Going Deep in the Heat

Breaking through on a new technique.

Since the end of the month long tournament in July I have been motivated to improve my bass fishing skills. I ended up in 19th out of 54 anglers which was probably higher than I belonged based on my skills but was not where I wanted to be. I spent a majority of the month fishing shallow that is what I was comfortable with and actually at the end of June and early in July I was catching some nice fish. My first trip of the tourney I caught my largest of the event a 19 incher. As the month wore on though that bite went from big fish to 13 inch dinks. I tried every shallow presentation I knew but I couldn't catch any size. Every day I watched my self slide down the ranks as I struggled to upgrade,I needed to make a change. I finally had enough and decided to break one of my cardinal rules and experiment during a tournament.


 After a suggestion from a coworker to try crankbaits I went through my box and found some deep diving crankbaits to try. With two weeks left  in the tournament I had a new plan to use my electronics and fish deep structure 20+ feet something I had never done before. I hit the water the next evening and worked the cranks
in some of the deeper cove areas where I caught the shallow. My first trip I caught one 14 inch fish in 4 hours of cranking my hand ached and I was a little dissapointed I thought it would be easier to catch them. I fished the final two weeks of July and through the first week of august before it finally clicked. I located a hump in an otherwise featureless area I cranked the Strike King 5xd down to the hump and all of a sudden felt mushy I set the hook
 and reeled in a 19.5 inch large mouth. I continued working that hump and received 5 hits back to back and landed two more solid fish. My deep water fishing has progressed quickly since that breakthrough day and my trips have become maybe more productive than shallow fishing the quality is definitely greater.

Bonus Outkast takes it D.E.E.P.