Pat Xiques expertly reveals the little-known "One Ton" technique to throw a Hula Grub on a heavy football jig with a stout rod, reel and line for bass feeding on deep water baitfish.

Okay men! The "One Ton" technique? It is basically throwing a Hula Grub on a heavy football jig with heavy rod, reel and line.

Actually, I rig two rods when I'm one-tonning, 3/8 oz. and 1oz., both with Hula Grubs. I typically use a flipping stick, a 6:1 reel (Shimano Chronarch) and 16 lb Sugoi Flouro.  I am usually relying on electronics in 30 to 45 feet of water to find bait schools that have bass under them. I let how far off the bottom I mark the bait schools and especially where I mark the bass determine which weight football to throw:

1) If the fish are suspended in mid-water, I throw the 3/8 oz. bait in hopes to finesse one out from the water column. Not my favorite thing - believe me. It's a tough bite to detect. Use flouro. It helps me with sinking the bait and bite detection. 

2) If I mark fish on the electronics that are on or near the bottom, then I use the 1 oz. bait to get down to them quicker. 

When I mark long tapering points with fish in cover on them, like 1/4 mile points that stretch into 45', I like to keep the boat shallow and throw that bait as far as I can towards deep water where bass and cover were marked. That's the reason for the big rod. Trust me, between the big rod and the big bait, you can cast that One Ton out a quarter mile! I then tight line it down so that if it gets hit on the way down I will detect the hit on the tight line. Once it hits bottom, I'll snap the bait off of the bottom with a sweep of the rod. Between the long rod and no stretch quality of fluoro line, the bait really gets some action when you sweep it. I guess you can picture this as something similar to spoon-jigging - only horizontal with a Hula grub. Most of the hits come as the bait falls back to the bottom after your sweep. Once you have gotten some bites and a feel for where the fish are, move the boat in closer towards them and you can then narrow your casts to long pitches in front of the boat, and tight line it down right into them. Sometimes you can get it so that its almost a vertical presentation if you narrow your fish down in location, and position your boat almost over them.

I honestly feel that this technique imitates a baitfish - whatever kind of various little silvery, greenish/bluish baitfish swim around where you fish.  You should choose a Hula grub that best fits the baitfish in size (series 93/4", series 97/5", series 99/6") and match the color of your baitfish. Often, bass you catch will spit up baitfish to help you tune into the color and size Hula grub to throw.

Don't overthink this, men. It's imitating a baitfish when you use this method. So make it act like a baitfish. Swim it with a slow steady retrieve, long hops, snap it off of the bottom - whatever, just don't shake it or crawl it slowly like you do when you are imitating a crawfish. Yes, there are other times and circumstances when the very same Hula grub can and should be used to imitate a crawfish, but not when you're in a situation when bass are feeding on baitfish schools. When that's the pattern, you should fish the Hula grub as a baitfish in baitfish colors. What's a baitfish color? Try using white (036), Daiquiri Ice (237), Smoke Hologram (238), Blue Pearl Hologram (239) for starters. Then there's a bunch of other clear and smoke base colors with silver, gold or other metallic flakes. You don't need them all, but you do need a few options to better match the hatch or otherwise trigger bites on any given day.

You have to use and trust your electronics. If you see large schools of baitfish on your screen, whether alewives, bluebacks, threadfins, golden shiners ( or whatever's the prevalent open water bait where you fish), then start looking for arches (gamefish) just under them. Just because a spot holds plenty of bait schools - it doesn't mean you will get bass from it. My point is that every school of bait does not have bass on them - so look for bass as well as bait. I will tell you that experimentation and experience is the key here. I know that there are some electronics units that will not show as much definition as the Bottom Line unit that I use, so for some of you, if your units do not really pick up the underlying gamefish arches, then locating the large schools of bait and working the bait school thoroughly might be the ticket.

I can go on here forever, but I've got to go. I'm out runnin' to do some One Tonnin'.

See ya!

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