How to Catch Bass in November with Mark Davis
Day 4: Why Fish Tubes in the Fall with Bass Pro Mark Davis
Editor’s Note: Bass Pro Mark Davis of Mt. Ida, Arkansas, won the Bassmaster Classic in 1995 and has had five first-place finishes and 44 top-10 finishes. To help you catch fish this month, Davis shares how he catches bass in November.
Tube baits imitate crawfish like jigs do, but they look different and have a different action from the jig. I believe tubes appeal to bass and have a great deal of drawing power. Many times, I’ll only fish a tube during a day of bass fishing in November. Other times, after I fish an area with a jig, I’ll come back and fish that same area with a tube. If I fish an area where many fishermen are using the jig, I use the tube, because it’s a smaller, more-subtle bait, and is more streamlined than the jig. You’ll get some strikes on the tube that you won’t get on the jig. I like the new Strike King Bleeding Tube Bait due to the way it’s designed. Unlike many other types of bait, the tentacles on these tubes are not just stained red. Instead, the inside color of the tentacle is red with another color laid over it. Having the red on the inside of the tentacles produces a flash of red, which I believe looks much-more natural than a big dose of red on the end of the bait.
My favorite tube color for November is watermelon with copper flake, a great crawfish-imitating tube. I fish this bait on 20-pound-test line with a heavy-action rod. I rig the tube Texas style with either a 1/4- or a 5/16-ounce weight and either a No. 3/0 or No. 4/0 EWG hook. These hooks are tube-style with an extra-wide bend in them. I fish the tube in the same places I fish the jig – on points, around boat docks and creek-channel banks and on creek-channel swings and bluff banks. I fish this bait slowly in 5 to 20 feet of water. Since the tube is a heavy plastic bait, you can cast it on a heavy rod. When you have a heavy bait, a heavy hook and a lead sinker, you need a heavy-action rod to set the hook hard. I think you have to set the hook as hard, if not harder, when you fish the tube as you do when you fish the jig. If you use a medium-action rod instead of a heavy-action rod, you won’t set the hook as hard and catch as many bass. I’ve won some bass tournaments using this tube tactic. I’ve learned that if I don’t set the hook really hard when I fish the tube, many times that hook won’t penetrate the plastic, and I’ll lose the bass that bites my jig.
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