Entry 89-5

Chad Brauer’s Favorite Five Baits

Why The Zero Is My Hero

Editor's Note: Chad Brauer of Osage Beach, Missouri, is only 31-years old but has been tournament fishing for 8 years. Married with two children, Brauer chooses for us this week his favorite baits and tells us why he enjoys fishing them.

Brauer: I use Strike King's new 3X Zero lure to learn patience. The best way to fish the Zero is just to cast it out, let it sink and watch your line for the bass to bite. I believe this lure is the most deadly when you're fishing in areas where the bass are really getting beat-up by heavy fishing pressure. Another time that the Zero can be deadly effective is during the pre-spawn when bass are moving up to shallow water to spawn and a cold front hits, forcing them back out into the deeper water and many times giving them a severe case of lockjaw.

If you'll cast the Zero out and let it fall on its own, giving it absolutely no action, the lure will wiggle on its own as it falls. The 3X material that it's made of is so sensitive that just the water pressure as the lure falls from the surface to the bottom causes the Zero to wiggle on both ends and in the middle. When the bass takes the bait, you usually won't see a violent strike. You may just see the line twitch or see the line move to the left or right. I think the Zero looks like a minnow that's dying in the water and presenting an easy to get meal to the bass that requires little or no effort on the fish's part to eat.

In 2003, I was fishing a tournament in Florida where the bass were up shallow during practice, and a cold front hit. I was struggling to try and get bites. For some reason, I only had two Zeroes in the boat with me. But when I finally decided to fish the lure, I caught five bass in 45 minutes. That 45 minutes of fishing with the Zero gave me a limit of bass to weigh-in at the tournament and restored my confidence. Then as I fished on throughout the day, I caught some bigger bass and was able to cull some of those first five. However, on most days and in most tournaments if you can produce five bass, you'll do well in any tournament.

I've found that when you have confidence about where the bass are holding but have tried several lures to get the bass to bite and they won't, you can back away from that target, cast a Zero to it, let the Zero fall on a slack line and wait those bass out. Many times that Zero will make those bass bite when nothing else will. When I'm fishing high-pressure situations because of boat traffic or bad weather, the Zero is my go-to bait. The Zero is a subtle bait that will stay in the strike zone of a bass for a long time and produce a very gentle action that will often hypnotize the bass into biting.

Contents:

• Part 1: New Baits
• Part 2: The Denny Brauer Tube and How to Fish It
• Part 3: Why I like the Spinner Bait
• Part 4: Why I Like the Buzzbait and When I Fish It
• Part 5: Why the Zero Is My Hero