Scott Martin Fishing Tips, Reports and Articles

Scott Martin January
On The Pro Trail
Braided line the key to Stren win
Bryan Thrift won the Everstart Series opener on Lake Okeechobee, partly because he had the right line to get his baits deep.
This week I’ve been practicing for the upcoming FLW Tour opener on Lake Okeechobee. I spent time fishing around the FLW Stren Everstart crew last week, so I could find some for fish that were getting a lot of pressure.
Right now, I’m catching most of my fish away from the cattails. The first five feet from a cattail head is where I’m slow-rolling a spinnerbait. I’ve also enjoyed a good morning bite by throwing a six inch Lucky Craft Slender Pointer suspending jerkbait in a shad pattern. The key has been to imitate a shad or shiner with all my baits, since lately the bass have been focused on baitfish.
When I spoke with Bryan Thrift he explained that he won the FLW Stren Series opener last week by targeting the fish just off the cattails and slow-rolling chatterbaits. Thrift was using 30-pound Stren Superbraid, on a 7- foot medium-heavy Berkley Lightning Rod he got when he qualified for a Federation Tournament. The “Chatterbait” Thrift was using is getting a lot of attention right now, but I think the most important part of his tackle was the braided line. Braided line has no stretch, which is an important quality when fishing a swimming jig or chatterbait-type lure, because a fish will literally push the line forward when it strikes.
Unlike a normal strike where the line stops or jumps, with these baits the line goes slack and you don’t feel anything. No bump, thump, pull or resistance. If it goes slack, you set the hook and the fish is there. When the fish eats the bait it moves forward two or three feet. That’s when you need hooksetting power to drive the point of your bait into the fish. Because braids don’t stretch like monofilament, you get more power on the hookset.
Another property of braids is that they have a considerably thinner diameter than monofilament. The 30-pound Stren Superbraid is the diameter of most eight-pound monofilament lines. The thinner diameter means you’re able to reel the bait deeper, but most importantly, you can reel it faster. With the thicker monofilament you don’t have the same power to set the hook. In addition, you have to reel the same bait more slowly to get it to run near the bottom. A slower retrieve may not draw as many strikes. Bass can be particular, especially in cold weather. You want the right speed at the right depth, and you can adjust your bait to a certain depth just by changing the diameter of your line.
Right now, the fish aren’t as thickly schooled as they have been because of the full moon. The fish are out of the cattails feeding and getting ready to spawn. They’re just a few feet away from the vegetation because of the fishing pressure and because all the anglers that are flippin’ the cattails are running over them with their trolling motors.
My game plan for the FLW Tour opener this weekend is to fish the spinnerbait and jerkbait in the morning, where I should be able to get a limit in the 10- to 15-pound range. I want to get my limit first, then focus on culling. Then if it’s a sunny, cold day, I’ll start to flip the cattails and look for one or two bites from big fish.
I’ve been flippin’ the Berkley junebug-colored Power Craw I wrote about last week, and have also been experimenting with a Berkley 3 inch Gulp Craw with a 1 1 / 2-ounce weight. I’m excited because I’ve had a lot of luck with the Gulp Craw, so I’m looking for some good flippin’ water right now. If I can get a limit of good fish early, I’m pretty confident I can find some bigger fish flippin’ the cattails.