Entry 25-5

Randy Dearman on Professional Bass Fishing

Dearman's Five Most Commonly Asked Questions

Editor's Note: Randy Dearman of Onalaska, Texas, has fished professionally for 20 years, and he's competed in seven BASS Masters Classics.

Question: What are the five most-common questions that you get asked, and how do you answer them?

Dearman: I often hear, "What is your favorite bait?" I tell them whatever the fish are biting today. I like to fish a jig, but you know a spinner bait is probably the most versatile bait. I like this bait because I can fish it in so many depths of water. If I fish shallow, the bait will swim more shallow. If you slow it down, you can get the bait down deeper. You can fish that bait in 1 foot of water to 20 feet of water with no problems by controlling the speed of the retrieve.

I get asked, "What is your favorite lake?" I tell them I like Sam Rayburn in Texas. I've won a lot of money there. You can do a lot of different types of fishing on that lake. It is a good place to learn to worm fish and to top-water fish. You can fish deep and shallow in that lake. It gives you a variety of different types of water to fish all year long.

I get asked, "What size line do you use?" I use everything from 6- to 75-pound-test braided line, depending on the situation. By changing line sizes on a crankbait to a heavier line, the shallower the bait will run. So sometimes when bass are wanting a really big bait, we may have to throw it on 20-pound line in 6 or 7 feet of water to keep it from actually digging mud all the time. If you want your bait to go deeper, a lot of times by going down to 10-pound-test line, you can get 3 or 4 feet more depth out of the lure. The line size makes a big difference. The size just depends on the situation and the bait.

Explaining to somebody that they need different rods for various crankbaits, spinner baits, Carolina rigging and different clarities of water is hard. You can't use one line size all the time. You can, but you won't catch as many bass. You just have to change line size under the circumstances.

I also get asked, "What is the hot bait right now?" That is a real common question, and it just depends on the geographic area that you are in and the season and the time of the year. There is no one bait that works good all the time.

I also hear, "What size rod do you use?" Again, it comes back to what you use it for. You are naturally not going to use a 5-foot rod to flip. It just doesn't meet that situation. Often, if you are in a lot of real thick timber, you'll need a short rod to make little, short casts under limbs. Again, if somebody says, "I just want to buy one rod, what rod do I buy?" I tell them there is no all-purpose rod for everything.

The rods now work so much better and are built for all kinds of baits. We have rods that we use for everything. If they just want one rod, I'd tell them to probably get a medium-heavy 6-foot rod. They can use it for a lot of different things, but as they start fishing more, they'll learn that these various rods are built for a real purpose.

 
 

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