SnakeBite Custom Fishing Tackile

Tube Fishing

Frank Maher Jr.

President of the Albany Area Bassmasters
Monthly Columnist for Into the Outdoors "Bassin' Around with Frank
Maher"
5 Time Federation Eastern Divisional Qualifier
Contender Wrangler National Championships 1995
New York State Bass Chapter Federation Angler of the Year 1993
Four Time Bassman of the Year - Albany Area Bassmasters
Four Time Angler of the Year - Greylock BASS
Numerous tournament wins on regional and local waters.

Tubes
Fishing information in general, has historically been slow to reach the Northeast, my home area, but now with the internet, information is just a click away; to borrow the phrase. It is my goal, in this article, to help fishermen everywhere to understand the rigging and techniques that are used in successful fishing with tube baits. I have been fishing tubes, for a lot of years, but got off them in the late 80's in favor of more "power" techniques. I still used to fish them in the spring, from late in the pre spawn through the post spawn period, when I felt that I had to appeal to shy or stubborn fish. Once the bass moved into their summer patterns in the warmer water, I didn't even bother to carry them with me, let alone actually fish them. A chance outing in the fall of 1997 reopened my eyes to their effectiveness. A good friend and I got together to fish on New York's Hudson River, just below Albany. I ran all of my best spots, on the right tides, and used plastic worms, jigs and grubs, while my partner worked a tube bait. By the end of the day, he had put a whooping on me of biblical proportions, and I was sitting in my truck on the way home shaking my head. Those bass ignored my worms, jigs and grubs, but gobbled up the tube drifted in front of them. I learned from that experience, and now I carry tubes all year long, and not just for self defense; I usually have one tied on.

RIGGING

My favorite way to fish tubes is to rig them on a jig head with an exposed hook; no weed guard. My favorite jig heads weigh in at 1/16, 1/8, and ¼ oz and sport a light wire, 2/0 hook. Which weight jig head to use depends on weather, water and structural conditions, as well as the mood of the fish. I prefer a high quality hook, like a VMC, to insure that I can convert a high majority of my bites into pounds at the weigh in. To rig, hold the tube in one hand and the jig head in the other. Insert the jig, lead head first into the tube and when you have it in as far as you can, puncture the plastic with the hook eye, then tie your line directly to the hook. If everything is set up correctly, the hook eye should be from 1/8 to ¼ of an inch back from the head of the bait allowing the tube to spiral downward on the fall; a deadly presentation. An exposed hook on the rigged tube works great around sparse cover or in open water; but there are those situations when reluctant bass are relatingto wood, brush or heavy weed growth. When faced with this angling problem, a Texas rigged tube is the only way to present your bait to the fish without constant hang ups. My personal preference in hooks is a wide gap model, like the Eagle Claw HP Hook. The HP hook, with the little clip on the eye, will hold your bait in place and keep it from slipping down; rigging instructions are included on the package. For a typical 3 ½ inch tube, I prefer a 1/0 or 2/0 hook and choose to weight it with a worm weight, the size of which will depend again on depth, water and weather conditions. For the larger tubes, designed for flipping, a 3/0 or 4/0 hook is preferred and your weight should be ¼ oz on the light side, and heavier as the density of the cover increases.

RODS-REELS-LINES

My rod and reel choice for casting a tube bait, is a custom wrapped 6 foot G. Loomis blank, medium-heavy in power, with a fast action, Tennessee handle, and rated for 8 to 15 lb line. This stick is then dressed with a high quality spinning reel with an excellent drag. The Tennessee handle allows me to place my reel where it is the most comfortable for me, not the majority of people purchasing that rod model. My favorite line for this style of fishing is a 6 to 8 lb test premium line, but I avoid the stiffer lines and spool up with something like Stren EZ Cast, P Line, Original Stren, or Trilene XL. I prefer to stick with clear line except in extreme conditions, and avoid fluorescent lines on my home waters. Green line is popular in some parts of the country but is difficult for me to see in lightly stained water. The nice thing about the rod I described in the previous paragraph, is that this model also works well with Texas rigged tubes when fishing around cover. It has the strength to bury the barb of a worm hook into the jaw of a bass as well as move him once he figures out that he is hooked. In my home area of the Northeast, Zebra Mussels have become a problem in some waters by clinging to every piece of hard structure under the surface. Their razor sharp shells, cause line abrasion, and you will break off unless you use an abrasion resistant line. In that case, I've found that lines like Berkley's Trilene XT and Stren's Super Tough will work well on wide spooled spinning reels if you soak the spool in a sink full of water before you go out. Commercial line dressings also help to keep the wiry properties of these lines in check.

