The Megabass Vision 110 isn't just for prespawn bass in cold weather, you can use it year-round

Practice makes perfect. Unfortunately I don’t get in as much fishing practice as I’d like, but over the years through my travels I’ve developed in a few specific baits.

How can anyone say they don’t like a top water bite?

If you say you don’t, you’re lying!

I traveled all the way to Panama, to the world’s top yellowfin tuna fishery, based just on the promise of big fish on topwaters. It lived up to its reputation. When bass fishing, I don’t yet have a lot of confidence in a spook so I typically choose a popper, Lobina Ricos are my favorite. They’ve worked for me on the Potomac, the James River, Lake Anna, El Salto and Picachos. That gives me a comfort level whenever I pick one up. In the early morning or towards sunset, when the fish want a moving bait I constantly pop the lure back to the boat. When the water is cooler and the fish are a bit lazier, I find that a slower retrieve works better. I pop it once, let the lure sit, pop it again again, let it sit and then do some variation of that pattern until – BOOM! -- the fish jumps out of the water and onto my bait (makes for a great picture). I know that it’s jus a matter of figuring out what they want on that particular day.

I choose the Rico over other poppers I’ve tried as I believe it splashes the best and makes the best sound whether you twitch it fast or pop it slow. Many times I’ve had a blowup the fish comes back barely hooked (not sure how it missed the other five hooks) and still stays on. I chalk that up to the great quality of the hooks.

The Lobina Rico and Rio Rico are the best poppers made for bass, worth every penny.

I might’ve made that sound easy, and it can be, but becoming a really good angler is hard -- don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. That’s why a popper is a good lure to learn with, because you can see, hear, feel what you are trying to catch.

When I first started fishing the popper I used to set the hook at the first sign of life, often pulling the bait away from the fish. Sometimes the fish never came back, and the action was pretty scary for me, too. Imagine six razor-sharp hooks flying back at your face. Over time, I figured out to wait, even if just a fraction of a second, for the fish to close their mouth around the bait in order for me to set the hook and reel the fish in for a proper release.

Just writing this is getting me so excited for our next trip to Anglers Inn in less than two weeks. It also haunts me – I still want revenge for a trip I took in the summer of 2015. Against the wishes of my guide “Senor Lizard” (otherwise known as Armando), whose favorite lure gave him his nickname, I was popping my Rico along and hooked up with a G-G-G-Giant bass. When it jumped Armando’s voice shuddered and he nervously said, “Twelve pounder.” My partner, Brian Thompson, saw the fish jump as well and he put his rod down to try to help. As I reeled in the fish, I experienced a full range of emotions: Heart pumping, then my heart sank to my stomach. By the time Armando grabbed for the net, reminding me that it was a “big fish,” a split second later – SNAP! -- no time to get the net in the water to catch her, no time for Brian to get down and grab her, she was gone. The line had snapped and she took my favorite popper with her.

I’ll get you my pretty. I’ll be back!

The seven inch Gary Yamamoto Senko in green pumpkin is a good choice for big bass -- not just largemouths, but smallmouths too, although the 5 inch model may be better for them

Sometimes the bass don’t want to come up for a topwater, so in that circumstance my confidence bait is almost always a Gary Yamamoto Senko. My preferred way to fish it is Texas rigged. The wacky rig just isn’t my “hook up.”

I can’t fathom the number of fish I have caught on a Senko. When nothing is happening for me while fishing the Potomac River I prepare Texas rigged Senko and cast out and pray. I know that with a lot of patience I will eventually get bit. It works just as well every place I’ve visited where bass swim. On a trip to Escanaba, Michigan I spent four days in bronzeback heaven throwing nothing but Senkos. I broke my personal best smallmouth twice with a 5.24 and a 5.42. Would they have eaten something else? It doesn’t matter. I knew that they would eat a Senko. I have caught seven bass over 9 pounds and the majority of them have come on a Senko. Two in the same day, on two different lakes, El Salto and Picachos, using a Senko. Just writing that, it almost convinces me just to go down with a suitcase full of my favorite soft plastics.

While I have developed extreme confidence in those two baits just about anywhere I go, I’m still working on others. You can’t just read about it and think you have it. It takes time on the water. Two baits that I am gaining confidence in are the swimbait and the jerkbait. It’s not often that I get to throw these baits on the Potomac or on our other bodies of water near home (partially because I don’t fish them at the right times), so when I travel to Anglers Inn I have to practice, practice, practice. On recent trips to Anglers Inn I have been throwing a jerkbait more and more and learning how incredibly productive it can be.

The Megabass Vision 110 jerkbait is a good all around choice for bass anywhere

The first time I threw a jerkbait was on a small private lake in Texas, out of the back of a boat, with our friend Terry Battisti who tried to show me the snap and pause retrieve. I can only imagine what people would have thought I was doing with my body, I’m sure it looked as if I was having a stroke or dancing for dollars and the bait wasn’t catching any fish. I gave up and ended up throwing a Senko.

I never forgot his instructions, though. Now, instead of erotica on the deck, there is only erratic action of my bait in the water and the bass getting reeled into the boat. At home, my infrequent trips to Lake Anna, where there is clear water, windy banks, tons of boat docks and several points, is basically the only chance I get to throw jerkbaits, but it’s mostly a prespawn thing. I don’t get out a lot when it’s super cold, but when I do the Megabass Vision 110 in Sexy Shad is one that has worked well for me. It’s loud and flashy, and tempts the fish to come out and see what all the flashing is about.

The jerkbait is properly named. You need to jerk it in the water, tweaking your retrieve and cadence – jerk, jerk, pause – jerk, pause – jerk, jerk, jerk, pause – and sometimes I mix in pulls. This all depends on what the fish want, meaning you must pay attention to what you are doing and when the fish bite. It seems to change constantly.

One of the best days on the water with my jerkbait was on Lake El Salto early in the morning. When the bait was up making bubbles on the water you would throw into the bubbles -- snap snap POW, fish on! As soon as the bubbles died down, you could cast to those spots but you wouldn’t get any strikes. Then the pop pop of the fish feeding appeared again. I’d cast out and BAM, fish on. It was like a game of whack-a-mole on the water. The scenario never presented itself like that again but it’s one I surely look for each time I’m there. That experience gave me another scenario in my mind where I could use this lure that had previously been a mystery to me.

The Storm wildeye shad is an inexpensive swimbait that is very good for big bass in Mexican lakes

The swimbait comes is so many different sizes, shapes, colors, in both hard and soft bodies. Some of them have weights in them to sink to the bottom and others are made to swim through heavy grass and weeds. I’ve learned that fishing a swimbait takes patience, a slow- to medium-speed reel so the bait emulates the real look of a baitfish swimming and doesn’t roll over.

So far, most of my success has been with the inexpensive soft plastic pre-rigged models as opposed to the giant expensive ones. As with the popper, it took time to figure out when to strike. Now once I feel the fish “tick” (so hard to describe unless you have one on the end of your line) I’ve learned not to jerk too quickly. Instead, I wait for the rod to load up and then lean into them. I don’t reel down I just jack them into next week. Once I figured that out my hook up ratio was getting better and better. I plan to try a wider variety of swimbaits on upcoming trips to Mexico to figure out those presentations and also to gain more confidence with swimbaits overall.

Fishing is so much more than casting and reeling. You don’t need to be a professional to be successful, but you need to add a dose of confidence to what you learn if you want to grow…and more importantly, to catch more fish.