Springtime
(Tidal Water)
Cranking on the Potomac River – Part II
By Chuck Bailey
Naturally the theme of this article (fishing with crankbaits in the springtime of the year), implies that a "transition" is taking place. In large reservoirs, bass that wintered in deeper water will migrate in the spring to shallower waters. In the Potomac River the transition isn’t about dramatic vertical-depth changes; it is primarily about a horizontal move to a change in habitat.
Before explaining the habitat transition Frank further explores the topic of depth. “Remember, deep water is all relative. True, the channel may get down to 30 or 40 feet, but that is where the water moves the swiftest, and most bass don’t like to be sitting in that fast current all winter long. So they may winter in 10 to 12 feet of water, which would be considered deep water for us on the Potomac.”
Grass Growth!
The key to the springtime transition centers around the grass fields, and it changes the locations and patterns when fishing for bass in the springtime. “In the spring,” says Frank, “once that grass starts growing those fish start moving up and go into pre-spawn. That key transition is when the grass starts to germinate and starts to grow.”
New weedbeds are triggered by both warmer water temperature and increased light. “When the warmer rains start in March and April, the water heats up and the grasses start to grow and attract the forage, and that draws in the bass from their winter haunts.”
From the Winter Locations…
Now, that’s not to say that bass can’t be caught in the winter time – even on crankbaits. “You can utilize crankbaits all year long on the Potomac,” insists Frank, though he does suggest using slower presentations – such as a jerkbait, offered with long pauses between each twitch of the rod tip.
For those who will take the time to find them, there are unique winter locations on the Potomac where industry and power plants create hot water discharges. “Two years ago the Potomac record, which was 11.9 pounds, was taken in December. And it was around one of those areas that had a hot water discharge, and was caught in water under 10 feet.”
…to the Springtime Weedbeds
But springtime is a magical time on the Potomac for crankbait enthusiasts. That's because the weed growth has just begun, which draws in bass, and there’s plenty of open water over the grass beds to throw shallow running baits. Later in the summer the weed mats can be extremely thick and they cover the surface of the water, making crankbaits a poor choice.
“The weed mats get so thick,” says Frank, “that when the tide is down, ducks will walk across them.” In the summer months, only the edges of the grass fields are susceptible to a crankbait bite.
Springtime on the Potomac comes sometime in March and April. How does Frank know it has arrived? “When I am throwing a diving or lipless crankbait and bring back the first bright green weeds of the season.” And then, for a month and a half, while the grass is new and still short - shallow running baits will make springtime fishing a real treat.
Find the First Grass, Find The Fish
“In the beginning,” says Frank, “my partner Mark and I will have to go looking for that new green grass. We might have to move 50 miles to find the right weedbed, to locate where is it growing. But it’s going to be there - somewhere on the Potomac. It maybe up north, or it may be down south; there’s only have 108 miles on the lower stretch of Potomac – but somewhere that new grass is already growing.”
The Proper Equipment
When an angler finds the new grass, the only thing left is to fish it. If that angler happens to be in Frank and Mark’s boat, they will be handed a 7 foot, medium-heavy, baitcasting cranking rod. “I use a 6.4:1 ratio reel,” says Frank, “I personally like the Abu Garcia Revo.”
Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, or the fact that he loves to throw fast moving baits, but Frank Karl considers a 6.4.1 ratio reel a “in-between” speed reel. He admits he doesn’t even own a 3.8:1, 4.1:1, or even a 5.1:1 reel. “I do have some 7.1:1 – which is faster, and I use that for my Rat-L-Traps so they don’t fall as fast in the shallow water. These faster reels allow me to have better control of the bait. If I need to slow that bait down – I just slow it down. If I need to rip it - I will speed it up a little faster.”
6.1:1 Gear Ratio
“For me the 6.4:1 is an in-between speed reel. With anything geared lower I feel I am working too hard to retrieve a Rat-L-Trap without it dumping into the weeds. And should the fish dictate the bait needs to go slower, a 7.1:1 reel feels like I am turning one crank an hour. The 6.4:1 is in the middle. I can slow it down, or I can speed it up without feeling uncomfortable.”