HOW MUCH WEIGHT IS THE RIGHT WEIGHT?

When you are fishing any kind of finesse bait, you want to use as light a weight as you can get away with. For a rule of thumb, when fishing from the shoreline out to about 8 feet use a 1/16 oz weight, from 8 to about 15 feet I feel the most comfortable with a 1/8 oz weight, and when working deeper than 15 feet or if I'm in a heavy wind shallower than that, then I go with a ¼ oz weight.

These weight selections apply whether Texas rigging or using an exposed hook on a jighead. Of course, different situations call for different weights; flipping or pitching a tube bait calls for weight greater than 1/16 oz if fishing the shallow, stained water of a feeder creek of a southern reservoir, but 1/16 oz will be fine on a shallow clear water flat of Lake Champlain in the Northeast with sparse weeds and cruising fish. Likewise, a ¼ oz leadhead may be the way to go in the vicinity of the offshore shallow shoals on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee or New York's Oneida Lake. My recommendations on weight should be viewed as guidelines.

PRESENTATIONS

The lure is simple, your presentation should be simple and natural, and the bass should eat it up. In situations where an exposed hook is called for, that is structural conditions are such that a jighead with an exposed hook is the most efficient presentation, make the cast to a target area, and allow it to sink on a slack line. You should have an idea of how long to allow your lure to sink to hit the bottom, and at that point, you should tighten up and feel for a fish. If the lure isn't near where it landed, chances are that a bass is swimming with it; set the hook. If you don't have a fish, you can begin your retrieve with little hops along the bottomor you may choose a swimming retrieve. Whether to retrieve along the bottom or to swim the bait depends on many things such as the position of the bass in relation to the structure, and the mood of the fish. I like to retrieve my lure along the bottom by using a series of little pulls and stops, sometimes allowing the tube to sit on the bottom for an extended period. Often when I pick up on the bait, a bass has engulfed it. With a swimming retrieve, a long cast is made and the lure is also allowed to sink. Tighten up the slack, feel for the bait that should have sunk to the desired depth, and begin the retrieve. Again, upon tightening up, if that bait doesn't appear to be near where it entered the water, set the hook as you might have a fish. With my style of a swimming retrieve, a combination of rod action and the reel are used to move the lure. I'll turn the reel handle and pull the rod tip parallel to the water's surface, maintaining a depth. I occasionally squeeze the rod handle to make the rod tip quiver, imparting enough movement to the tube to trigger an interested fish. Following bass, especially shy largemouths, will sometimes swim along behind the lure, and when triggered, clamp their jaws over the bait. You may not have any idea that he's there, except that you will feel just a little resistance while reeling. If you are in tune with this pattern, you might have a great day while everyone else is struggling. In the Great Lakes and some of the huge natural lakes of the northeast, smallmouths will hold on hard bottom flats adjacent to offshore weedbeds and sunken islands. An odd ball retrieve to try when they won't respond to standard offerings, is to rig your tube with a heavier than normal jig head, and allow it to hit the bottom on the cast. A couple of erratic lifts and drops may draw a strike, but if not, don't give up without reeling the lure as fast as you can for about 10 or 15 turns and then killing it, letting it to sink back to the bottom. Smallmouths, due to their natural aggressiveness, find it hard to resist this presentation, and I've put many a fish in the boat from areas that I was ready to give up on.

STYLES AND COLORS

Most of the tubes used in my area of the country are the standard 3 ½ inches; the ideal size forage for keeper sized bass. At times you will want your tubes to imitate a creature crawling or laying on the bottom like a small fish, crawfish, or leech, and other times you want it to appear like a swimming baitfish. In all cases, you are trying to make the tube bait appear to be something edible to the bass; you are attempting to create an illusion. When fishing for bass that I feel are locked in on the bottom, I like the darker colors like pumpkin, brown, green, dark smoke, red, or green pumpkin. When using a swimming retrieve I like smoke, chartreuse, chartreuse with sparkle, clear with sparkle, and smoke with sparkle. These colors are translucent to a bass highlighting the bait against the sky from below. To me, when in doubt about what color to throw, I always felt that smoke was at least the second best color that I could throw. When selecting the larger tube baits for flipping and pitching, I prefer the traditional darker colors like black and chartreuse, black and blue, junebug, black with red sparkle, and brown. One thing that I have learned over the years, is
that color does matter.

