Bass Fishing: Now Is Time for Suspending Jerkbaits

Suspending jerkbaits helps you cover more water and attract more strikes from bass.

Suspending jerkbaits, such as Rapala's X-Rap, Lucky Craft's Pointer and Bomber's Suspending Pro Long A, are ideal baits when targeting April bass. 

Whether living in a reservoir, river or stream, a lot is happening with bass in the spring — early spring foraging, preparing for the spawn, recovering from the spawn.

These activities mean bass are on the move. Suspending jerkbaits allow you to cover water, and garner bites from fish that are in a wide variety of moods.

Though suspending jerkbaits can be fished with baitcasting gear, I prefer fishing them with spinning tackle.

A 6.5 to 7-foot medium-power, extra-fast action rod is ideal. Couple this with a quality spinning reel, one in the 25- to 30-size range.

Spool the reel — and this is important — with a quality-braided line, such as Gamma Torque 15-pound test is right.

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Braided line, which doesn't stretch, allows precise control over the level of energy given the lure, from subtle to aggressive. Use a 3-foot length of 10-pound fluorocarbon line as a leader.

Suspending jerkbaits trigger strikes from bass by hanging in the fish's face when the lure is paused. The pause is vital.

Twitching the lure gets their attention, and the pause provides the opportunity for them to eat it. Vary the intensity of the twitch/jerk to find out what bass want.

Oftentimes, particularly as the water warms in May, it's a hard, aggressive jerk that turns bass' head. Kind of like teasing a cat with a ball of string, and then the cat makes its move when you suddenly stop moving the string.

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