Sight Fishing Basics

As the largemouth spawn creeps north from Florida, BassFans have been asking about sight-fishing tips. Because sight-fishing is one of the most difficult fishing techniques, we thought we'd start with the basics. Following are a few tips to get you started, from popular Alabama pro Randy Howell.

Evaluate the Fish

"One of the most important keys to catching a bass you can see on a bed is to make sure the fish is ready to bite," Howell says. "Make sure it's a catchable fish before you waste too much time on it."

To do this, first keep your boat far enough away "that you can still see the fish, but you're not right up on him," he says. The reason Howell isn't more specific is because that distance depends on the water clarity. For example, "in western lakes or places where you have 8-10 feet of visibility, you have to be further back," he notes.

But his rule of thumb is to keep "a good, long pitching distance" away -- "as far back as you can stay without losing sight of him," he reiterates.

Drag and Watch

Like many pros, Howell uses spinning tackle for sight fishing: a 6 foot, 6 inch medium-heavy Quantum Tour edition rod and fast-retrieve Quantum spinning reel, with 12-pound Stren Easy Cast line. "I like green line when sight fishing because it blends in better," he says.

He makes a long cast or skip cast "way past" the bass. "Get the bait to land as far past the fish as you can without causing any commotion," Howell says. "If you can cast onto the shoreline and drag it in quietly, that's best. I catch a lot of fish that way."

Quietly drag the bait onto the bed, and pay attention. "You can tell if the fish will bite by the way it reacts to the first cast," he says. If it attacks the lure, doesn't leave the bed or runs off and comes back within 15-20 seconds, "you know that in 10-15 minutes or less you can catch that fish."

On the flip side, if the big female bass a) swims off and takes a while to come back, b) makes a big (and long) loop back to the bed or c) swims off the bed and keeps on going, "you might as well keep on trucking and find another one," Howell says.

Buck Strategies

That's all well and good, but many times a smaller male or "buck" bass is on the bed, too. His job is to guard the nest, and nine times out of 10 will be the first one to pick up a lure. How do you avoid that?

"You have to watch really carefully," Howell says. "See if the female is aggressive -- sometimes the female will look as if it will try to get the bait before the male. You have to be watching closely to be able to tell. Experience helps a lot."

Importantly, don't hook the male unless you have to. "I've seen it happen a lot where if you catch the male, the female will leave the bed," Howell says. "So what you have to do -- and I've done this many times -- is lead the male off."

Let the buck pick up the lure, gently lead him out to the boat or let him zoom off, then "shake it, shake it and try to get him to let it go." When he opens his mouth, quickly pitch back onto the bed. "The female often will be closer to the bed (she might have swam off a little) and will go after it," Howell says.

If that doesn't work, "you have to catch the male, get him in the boat and in the livewell quickly." The reason is that "you have only a small window while (the female is) still hot to get her to bite. If you wait too long," he says, "she'll swim off."

Bait and Terminal Tackle

Last but not least is lure selection. Howell uses a Hawg Caller Craw Tube , which he describes as a "fat, solid-head tube with big craw pinchers." His favorite colors are green pumpkin and watermelon seed, but he doctors each with Spike-It spray: orange for the green pumpkin and chartreuse for watermelon seed.

As always, proper hook choice is essential. Howell says he's experimented extensively, and found that he "lost more bass" on the extra wide-gap hooks made for tubes "than any other." He's found that the best hook for him is a regular round-bend hook with an offset shank. He prefers the Daiichi flipping hook -- "in 3/0 because that tube isn't very big."

On top of the tube he uses a 1/8-ounce Hawg Caller E-Z Peg weight, which has two bent wires sticking from the bottom. Howell likes it better than screw-lock weights because on the hookset "it comes loose like a bullet weight so it doesn't mess up the hookset. If the cover is heavier, he'll go to a 1/4-ounce weight.