Good Fishing: Frank Maher




	*Tube Fishing* Frank Maher Jr. President of the Albany Area Bassmasters Monthly Columnist for Into the Outdoors "Bassin' Around with Frank Maher" 5 Time Federation Eastern Divisional Qualifier Contender Wrangler National Championships 1995 New York State Bass Chapter Federation Angler of the Year 1993 Four Time Bassman of the Year - Albany Area Bassmasters Four Time Angler of the Year - Greylock BASS Numerous tournament wins on regional and local waters. Tubes Fishing information in general, has historically been slow to reach the Northeast, my home area, but now with the internet, information is just a click away; to borrow the phrase. It is my goal, in this article, to help fishermen everywhere to understand the rigging and techniques that are used in successful fishing with tube baits. I have been fishing tubes, for a lot of years, but got off them in the late 80's in favor of more "power" techniques. I still used to fish them in the spring, from late in the pre spawn through the post spawn period, when I felt that I had to appeal to shy or stubborn fish. Once the bass moved into their summer patterns in the warmer water, I didn't even bother to carry them with me, let alone actually fish them. A chance outing in the fall of 1997 reopened my eyes to their effectiveness. A good friend and I got together to fish on New York's Hudson River, just below Albany. I ran all of my best spots, on the right tides, and used plastic worms, jigs and grubs, while my partner worked a tube bait. By the end of the day, he had put a whooping on me of biblical proportions, and I was sitting in my truck on the way home shaking my head. Those bass ignored my worms, jigs and grubs, but gobbled up the tube drifted in front of them. I learned from that experience, and now I carry tubes all year long, and not just for self defense; I usually have one tied on. RIGGING My favorite way to fish tubes is to rig them on a jig head with an exposed hook; no weed guard. My favorite jig heads weigh in at 1/16, 1/8, and ¼ oz and sport a light wire, 2/0 hook. Which weight jig head to use depends on weather, water and structural conditions, as well as the mood of the fish. I prefer a high quality hook, like a VMC, to insure that I can convert a high majority of my bites into pounds at the weigh in. To rig, hold the tube in one hand and the jig head in the other. Insert the jig, lead head first into the tube and when you have it in as far as you can, puncture the plastic with the hook eye, then tie your line directly to the hook. If everything is set up correctly, the hook eye should be from 1/8 to ¼ of an inch back from the head of the bait allowing the tube to spiral downward on the fall; a deadly presentation. An exposed hook on the rigged tube works great around sparse cover or in open water; but there are those situations when reluctant bass are relatingto wood, brush or heavy weed growth. When faced with this angling problem, a Texas rigged tube is the only way to present your bait to the fish without constant hang ups. My personal preference in hooks is a wide gap model, like the Eagle Claw HP Hook. The HP hook, with the little clip on the eye, will hold your bait in place and keep it from slipping down; rigging instructions are included on the package. For a typical 3 ½ inch tube, I prefer a 1/0 or 2/0 hook and choose to weight it with a worm weight, the size of which will depend again on depth, water and weather conditions. For the larger tubes, designed for flipping, a 3/0 or 4/0 hook is preferred and your weight should be ¼ oz on the light side, and heavier as the density of the cover increases. RODS-REELS-LINES My rod and reel choice for casting a tube bait, is a custom wrapped 6 foot G. Loomis blank, medium-heavy in power, with a fast action, Tennessee handle, and rated for 8 to 15 lb line. This stick is then dressed with a high quality spinning reel with an excellent drag. The Tennessee handle allows me to place my reel where it is the most comfortable for me, not the majority of people purchasing that rod model. My favorite line for this style of fishing is a 6 to 8 lb test premium line, but I avoid the stiffer lines and spool up with something like Stren EZ Cast, P Line, Original Stren, or Trilene XL. I prefer to stick with clear line except in extreme conditions, and avoid fluorescent lines on my home waters. Green line is popular in some parts of the country but is difficult for me to see in lightly stained water. The nice thing about the rod I described in the previous paragraph, is that this model also works well with Texas rigged tubes when fishing around cover. It has the strength to bury the barb of a worm hook into the jaw of a bass as well as move him once he figures out that he is hooked. In my home area of the Northeast, Zebra Mussels have become a problem in some waters by clinging to every piece of hard structure under the surface. Their razor sharp shells, cause line abrasion, and you will break off unless you use an abrasion resistant line. In that case, I've found that lines like Berkley's Trilene XT and Stren's Super Tough will work well on wide spooled spinning reels if you soak the spool in a sink full of water before you go out. Commercial line dressings also help to keep