Entry 181-3

Mark Davis’ Five December Patterns

Part 3: Catch More Fish This Month With the Sand Blaster

Editor’s Note: A big and often quiet man, Mark Davis of Mt. Ida, Arkansas, is one of the most-fierce competitors in tournament bass-fishing today. Davis has won in years past the title of B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year and the Bassmaster Classics and more than $1 million over the years in tournament bass-fishing. This week, Davis will give us his best five December patterns for catching bass.

Mark DavisQuestion: What’s your third choice of lures for this month?

Davis: I like the Strike King Sand Blaster, especially if I’m fishing a clear lake. The Sand Blaster is a tail-spinning lure that you can fish in deeper water than crankbaits. The Sand Blaster is a very-unique lure because it slides on your line, rather than being tied to your line. Your line runs through the body of your Sand Blaster, and then attaches to a split-ring on a travel hook.

The Sand Blaster is like the old Mann’s bait, the Little George. But the difference is the Little George was built on a wire frame. The Sand Blaster has a high-quality ball-bearing swivel that the blade’s attached to on the tail of the lure. The line runs through the lure and ties to the hook, rather than the line’s being tied to the bait like the Little George. One of the reasons I like the Sand Blaster is most bass fishermen have forgotten about it. It’s one of those old lures that’s used to catch a lot of bass for many fishermen. As new lures came to the marketplace, many anglers forgot about it, but this lure never stopped catching bass. It will produce as many bass as it did when it was first produced, and maybe more, because the bass haven’t seen this lure in many years.

The bait looks like a dying shad falling to the bottom. When you pump the bait up off the bottom, it swims up, and then you kill the bait, which makes that tail look like a helicopter falling to the bottom and will produce a lot of strikes. Mark DavisAnother thing I like about this bait is it catches many different species of fish. You’ll catch not only bass, but white bass, stripers, hybrids, crappie, walleye or any other fish in a lake that will eat a shad.

Question: How deep do you fish the Sand Blaster?

Davis: I’ll fish it as shallow as 5 feet and as deep as 40 feet. One of the things I do when I’m fishing deep is take the standard blade off the tail that comes with the Sand Blaster and put a smaller blade on it. The deeper the water I’m fishing, the smaller the blade I’ll use on the tail of the bait. The blade on the Sand Blaster works just like the blade on a spinnerbait. By that I mean, the bigger the blade I use on the Sand Blaster, the more hits I get on the bait. Getting the bait deep with a bigger blade is tough.

Mark DavisAnother thing I’ll do is put a willow leaf on it to give the lure a different look. You don’t have as much feel when you use a willow-leaf blade as you do when you use a Colorado blade, but you’ll give the bait a different look and action. By changing up the style and the size of blade you use on the back of the bait, you can take one lure and make it look like different lures with various actions, and actually change the way that lure fishes, just like you do a spinnerbait.

Question: Where will you be fishing this lure?

Davis: I’ll fish it on creek and river channel drops, long points, the outside edges of deep grass, humps out in the middle of the lake and in open water. When I use my depth finder to find those big schools of suspended shad, I’ll drop the Sand Blaster through that school and catch bass holding under or around that school of shad.

Question: How many fish do you expect to catch with the Sand Blaster?

Mark DavisDavis: Wooo, Wooo! You can have a 30- to 60-fish day, if you find the fish. Remember, if you’re fishing the Sand Blaster, you’ll also catch other fish besides bass. You may not want to catch white bass, but you’ll catch some. You may not want to catch drum or walleye, but you will. Remember, any fish that eat shad will eat this bait. So, you’ll have a great time fishing this lure this month.
 

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