Entry 32-1

When Strike King Saved the Day and Other Pertinent Fishing Information with Denny Brauer

Tubes Save the Day

Editor's Note: Fifty-three year-old Denny Brauer of Camdenton, Missouri, has competed in bass tournaments professionally for 23 years. He won the BASS Masters Classic in 1998 and has had 61 top-10 finishes. An avid angler of Strike King Lures, Brauer has helped Strike King design some of their most-popular products.

Question: How has a Strike King lure saved a tournament for you?

Brauer: I competed in the BASS Masters Classic on High Rock Lake, near Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1998. I began by fishing a jig and found some shallow lay-down logs along an old mud bank. I had already fished about halfway down this bank during the official practice day with a jig, which was the bait the fish were biting. But on the day of the tournament, I never had a bite on the jig. That made me wonder whether those fish had left the bank or whether they were still there. Then I said to myself, "I'm going to try something different."

I put on a Strike King tube bait and started flipping it. The first tree I flipped it in I had a bite and was able to get the fish to drop the bait. So I returned to the tree and pitched a jig and a bass blew up on it. I took the bass off and went to the next tree where I had fished already and had another bite. I left the bank and knew I was going to have a good chance of winning the tournament due to the profile of the bait.

The size of the bait made the difference to those fish because they were feeding on shad and preferred the profile of the tube more than the bulkiness of the jig. The jig puts out a lot of pressure waves that the fish can feel, but the tube is much softer. The bass seemed to prefer a finesse-style presentation on this day. And even though I fished the bait on heavy line on a flipping stick, just by downsizing the bait I gave those fish exactly what they wanted. This experience not only taught me a successful tactic, but it won the tournament for me.

Question: What made you decide to switch to the tube?

Brauer: Over the years, the jig became my pet bait for fishing heavy cover and for flipping and pitching. The problem with a lot of soft-plastic flipping baits like the jig or worm is that you can't get the longer-style baits into the tight cover without their wrapping or hanging up. However, the tube offers a compact presentation like a jig, which allows you to penetrate the cover with a smaller, subtler profile. It puts out pressure waves more conducive to what a baitfish does rather than the crawfish that a jig imitates. So it was a one-two punch for me, and a bait that I'd previously had some success with.

While I'd never won a tournament with a tube, I had caught some fish with one. I understood the shortcomings of the bait, and winning helped me understand more about the nature of the tube. So, we were able to develop the bait into what is now the Strike King Flip-N-Tube. We added the solid heads so it doesn't slip down on the hook every other pitch. You can catch a good mess of fish with the Flip-N-Tube before it tears. The tube was a bait I felt wasn't big enough for our flip-n-style hooks, so I made it longer so it would hold a No. 4 or a No. 5 hook. We made the flipping tube a bait ideally suited for what I needed in that tournament circumstance.

Question: Denny, when you flip a jig and realize everybody else that's fished down the bank has flipped a jig, is it a good idea to switch to a tube bait to get strikes?

Brauer: It certainly can be. Anytime you run into a situation where there are a lot of people fishing a given area, giving the fish a different type of lure from what they've seen from other fishermen can help. But there are periods when fish just prefer jigs. Sometimes switching to a different color jig can be similar to changing baits. I carry some color combinations in my tackle box that I'm sure a lot of anglers don't fish often, white being one of them. Many anglers don't fish white jigs, so I use them in high fishing-pressure situations. But downsizing and fishing a tube is another good option.

You could also downsize to a smaller jig like a Strike King Bitsy Bug, the Strike King Flip-N-Spin and the Strike King Square Bill Crankbait Series 1 and Series 4S. The crankbaits come through the same cover you flip and pitch jigs in. They dive at the depth you put them in, where the fish hold and crawl through the cover well. You can fish them on heavier line and get those fish out of the same type of places you'd be flipping. Plus, you give the bass a different look from the type bait that you've been fishing with the jig.




 

© 1996-2008 Strike King Lure Company