"In spring especially -- right after or during a cold front -- bass get into trees and bushes, very tight and shallow," says eastern Tennessee pro Dwayne Horton. "You can think you have the tournament won, but when the water warms the fish are gone.

"The bass I practice for are the ones that have made a certain tree or stump their home," he says. And the way he practices is to get a look at the bass. A look, but no hook: Like many pros, Horton does not "stick" fish during practice.

He loves to flip and says, "I've probably won more money (almost $300,000 on the BASSMASTER and FLW tours) flipping a jig than doing anything." When he practices his winning methods, he bends the hook closed on his jig.

"You can close that hook up and, when a bass bites, you can pull him to the top of the water," Horton says. When the bass comes to the top, he takes a quick look to gauge its weight then pulls the jig out of the bass' mouth. "I've fished a lot of tournaments, and when you've done that for a long time you can tell pretty close how big that fish is," he says.

If the bass is big enough, he will go back during the tournament and catch it. As many pros have found, "you can go back to that same spot and catch that fish," Horton notes.

To illustrate his point he tells the following story. "I remember a time when I was practicing for a tournament at Fort Loudoun (reservoir near Knoxville, Tenn.) and pulled what looked like a Florida-strain bass out of a cedar tree," he says. "The fish looked different, really dark, so I couldn't mistake it. During the tournament, about two weeks later, I went back to the same tree and caught the same fish."

Tips

When you're trying to get a look at a bass in practice, "try to bring him straight up," Horton says. "You want him to stay as close to the cover as possible. You don't want to disturb him too much.

"Also, try to pull your lure away from him as quickly as possible."

Doing these things "really increase your chances of catching that bass later," he says.

Other Methods

"David Fritts and Gerald Beck say they can tell when a bass bites a crankbait that doesn't have any hooks on it. I can't," Horton says. "But I can tell with a spinnerbait that has plastic tubing over the hook.

"A lot of times you can go right back and catch those spinnerbait fish during the tournament, just like with a jig."