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How To Catch More Suspended Bass With FFS

Use these 3 forward-facing sonar tactics to activate cold-water fish and spark more hook-ups.

How To Catch More Suspended Bass With FFS
Keeping tabs on bass suspended in deeper water with forward-facing sonar helps anglers tantalizingly work lures over their heads. (Photo courtesy of Z-Man Fishing)

Love it or hate, forward-facing, live sonar is here to stay. Critics argue that this fish-finding technology makes catching too easy by displaying the precise location of fish around the perimeter of the boat in real time. Proponents push back, countering that it’s still up to the angler to pick the right offering and get bass to eat it.

Without a doubt, the primary benefit of forward-facing sonar (FFS) is the access it provides us to bass that that suspend in deep, open water during the winter months and, historically, have been difficult if not impossible to catch.

Long before the advent of FFS, anglers recognized that there is a significant population of bass that spend the winter months away from shore, suspended in the middle to lower sections of the water column. The random and constant movement of the baitfish they follow requires the boat to be positioned directly over the bass in order to track their depth and movement with 2D sonar. With FFS, however, we can target these fish with incredible precision while looking ahead of the boat, tracing their every movement in real time to carefully present a lure right in front of them.

If you find yourself debating whether to take the leap and invest in a forward-facing sonar unit, or if you’ve recently purchased one and are now trying to improve your proficiency, this article will outline three techniques sure to bring more largemouth bass to hand using FFS.

WINTER SUSPENDERS

To determine bass behavior any time of year, one must know and understand the forage, particularly the large schools of threadfin and gizzard shad that occupy most Southern reservoirs.

During the winter months, shad form large schools or “bait balls” as they migrate up and down deep river and creek channels. These schools can be massive, often filling the fish-finder screen when idling and scanning with downward sonar. Depending on the type of reservoir, be it a lowland or highland impoundment, shad aggregations may be in water as deep as 60 feet, yet hovering approximately half-way down the water column. While these big baitfish schools are on the move within the general confines of a channel, they aren’t directly relating to the lake’s bottom. Instead, the shad are meandering throughout the water column with the bass in close pursuit.

Small packs of largemouths will commonly hunt along the fringes of the bait balls, making mad dashes through them to catch shad by surprise. It is fascinating to watch this play out on an FFS screen. The baitfish schools can be seen breaking apart as the bass pass through. The surviving members recover and resume their defensive positions as part of a large mass that makes it harder for predators to single out specific prey for the next attack.

Other groups of bass that suspend during the colder months seem content to wait for the action to come to them. They typically hang out over broad, primary points in a main creek or tributary, even when the bait isn’t in their immediate vicinity. These bass are drawn to the warmth of the sun’s rays on clear winter days, and they will rise to within 10 feet of the surface, often from water two or three times that depth. Once a school of shad approaches, said fish suddenly become activated and will pursue any feeding opportunity that arises.

A largemouth bass in deep water.
With winter’s arrival, many bass stage in the middle to lower areas of the water column, staying as warm as possible while targeting schooling baitfish. (Photo courtesy of goran_safarek / Shutterstock.com)

TAILORED TACTICS AND LURES

The key to catching suspended bass consistently in winter is to make them feed upward by keeping the lure enticingly above them, regardless of the type of artificial or the technique employed. While some fish will occasionally follow a lure toward the bottom as it descends past them, bass are far more likely to rise and chase an offering presented above their heads.

The following trio of baits, and the respective FFS techniques required for targeting suspended winter bass, have become integral parts of most tournament pros’ arsenals.

1. Suspending Jerkbait

Since long before the arrival of live, forward-facing sonar, the jerkbait has been a winter staple due to its erratic action and ability to suspend when the retrieve is paused. By hanging virtually motionless in the water column, the lure has an almost mesmerizing effect on cold-water bass, which have repeatedly shown a willingness to swim up from the depths to take a swipe at it.

The jerkbait is ideal for bass feeding within 20 feet of the surface, but even deep-diving jerkbaits typically run only 8- to 10-feet deep. If fish are feeding in depths of 30 feet or more, that jerkbait may not get a lot of looks from bass preoccupied with shad schooling at a closer depth.

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As stated earlier, however, there are groups of bass that will rise from greater depths on bright, sunny days, providing an ideal scenario for a jerkbait presented overhead. The use of FFS allows an angler to look in front of the boat to detect the presence of suspended bass, then present a jerkbait with tantalizing precision over their heads. Should anglers not pinpoint any bass with forward-facing sonar, they can simply move to another spot without wasting valuable time fishing unproductive areas.

The retrieve cadence has long been a key to triggering bass strikes, and the use of FFS allows anglers to experiment and fine-tune the retrieve, noting the fish’s reactions in real time until they arrive at the presentation that prompts an attack on the jerkbait.

2. Damiki Rig

A lead-head jig with a 90-degree line-tie and rigged with a compact soft-plastic grub has emerged as one of the primary means of targeting suspended bass. Often called a Damiki rig after one of the earliest makers of this style of jig head, this nuanced concoction remains horizontal in the water thanks to the counter-balance weight running along the hook shank. The soft-plastic grub used is often a mere 2 1/2 inches in length, and its straight-tail design produces virtually no action, which perfectly mimics the subtle movements of a hapless minnow or shad.

Proper weight for the jig heads varies from 1/4- to 3/4-ounce, depending upon the depth at which the bass are staging. When they are within 15 feet of the surface, a 1/4-ounce head works well. If bass are suspended at greater depths, a heavier jig head is required to reach the intended target quicker. As an aside, experience has shown that the closer the bass are to the surface, the easier they are to catch. As the fish get deeper, the proper timing for getting the jig to fall and intercept the target as it moves through the water column becomes increasingly more difficult.

Like with a jerkbait, the ideal presentation is executed while watching the action unfold on a forward-facing sonar screen. Start by opening the bail of a spinning reel and letting the lure descend until it is 5 to 10 feet above the bass. Then, engage the reel and allow the lure to swing toward the boat as the line tightens and you turn the reel handle slowly, all the while holding the rod tip at the 10 o’clock position. As you observe the bass ascending to investigate the lure, a cat-and-mouse game must ensue. You achieve this by reeling increasingly faster to keep the lure away from the approaching bass. This mimics the natural response of a lone baitfish being pursued, and often sparks a sudden surge and a take from the tracking predator.

3. Neko Rig

A simple adaptation of the weightless wacky rig, the Neko rig features the same type of soft plastic held on the hook by an O-ring placed in the middle of the worm. The difference is a nail weight inserted into the nose of the bait, which causes it to fall vertically through the water column.

The Neko rig should be presented in much the same way as the Damiki rig, casting toward a bass located on the forward-facing sonar screen and letting the lure descend toward the target with the bail of your spinning reel open. This rig, however, can be lifted, twitched and dangled a few feet above the bass, then allowed to drop again toward the fish. If a bass doesn’t rise to the lure, let it fall once more and twitch it with a few short lifts of the rod tip. That way, the bait practically dares the bass to come and eat it, a provocation few fish can resist at any depth.


  • This article was featured in the December-January issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.



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