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Blade Runners in the Wind
By Russ Bassdozer & Marc Marcantonio

Aug. 7, 2001

Hello! Come on in. It's Russ Bassdozer and Marc Marcantonio here.  In a recent article, Fetch Me a Breeze Please, we told you how to find a few locations to catch bass in the breeze.  Now this week, we're discussing baits and tactics...to run blades in the wind!

MARC : You know Russ, fishing the wind presents its own set of challenges that you have to make adjustments to accommodate. I have upgraded my boat's batteries to Rolls Group 30's so I continue to have power to fish the wind. In extreme cases I also use a windsock, which has allowed me to continue to fish a productive wind pattern when everyone else heads for sheltered water. That windsock has allowed me to have entire areas to myself, and it has recently accounted for a big tournament win for me. The windsock slows my drift down to manageable speed, and allows me to focus on my fishing instead of my electric motor control!

RUSS : Running the trolling motor on HBP can often take precedent over the actual task of fishing in the wind. It's definitely desirable to have a long shaft positioned as far under the choppy surface as possible. On the truly blustery days, the guy in the back has got to be ready to fire up the big motor in an instant if the electric motor can't keep you a wise distance back off the reefs and rocks! That windsock sounds like you've got something there, Marc!

MARC : I believe so, but let's get to presenting some baits for the wind - spinnerbaits!  Right off, I'm surprised at that middle spinnerbait (yes, I recognize the brand!) in your picture. It is one of my personal favorites...how did you find out about these? By the way, when the wind lays down, try that same VPR-Pro with double gold willowleaf blades.

RUSS : I am surprised you ask, Marc! You know the 'Dozer knows! It is the VPR Pro Little Big Man by Competitive Edge Fishing (www.ce-fishing.com)! As the name implies, it is "little" in appearance because most of the weight mass is shaped like a "fish belly" hidden under the skirt. It is "big" to me in that a heavier grade of rod/reel/line can be used with it, and it will still track true. I believe the placement and shape of the fish belly weight makes the bait track true on heavier line whereas other styles of spinnerbaits just would not fish right. The painted blades are also stamped of thicker metal plate, so that helps the blades track better at the high speeds I like to burn these buggers.

I like to burn the 3/4 oz. "white on white" (two white willow baits with white skirts) just under the surface as fast as I can reel it! I hold the tip down to the water and just turn that reel handle as fast as my hand will go! After about 10 retrieves like this, I usually crumple to the deck gasping for air!

My favorite areas for this are over large expanses of numerous shallow humps, reefs, ledges and boulders with variable depths of 3 to 30 feet. Honestly, this tactic doesn't matter to me if it is a windy day or if there's not a cloud in the sky, not a ripple of wind! Big bass will come out of every crack, shadow and gray spot on an irregular bottom to smack down those whites on whites with a vengeance.

I also burn these Little Big Men along "nothing-looking" banks as I use the trolling motor to move from one "spot" to another "spot" a few hundred feet or yards away. This flushes out plenty of bass on the "nothing" banks that would otherwise be hard to pinpoint with a slower bait. Reel them so fast that the bass have to race behind them for 10-15 feet just to catch up! If the bass swipes and misses, he'll never catch up to it again, and that is the time to get the spinnerbait back in the boat, and feather a weightless Senko or Ika into the vicinity where he was last seen heading to the bottom. If that doesn't work, chances are the bass may be "en route" towards the closest piece of cover or even slinking back to the specific spot the bass initially came out of - so cast again and work the the initial cover the bass flushed from, then work it back out to the boat along the "cover" route you anticipate the bass will linger or transit back to the place it started from after being flushed out by the Little Big Man. Hmmm? This Little Big man sounds like a bird dog? Yup, it is!

MARC : Yep, my experience with the VPR-Pro LBM matches yours, and your description of the unique qualities of the Little Big Men is right on the money. The weight distribution and balance of this spinnerbait seem to be perfectly suited to the fast-reeling technique we are talking about. It has amazed me that I've told countless people about this lure, particularly in the summer when the "grass" beds are topping out near the surface everywhere, yet they still fail to try it! Spinnerbaits may all appear the same at first glance on the store shelf, but smallies don't bite them on store shelves! This is one lure that no matter how many people hear that the Little Big Man catches smallies, they still won't fish it and wear it out. Because of that, I expect that it will produce for me for many years to come, even in the most pressured waters.