“Fact is, I usually carry 12 baitcasters in my boat and only two are 7.1:1’s and the rest of them are all 6.4:1’s. I may use different rods and lines but I use the same reels because I know how they feel. I am already trained. I know exactly how fast a bait is going to come in. I don’t have to look and say, ‘Ok, this is the fast reel”, and “Oh, this is the slow reel – they all feel the same, and I don’t have to make adjustments, and it is the happy medium in the middle.”
Two Different Diameters of Line…
“Typically in the spring I will have two rods set up with identical crankbaits on them. But, I will have one of them spooled with 17 pound Berkley Vanish Transition Fluorocarbon, and another one with 14 pound Spiderwire XXS Mono. Why will I use the same identical crankbait but have two different lines? …because that lure will go a little deeper with the 14 pound test. I use the differing line diameters to help with depth control.”
…and Sometimes Braid
There are times and locations when Frank decides strength is more important than depth control. Frank explains, “When I throw a Rat-L-Trap or spinnerbait, I often put it on 50 pound braid, because there places where large alligator gar in the river like to steal your bait.”
“And, because the Potomac is a tidal water, there will be barnacles on many of the pillars, and they are very sharp. If you get a fish on and he wants to run you up against a log or piling, there is a good chance he is going to cut you off. So I do not like to use light line - I’ve lost too many fish that way.”
Braid is also utilized later in the year because a hooked bass will often bury down into the matted weeds, and as Frank explains “…you just have to horse them out.”
Depth Control
But, in the early spring, Frank prefers the 17 pound test when fishing over the weedbeds. Many times he is fishing a grass field in 3 feet of water with shallow running cranks, knowing that somewhere in the field there’s probably some 5 foot channels that hold some of the bigger bass. That’s when he will throw the same identical bait on 14 pound test line to get down a little deeper. A couple of inches can make all the difference.
On the other hand, the weed growth or a lower tide depth may require his crankbait to be raised a couple of inches, and switching back to the thicker line diameter of the 17 pound test will raise it the required amount to keep it running just above the top of the grass fields.
For those deep water lake fishermen who have a hard time believing a couple of inches running depth can make a major impact on their fishing success, Frank reminds them “When you are fishing a 3 foot flat, you may find a few spots that are only 2 ½ feet deep. Instead of digging your crankbait on the bottom, raising that crankbait 6 inches (by utilizing a thicker diameter line), can lead to just tickling the top of that new growth. And sometimes that makes a big difference.”
Favorite Springtime Crankbait – Baby 1 Minus
Having found new grass, the first shallow running crankbait Frank reaches for is a Mann’s Baby 1 Minus. “In the spring, there is nothing like throwing a Mann’s Baby 1 Minus in about 3 feet of water over fresh green growth in the weeds. Even when the tide goes out (and you may only have two feet of water), you can still throw the Baby 1 Minus. Believe me, if you can pull up some lime green weeds that are 3 to 4 inches tall, you are gong to be in the honey.”
“And it is nothing to catch a hundred bass a day. Sure, a lot of those bass are only 10 to 14 inchers, but on every little flat there are depressions that are maybe only a foot deeper and only 50 feet wide, and that is where you are going to be catching the 3 to 4 pounders. Just a little subtle change in bottom depth can make all the difference. The key is to find it.”
Just how much confidence does Frank have in the Baby 1 Minus? “To be honest, when I go to the Potomac in March I am going to have 4 rods with Baby 1 Minus’s on them; two different colors, each on two different diameter lines.”
Two Confidence Colors
“My number one color is pearl and chartreuse, (just a little white fish with a chartreuse back), with a red eye. The other color will be red – like maybe a Red Craw. Red is an awesome color on the Potomac”
Frank’s choices are based on the primary forage in the river. “You have a lot of crayfish, and a lot of shad. In March, I have caught fish with a 6 inch crawfish in their mouth. (Almost black with red dots on it; looked like a lobster).”
