Go Big for Bedding Bass

Pro Tips Weekly with Ish Monroe

Everybody has his own ideas about the best baits and approaches for bedding bass, but I’ve had the best luck using the 7-inch Mizmo Ish Tube for fish that weigh more than 5 pounds. I know some guys like to finesse bedding fish or use smaller baits, but my theory is that the bigger the bait, the more irritating it is to the female and the more inclined she’ll be to hit it. It’s like when you’re a kid in a playground; you see other kids your size come and go, and you don’t pay much attention to them. But when an adult stranger comes in, you notice, and it sort of bothers you.

It’s the same with a bedding female bass. She’s not interested in eating, and maybe the only way she’s going to pay attention to your bait is because it’s too big to ignore. It aggravates her, and she has to do something with it. Sometimes it happens quickly, but sometimes you really have to work to get her to actually come up and grab the tube. Reading the mood of the bass can help you decide if you want to stay there and fool with her. If she scares off really quickly but comes right back, she’s fishable. If she rushes away and stays away, you need to back off and return later to blind-cast to that fish. This also means you’ve got the bed exactly pinpointed so you can find it again without getting too close to it. If you’re in a tournament, time is the limiting factor, but if the fish is big enough it might be a good gamble.

Another factor to consider is the smaller male, if he’s in there. If he seems to be keeping the female in the bed, I don’t try to catch him. But if he seems overly aggressive toward the female, I might try to get him out of there. Really, though, there is no consistency to this approach, and it varies from bed to bed. Sometimes when the male hits the bait, the female will actually come over and literally take the tube away from him.   

Otherwise, I try to keep things pretty simple. First and foremost is being quiet and subtle. That means approaching so that your shadow isn’t where it shouldn’t be and turning off your electronics – avoid anything that might disturb the fish.

The Ish Tube is a big bait that has its own action. You don’t really have to do anything except get it in the bed. I fish it on a 12/0 wide-gap hook that’s custom-made in Japan, and I use 65-pound-test braid with no leader. I keep the colors pretty basic, too – either watermelon red, white (ghost), green pumpkin or bluegill. The color of the water and the distance from the bed are the main determining factors for color selection. One trick that has worked for me over and over is getting the tube in the bed so that I can actually bump the female with it. Usually, that’s all it takes to get her to eat it.