information. We'll see your best plate everybody,

(01:12:47):
drop Blint take out there.