Our Potomac expert is quite content to throw the Baby 1 Minus without any modifications. “I use them right out of the box. If I have to eventually replace the treble hooks, I will use a quality hook – that’s all.”
Hooks and Rattles?
In deep reservoirs, bass moving up from deep water are especially spooky in the early spring. Subtle presentations are often required so as not to startle them. Until they acclimate themselves to the shallows, crankbaits without rattles are often preferred. But in the always shallow Potomac, the Baby 1 Minus, filled with rattles, doesn’t seem to negatively affect the fish in any way.
Rattles may not bother them, but as Frank explains, “The bass will be spooky if they see you in shallow water. In really clear water, long casts are recommended. If the water is stained, I can pitch a bait 10 feet from the boat and not spook them. The clarity of the water determines if the fish are going to be spooky. If it’s clear water you have to stay off, it’s no different than in a lake. If you are right up on top of a key location and you see the bass, 9 out 10 times you are not going to catch it. They are going to scatter.”
The Occasional Clunker
As much as Frank praises the effectiveness of the Baby 1 Minus in taking bass over the new weedbeds, he confesses its one weakness. “One thing I have found over the years is that if the bait doesn’t run well right out of the package, it doesn’t run well - period. You can try to tweak it by bending the eyes and filing here and there, but chances are it’s just not going to run right.”
“On the other hand, some of the lures I have are missing the paint on them because they have caught so many – which means that lure ran perfect right from the box. I’d say 80% of them run great right out of the box. And 1 out of 5 is going to be a clunker. But the vast majority of them are awesome shallow water baits.”
Beyond the Weedbeds
Obviously the new weedbeds are the primary target for the Baby 1 Minus, but they are equally productive in other locations. “Try throwing them around the rocks, especially around the riprap, and along docks.”
“It may be shallow water, but you do have a lot of docks on the Potomac. At high tide the water may be 4 feet deep in front, with the very last piling up against the bank in only a foot and a half of water. And at low tide you may only be at 3 feet at the front and the back piling will be out of the water. When you fish the docks, throw the Baby 1 Minus past the targeted piling and crank it down.”
Casting Direction and Current
The current is also going to determine the direction of an angler's cast, depending on whether it is coming in or going out. “I discovered that my trout or steelhead skills, (developed while fishing in streams), paid off big dividends when fishing any place on the Potomac that has good current flow.”
Trout and steelhead in streams often position themselves behind rocks or trees where there is a current break and wait for forage to be swept past. When a possible meal comes by, they quickly slip off the structure and consume it, and dart back to the calmer water of their ambush point. Likewise, the Potomac bass, do the same thing.
The crankbait enthusiast wants to throw their bait “up-current” and retrieve it past those ambush points with the current flow. “Those bass are waiting in ambush on that hard structure,” explains Frank, “and when your crankbait comes by in the current, they’ll just come out and get it.”
Crankbait Action?
It’s not uncommon for lake fishermen to fret over whether their crankbait should have a tight wiggle or wide wobble. But the fine differences in a crankbait’s action are almost irrelevant in a current situation because most of the forage the bass are used to ambushing are primarily being moved along by the current and not actually moving themselves. The bass in a tidal river are not concerned with evaluating a crankbait’s wobble or wiggle.
As Frank points out, “The river bass are just so geared to eat during the movement of the tide, to ambush forage floating by, that a tighter or wider wobble rarely makes a fish think, ‘Hmmm, I’m not going to eat that today.’ If the tide is moving and an angler gets their crankbait in their strike zone, they are going to come out from their ambush site and attack it.”
Which Way Did They Go?
Then Frank adds, “What’s tough - is to get those bass to bite during the slack tide. We lake anglers often think 'Aw, the water is like a lake now, its calm, but I’m used to catching them in these conditions.' But slack tide is when it is the toughest to get the bass to bite."