the wiry properties of these lines in check. HOW MUCH WEIGHT IS THE RIGHT WEIGHT? When you are fishing any kind of finesse bait, you want to use as light a weight as you can get away with. For a rule of thumb, when fishing from the shoreline out to about 8 feet use a 1/16 oz weight, from 8 to about 15 feet I feel the most comfortable with a 1/8 oz weight, and when working deeper than 15 feet or if I'm in a heavy wind shallower than that, then I go with a ¼ oz weight. These weight selections apply whether Texas rigging or using an exposed hook on a jighead. Of course, different situations call for different weights; flipping or pitching a tube bait calls for weight greater than 1/16 oz if fishing the shallow, stained water of a feeder creek of a southern reservoir, but 1/16 oz will be fine on a shallow clear water flat of Lake Champlain in the Northeast with sparse weeds and cruising fish. Likewise, a ¼ oz leadhead may be the way to go in the vicinity of the offshore shallow shoals on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee or New York's Oneida Lake. My recommendations on weight should be viewed as guidelines. PRESENTATIONS The lure is simple, your presentation should be simple and natural, and the bass should eat it up. In situations where an exposed hook is called for, that is structural conditions are such that a jighead with an exposed hook is the most efficient presentation, make the cast to a target area, and allow it to sink on a slack line. You should have an idea of how long to allow your lure to sink to hit the bottom, and at that point, you should tighten up and feel for a fish. If the lure isn't near where it landed, chances are that a bass is swimming with it; set the hook. If you don't have a fish, you can begin your retrieve with little hops along the bottomor you may choose a swimming retrieve. Whether to retrieve along the bottom or to swim the bait depends on many things such as the position of the bass in relation to the structure, and the mood of the fish. I like to retrieve my lure along the bottom by using a series of little pulls and stops, sometimes allowing the tube to sit on the bottom for an extended period. Often when I pick up on the bait, a bass has engulfed it. With a swimming retrieve, a long cast is made and the lure is also allowed to sink. Tighten up the slack, feel for the bait that should have sunk to the desired depth, and begin the retrieve. Again, upon tightening up, if that bait doesn't appear to be near where it entered the water, set the hook as you might have a fish. With my style of a swimming retrieve, a combination of rod action and the reel are used to move the lure. I'll turn the reel handle and pull the rod tip parallel to the water's surface, maintaining a depth. I occasionally squeeze the rod handle to make the rod tip quiver, imparting enough movement to the tube to trigger an interested fish. Following bass, especially shy largemouths, will sometimes swim along behind the lure, and when triggered, clamp their jaws over the bait. You may not have any idea that he's there, except that you will feel just a little resistance while reeling. If you are in tune with this pattern, you might have a great day while everyone else is struggling. In the Great Lakes and some of the huge natural lakes of the northeast, smallmouths will hold on hard bottom flats adjacent to offshore weedbeds and sunken islands. An odd ball retrieve to try when they won't respond to standard offerings, is to rig your tube with a heavier than normal jig head, and allow it to hit the bottom on the cast. A couple of erratic lifts and drops may draw a strike, but if not, don't give up without reeling the lure as fast as you can for about 10 or 15 turns and then killing it, letting it to sink back to the bottom. Smallmouths, due to their natural aggressiveness, find it hard to resist this presentation, and I've put many a fish in the boat from areas that I was ready to give up on. STYLES AND COLORS Most of the tubes used in my area of the country are the standard 3 ½ inches; the ideal size forage for keeper sized bass. At times you will want your tubes to imitate a creature crawling or laying on the bottom like a small fish, crawfish, or leech, and other times you want it to appear like a swimming baitfish. In all cases, you are trying to make the tube bait appear to be something edible to the bass; you are attempting to create an illusion. When fishing for bass that I feel are locked in on the bottom, I like the darker colors like pumpkin, brown, green, dark smoke, red, or green pumpkin. When using a swimming retrieve I like smoke, chartreuse, chartreuse with sparkle, clear with sparkle, and smoke with sparkle. These colors are translucent to a bass highlighting the bait against the sky from below. To me, when in doubt about what color to throw, I always felt that smoke was at least the second best color that I could throw. When selecting the larger tube baits for flipping and pitching, I prefer the traditional darker colors like black and chartreuse, black and blue, junebug, black with red sparkle, and brown. One thing that I have learned over the years, is that color does matter. Good Fishing: Frank Maher 2001 Property of SnakeBite Custom Fishing Tackle. All rights reserved.