Entry 191-2

Bass Fishing with Debra Hengst

Part 2: Deep Fishing

Question: Debra, you mentioned yesterday that in the tournament you fished on Lake Amistad, you were catching bass at 18 to 40 feet. How were you getting your lures down that deep, and what tackle were you using?

Hengst: I use the Texas Sidewinder medium-heavy, 6-foot, 10-inch rod with 14-pound-test Sufix line. I was really dead-sticking my bait. I’d cast the Zero or the Z TOO out, let it fall and then count it down to the bottom as I fed out the line. When the bait hit the bottom, I’d just let it lay on the bottom and not give it any action. The bass were picking up the bait off the bottom to eat it.

Question: What color were you using?

Hengst: I was using the green-pumpkin red-flake Zeno. I use that color 100% of the time when I’m fishing the Zero, and it’s always been a good color for me. When I’m fishing the Z TOO, I like the watermelon red, or the watermelon with a chartreuse tail.

Question: How did you decide to fish the Z TOO?

Hengst: When I felt the fish were moving up out of that deep water and onto a flat in about 18 feet of water, I’d use the Z TOO. This was a large flat, and apparently no one else had found it, because I had the entire flat to myself. When the bass moved up on this flat at certain times of the day, I’d follow them up on the flat and start fishing the Z TOO. When I figured out their feeding times by seeing them break the surface, I’d know it was time to move from the deep to the shallow water.

I was also using a BioSonic, an electronic unit that gives off a sound that stimulates bass to feed. I’m not sponsored by BioSonic, but I’ve learned to use this machine, and I feel that it does stimulate bass to feed. When I started playing the BioSonic, I actually could see the bass going into feeding mode and breaking the surface of the water. When I saw that top-water action, I’d change from the Zero to the Z TOO and cast to the bass. When the bass moved up from 40 to 18 feet of water, I usually could catch them as shallow as 5 to 8 feet of water.

Too, I changed the speed of my retrieve. When I was fishing the Zero on the lip of the break, I’d let the Zero fall to the bottom and lay still. But when the bass moved up onto the flat to feed, I cast the Z TOO and twitched it up off the bottom in a dying-shad motion. I was able to use this tactic to finish out a limit on the second day of the tournament.

On the third tournament day, I finished my limit with a spinner bait. One of the critical keys to finding and catching bass consistently is to figure out where the bass are holding, and why they’re holding there. If you locate them in deep water on a winter pattern, and the weather slightly warms up, you know these fish will move up out of deep water into shallow water to feed.

If you can determine at what time of day the bass are making that deep to shallow water move and move with them, you can continue to catch them. But you have to change from a slow-moving, non-moving bait like the Zero to a bait that falls faster and that you can work faster like the Z TOO. Most of these baits are cigar-looking baits. I change my retrieve when the fish began to feed. When bass are feeding, they’re much-more active and they usually want a more active bait.

Next: When to Drop-Shot

Contents:

• Part 1: Where I Found the Fish
• Part 2: Deep Fishing
• Part 3: When to Drop-Shot
• Part 4: Wild About the Shiner
• Part 5: What I Like About Tournament Bass Fishing