Many of the active fish simply wander away from the feeding station at slack tide, spreading out or perhaps heading for a resting area. But not all fish leave their feeding stations, and as Frank explains, “I’ve actually seen bass just shut down; they just sit down and get lazy. They will just sit in the weeds or under that log – but the fact is, if a bass doesn’t want to eat - it isn’t going to bite - anything.”
“That's true anywhere, but it is more so,” declares Frank, “on a tidal water river during slack tide. Think about it; slack tide means that the bass now have to move, (expending a lot of energy), in order to capture a meal. If the bass sees a little fish getting away, he’s got to go after it, if he wants to eat it.”
“Whereas Potomac river bass are geared to sit tight on a piece of cover and wait for something to wash past them; then they don’t have to move as much, they just dart out and get it and move back in behind that structure. Instead of chasing it down, they let the bait come to them.” And since that rarely happens during a slack tide, the bass become inactive.
Frank puts it this way, “If you spit in the water and it doesn’t go anywhere, you’re in for some tough fishing.”
Favorite Crankbait #2: Rat-L-Trap
What might a angler throw besides a Baby 1 Minus in the early spring? Frank doesn’t hesitate, “You are going to throw the Rat-L-Trap. My number one choice is a ¾ ounce chrome and blue. It’s a classic bait, and it’s the bomb! You can throw it in the same places as the Baby 1 Minus, but it is better if you can get it into a little deeper water – 4,5, or 6 feet, or even going up against the rockier banks, or where there is some gravel with little chunks of weeds here and there.”
Retrieval Speed?
A speedy retrieve is Frank’s primary presentation. “You might be sitting in 4 feet of water and throwing up against the bank, and then just ripping the bait back to the boat. I’m talking about burning that Rat-L-Trap; speed reeling.”
“Even so, you need to let the bass tell you what they want. Many days the faster you crank it, the better the reaction bite you will get. If you fish slow, sometimes you don’t get bit, and visa-versa.”
“One of the advantages of having a fishing partner like Mark Knapp is that I tend to fish fast. Mark prefers a slower retrieve. Between the two of us, we can find a pattern pretty quick. There are times when he points out, ‘Frank you are going too fast; I’m getting the bites when I am going slower’. We let the fish tell us what they want.”
Like the Baby 1 Minus, Frank does not modify the Rat-L-Trap, unless it is one of the old models that do not come with the new ‘set-lock’ hooks; a fairly recent improvement. “The set-lock hooks Bill Lewis is using now are excellent, but the old style regular hooks, well, I will replace those in a heart beat. But if they have the set-lock hooks, the Rat-L-Traps are awesome.”
Waiting on the Topwater
Equipped with Baby 1 Minus’s and Rat-L-Traps, an angler is ready for springtime bass on the Potomac. But an angler can’t help but wonder if it might not be a good idea to take a few topwater baits along as well.
“Will we throw a topwater in March? Yeah, we always try it, because if the conditions are right, it can be a deadly weapon. And we have caught them in 47 to 50 degree water temperatures. But we really like to reserve topwater for May through October. In May the weeds start to get a little thicker, and it gets a little harder to throw your diving crankbaits, and topwater can be highly effective and extremely fun to fish. But for early spring, the diving crankbait bite is at its peak.”
<TO BE CONTINUED>
If you missed Part I - Frank Karl described the Potomac in the springtime as a crankbait gold mine. He explored the unique challenges of the tidal system, and how water movement and feeding stations often lead to “running the tide”. We studied tidal bass behavior, the biology of new weedbeds, and why making constant adjustments to changing river conditions is key.
In Part III – a third favorite crankbait is discussed, and more vital tidal secrets are discussed. The impact of weather, (including wind, waves, and confronts), upon shallow water environments are explored, and some final important advice is given to those desiring to fish tidal water rivers for lunker bass.
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Frank Karl is one half of Team IIK. His partner Mark Knapps and he have been fishing bass tournaments for 18 years and the Potomac is one of their favorite bodies of water. Make sure to check their "Rod Caddy" that can attach easily to the back of almost any bass boat. For more information, check out their website www.team2kfishing.com.
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