Entry 114-2

George Cochran and the Keys to Catching Bass

How to Catch Follow Fish

Editor's Note: This week George Cochran, two-time Bassmasters Classic winner and long-time Strike King Pro Team member, will tell us how he fished five tough tournaments and the tactics and the baits he used to survive in them. Often to do well in a bass-fishing tournament or to catch bass on the weekend, you have to use somewhat offbeat and often seemingly inappropriate techniques and lures. Here's a look at how Cochran handled five tough tournaments.

Cochran: One of the most-aggravating problems you can have in a bass tournament is to see fish following the bait and not be able to catch them. But, this past year, on Table Rock Lake in Arkansas, I learned how to fish to help solve this problem. I'd found bass on channel swing banks where the channel hit the banks and then swung back the opposite way. I was fishing a Strike King Series 3 crankbait in the crawdad color on
8-pound-test line to try to catch the bass on those channel swings. I'd make really long casts, hold my rod tip down in the water to try to get the bait down to about 8 to 10 feet and crash the lure into the rocks. When the crankbait hit the rocks, I'd slow down my retrieve for an instant and start the retrieve again and try to hit another rock.

I knew that I was attracting the bass to the bait using this technique. However, for some reason, a good percentage of the bass weren't taking the bait. To solve this problem, I'd stop winding the bait at the end of my retrieve, once the Series 3 crankbait started leaving the bottom and moving toward the surface. I'd then let the Series 3 sit still in the water when it was 5 to 8 feet from the boat, and that's when the bass would attack the lure.

I really believe that the bass were watching the bait as it hit and bounced off the rocks, following the bait back to the boat. Then by stopping the bait just before it reached a point where the bass could see the boat, I was triggering those bass to bite. So, any time bass follow your boat, yet don't attack that bait, oftentimes you can stop the lure and trigger a strike.

Another thing to remember is that most anglers stop fishing and start reeling a lure in quickly when the lure is 12 to 15 feet from the boat. However, if bass have been following your bait, that last 12 to 15 feet from the boat can be the
most-critical place to get a strike - especially on a follow bait like the crankbait. So, many times by continuing to fish and cast past the point where other anglers have given up on their casting, you can trigger strikes and get bites that other anglers won't get.




 

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