Although this blade is versatile, as you have pointed out, it is simply deadly on bronzebacks, especially in the wind. It amazes me that many bass anglers won't hesitate to throw a spinnerbait for largemouths, but most seem to ignore them when hunting smallmouths. Guys are missing out on a ton of fun, because burning blades is a top smallmouth technique, particularly on a windy summer day.

This time of the year the smallies are very active on windy days. The waves break up the water's surface, which disperses the rays of the sun, effectively putting a dimmer control on the sun. At the same time, the wave action mixes the water, increases the saturated oxygen, and attracts and disorients baitfish. All of this makes perfect hunting conditions for predatory smallies, so they step up their activity level as if they were kids eating candy. Right now, mid-summer is the time to BURN a blade bait. When a smallie sees that blade burning past, it charges up from below and tries to yank your rod out of your grip!

If the sky is dim, my favorite model blade is the white, or white/chartreuse VPR-Pro Little Big Men in the 1/2-ounce size, with double white willowleaf blades. With a gray sky, the painted white blades catch all of the available light, and reflect it like a beacon. If the sun is shining, I have more success with double willow gold blades.

RUSS : I like how you describe those painted white blades catching all available light and "reflecting it like a beacon".  Speaking of the 1/2 oz. size, another tactic I use involves the 1/2 oz. chartreuse/white-bladed Yamamoto baits with chartreuse skirts retrieved moderate-to-fast and kept up high within a few feet of the surface...and killing them dead every so often which is when the bite comes on this bait. On a real choppy day with a lot of refracted surface light, I love to launch those big bright and gaudy Yamamoto's over wind-swept points and shoals. Those blades throw flashes out for several feet in all directions! That's why I keep them a few feet under - to "super-size" the flash zone all around this bait in that choppy water. They're like little "quiet riots", like little cop cars speeding along under the surface with the sirens and cherry-tops turned up high! In clear water, smallies will rocket up from rubble beds thirty feet deep to obliterate these baits! Key here is to kill the retrieve for a moment when you feel the bait is passing over a smallie's holding spot on the bottom - a barely-visible rock, dark edge of a shelf, any gray crack or rubble spot, or where deep water lightens up off a point. Intentionally kill the Yammie blades as they come into the clear just past these places. Sometimes they'll smack it hard enough to knock the back blade off the wire. Often, you'll have a wind belly in your line, and the line just mushes up on you, just a bit more tension than the wind was making in the line belly. You can't even be sure it's a bass until you strike - and they're on!

Now about this line belly thing, it is an important point to ponder briefly. I often "fish the line" in the wind rather than fish the spinnerbait! "Fishing the line" means I have the rod held up at a particular angle to keep a certain amount of desirable belly in my line. Neither a slack, billowy belly nor a tight tense belly, but an "equilibrium point" where the line's not loose, not tight - just right. As the wind gusts and makes the belly bigger, I'm reeling the line in, removing the belly at the same rate it's being made by the wind. The rod tip's up, my body, rod, line and wind are all postured at angles complementing each other so I can "fish the line" properly.  In this way, the "speed" of the retrieve is merely a function of these combined variables...so that the spinnerbait just keeps up in the water tagging along behind all this orchestration like an innocent bystander. ...until you kill it.  Sometimes you just turn to ask your partner, "What'd you say?" or pause to toe the electric into HBP...and KER-SMACK! You've got one at that instant!

I use a Lamiglas S-glass blank for the blade tactics described so far. The rod's soft so it maintains a desirable constant bow of slight tension in the tip - just like I desire for the line to have a slight tension and bow in it. Keep in mind, this is for tactic #2 with the 1/2 oz. Yammies. With tactic #1 (burning 3/4 oz. Little Big Men), I've got the tip down, almost dipped in the water to keep all the line under the water...and a big bow with lots of tension all in the rod. Sometimes when a fish follows, I'll pump the rod quite sharply to bounce the Little Big Men in its face, but not disrupt the retrieval pace.

Now, the rod tip is soft, but the rod mustn't fold over and collapse on the hookset. You'll only roll them over on their sides in slow-motion, and dump every one with a rod that collapses. That's frustrating! If it happens to you when you try these techniques, the rod's too light. You'll need a soft tip, yes - but not a soft rod!

