Fall is a time of plenty for anglers. The Midwest is home to a huge variety of fish, and it seems like all of them get hungry in the fall. Hungry fish are the best kind of fish because they are easier to catch. The big ones are especially hungry in the autumn months. One of the best techniques for taking hungry fall largemouth bass is casting a rubber-legged jig/plastic crawfish combination to points and pockets on deep weedlines. If you put in your time on a good largemouth bass lake that has big fish available, it is very likely that you will catch some of those big ones. In fact, this is one of the best times to take the largest bass that swim in Midwest waters. Here’s how you can do it. To catch the biggest bass, you must go to where they live. In the fall, look for them along the deep edges of green cabbage weeds and around coontail clumps that are still green. There might still be some bass that are shallow early in the fall, but the deep, green weeds will be the most productive on a regular basis. Pockets and points in the weeds will be best. Again, there might be some bass over the tops of the weeds, and there might be a few along a straight, non-descript section of weeds, but odds are that most of them will be near irregularities in the vegetation. We want to fish where most of the fish are. Many of the most successful anglers use Jungle Jigs in the 3/8th’s to 5/8th’s ounce range. If most of your strikes are coming as the jig falls, go with the lighter jig. If the fish are hitting right on the bottom, use the heavier jig. The Jungle Jig is weedless, so it will pull right through the weeds. It seems that the rattles built into the jig will trigger fish when other jigs won’t. Add a four or five inch Power Craw to the jig. Remember to slide the craw onto the jig tail-first so it appears to be moving in a natural manner. Crawfish and black/blue combinations in both the jig and the craw are good, but sometimes fish show a color preference on certain bodies of water. Try different color combinations and don’t get hung up on one color. Color is important, but putting the jig/craw in front of the fish is more important. A medium-heavy six and a half to seven-foot rod is favored by most anglers using this presentation. Casting or spinning rods will perform well. If spinning is your choice, many anglers go with a reel that is a little larger than ordinary. The UltraCast 2000 that Abu Garcia makes is a very nice size for this and many other presentations. Spool this rig up with a minimum of twelve-pound test XT and don’t hesitate to go heavier. Many bassers prefer fourteen or seventeen pound test, even twenty pound, on lakes that have a reputation of putting out big bass. That’s enough talking about catching big bass: Now we need to get out there and do it, and there is no time like right now.
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