Im a 30yo bass fishing enthusiast and have played the role for the past 3 years fishing local club tournaments and being a "human sponge" on the back of the boat. Since last summer i've been placing in the money or right outside for the most part when I'm able to capitalize on fishing my confidence bait, being Texas rigged plastics. Not owning a boat, I fish urban/farm ponds during the week when I can and decided in January that I was going to practice hard to make the very versatile and ever deadly "fluke" or soft-jerkbait an effective weapon in my arsenal for obvious reasons.
Before, I go on…I'm going to try and not get long-winded with my learning experience, but will be publishing this to my blog after posting her on the lovely BassResource forums, to hopefully share mine, that might help someone's. You've been warned about the informative information ahead, and would suggest carrying on with the remainder
My past experience with a soft jerkbait was limited, but have managed a few decent fish out of fishing a Fluke stlyed bait. Out of lack of confidience and frustration, it didn't get wet much.
Let talk gear. I own 6 baistcasting setups of various lengths, action, and reel gear speeds. Before doing any research, I was selecting a rod that was to long and stiff for this application. I put away the 7'6" Med-Hvy Veritas, for a Shimano SJC70M or a 7' Med/Fast rod with a shorter butt end handle. This was key for me several reason; my Abu Garcia Veritas 7'6" was to long for comfort making short twitches with the tip pointed at the water. I love a Veritas spilt grip, but as most longer rods, the handle length increases and was catching my shirt and being simple in the way when trying to nail a pattern/cadence with the Fluke. As far as line selection, I worked with what i had on my half a dozen rods I would bring on the boat and for the most part went for my reel with 40# PowerPro mainly due to the lack of strech to gain more action on the bait. As for a reel, I started using and still use my BPS ProQualifier 7:1:1, that is, in my opinion, one of the best reels on the market in the sub $100 range. And last but not least, I stuck with the tried and true Zoom Pearl Super Fluke and didn't waver to far besides and occasional baby bass color switch.
And now, to give you a quick run down of what setup I currently use and what changes made it more effective. I throw my weightless soft jerkabaits on a combonation of a BPS ProQ 7:1:1 reel, Team Diawa 7' LT (light & Tough Med/Fast) casting 50# PowerPro original green with a 18"-24" Flouro leader, Seguar 15# Insi-X tied together my all time favorite, Albright knot. Before explaining why I changed, I feel that the keys to fishing this bait properly is retrive/cadence a selecting the right style line. The other parts of the setup are important, but if your retrieve isn't suited for what the bass want and your line isn't properly chosen, your missing opportunites.
A rod that's shorter, lighter with enough backbone helped me cast this weightless rig further, as well as giving the bait more action and versitility in tighter spots. A highspeed reel, with enough bearings and adjustments to help casting lighter baits and retreiving fast and irratict seemed to be the only choice for me. Lastly, the line selection that really helped me land more fish and allow the platic to be worked more sub-surface if the conditions call for such. You may ask yourself, why 50# Braid? The answer very simple, it casts marvelous and found it to cast better than 30-40# braid. Also, if get around pads and vegitation, braided line is a must. It also tremendously help with the popping action due to the lack of strech and made the bait dance just right with no line twist and less maintenace, IMO. the flouro leader helps give the bait that slow fall and often pause longer to get into grass pockets, etc.
For hooks, when trowing a Super Fluke, I agree with Flukemstr, that a #5 Round Bend work perfect, and rig the bait the same way he does a fine job of in his first "Fishing a Fluke" YouTube video. I like rigging it with the belly of the Fluke facing up, so the hook is nestled in the cavity nice for premium hooksets. Speaking of hooksets, I've found that reel-setting has a very high hook ratio, and have lost more strike worth counting trying to set the hook, like a bottom Texas rigged plastic. the retreive varies, but my go-to is the, jerk-jerk-jerk pause, jerk-jerk-jerk pause method. The short pause is crucial in landing more fish, because as we all know that fall in the bait, bass cant stand it! I typically don't vary my retreive, and keep it moderate-fast. I read in a KVD somewhere, that solid reaction bite from shallow laying bass is due to the bait being above the bass and an easier meal for him along with the irratic action the puts the bass on a defensive reaction bite. If your bait is slowly moving along above him, with no pause, he is likely to pass it up.
In Conclusion,
I fished my original setup at a local farm pond 2 weeks ago, and had a bunch of short stikes and misses, lack of good pause and cadence. Lost fish due to try to hookset and reel set and more strech and slack in the old line. I could have caught 12-15 in 30m, but walked away sad after only landing 2. I re-rigged my stuff last night and set out this afternoon to see what kind of difference it made. After a quick stop by Academy sports to buy a few newer to me colors of Flukes; Houdini Super Flukes, that I've heard alot about and Pumkin Pro Blue, I was off to the hole. I'll spare the play by play, but in the first trip (35m), I hooked and landed 11, 1-2 #ers and a 4#er on the 2nd cast. NO fish lost, NO misses or short strikes and and overall significantly more effective presentation. After leaving to pickup dry cleaning, I came back to catch another 7 or 8 before dark to end a good day.
I hope this give someone a little more insight on how to fish your soft jerkbaits more efficiently. Most of the credit goes to Glenn May and his awesome tutorials.
Remeber though, this a very versitale bait that can be fished several ways. So, let the bass tell you ultimately, but think this is a great start
Any tricks, methods or style you like to use when fishing the fluke, I'd like to hear other's experiences.