Another technical point about the equipment - look for a big wide gap round hook with a long point like you see here in the pictures. You'll only roll fish over on the hookset with anything smaller or stubbier. A 5/0 is about right to stick them.

MARC : I also like S glass rods, but more recently I have switched over to a Lamiglas XC704 C model. This rod is a graphite/glass composite, so it weighs less than a S glass rod, but still has the advantages of a soft tip for casting control and to keep the rod from pulling the blade out of the mouths of smallies too soon when they whack it. You don't need a stiff tip for the blades mentioned here, as their hooks are so sharp that good hooksets are automatic. The 7-foot length of this rod allows for long distance casts, and excellent control when fighting a big smallie. I think of this rod as the perfect "open water" rod.

When I use these blades around shoreline cover, particularly docks, I switch to an XCF 665 glass rod. This shorter length (6 foot, 6 inches) allows me to rapidly fire roll casts with accurate precision around and under obstacles. Where accuracy is important, switch to this shorter rod.

With both rods, I use McCoy 12-pound test line with these techniques.

Now, you've talked a lot about rocks, Russ, but when I decide to sling blades, I specifically look for wind-blown weedbeds. Smallies love to prowl weedbeds during windy days, as they provide cover below, and 100% of their minimum daily requirements within! That wind action makes both the macro invertebrates (and the smaller fish that feed) on them easy pickings. If you can find a weedbed that has a sprinkling of boulders, or some other object that parts the green carpet or leaves open bald spots in it, you have found a honey hole for windy smallmouths!

I like to cast as far as possible, and then burn the spinnerbait across the weed tops all the way to the first opening in the grass. Once I reach the inside edge of a hole, I quickly stop turning the reel handle, and simultaneously jerk my wrists down directly towards the lure. This provides a brief moment of complete slack, which allows the bait to drop a couple of inches, and the skirt suddenly flares in the face of a watching smallie. That presents a challenge that no self-respecting bronzeback can refuse! Usually the moment you pull your hands back to a reeling position, the bass has jumped all over your lure. If I fail to invoke a strike, I continue reeling until I am dead-center over the boulder or stump that creates the hole, and kill the bait again. If there is still no strike, I do this once again at the next edge of the hole, just before the blade leaves the hole in the weeds.

If for some reason a smallie swipes and misses at an attempt to destroy the blade, I am ready to follow-up with my beloved Senko. My favorite is the 9S style in color #031. I figure that the bass had already seen a flash of white that triggered it to strike the spinnerbait, so I follow it with another flash of white - the Senko! This has proven to be a deadly one-two for knocking out an active smallie. I rig the Senko with a Gamakatsu 1/0 G-Lock hook, and use 8-pound test McCoy Mean Green mono on a Lamiglas Titanium TBS663 spinning rod. The smallies don't have a chance!

Well Russ, that about wraps up what I have to say about burning blades in the wind. It isn't difficult but you do have to master it, then it becomes deadly! Hopefully, guys who haven't tried it will follow this article and haul in a bounty of bass that they've been missing in the wind!

Related Story
Tough "T" Grubs
By Russ Bassdozer

Autumn is traditionally the best time for frantic fishing action with flashing spinnerbaits and gurgling buzzbaits!  Now, autumn is also the best time for tough new spinnerbait and buzzbait trailers!

The "T" in our 16T, 12T, 18T and 19T series trailers stands for TOUGH. It's a tough new plastic formula that's perfect for spinnerbait and buzzbait trailers.

	The tough plastic tails do not tear as easily
	Resists slipping down the hook shank as much
	The tough plastic body grips tightly to the keeper collar on our spinnerbaits and buzzbaits
	The tough plastic makes a heavier vibration, yet has the lightly-breathing Yamamoto tail action

Yamamoto currently offers 56 choices of buzzbaits and spinnerbaits (Egads!). Buzzbaits come in 4.5" small and 5.5" jumbo sizes (both 1/4 oz.), either gold or silver buzz blades and six skirt colors. Spinnerbaits have 3/8, 1/2 or 1 oz. heads, light or heavy wire arms, and six tandem blade/skirt colors. Gamakatsu long shank, wide gap hooks are precisely the right size to hook and hold more fish! Sampo ball bearings, premium skirts, high quality blades and paint. No detail has been overlooked, right down to the head shapes custom-designed by Gary Yamamoto with the extra long trailer keeper collars to keep your grubs up where they're supposed to stay!

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