Part 2

My bass fishing memory book is overflowing with a variety of fishing adventures. 

Which of those memories brings the most satisfaction?  It would be hard to say.  The first time I cracked the 10-pound bass barrier is one.  There are many more that are right in there vying for attention.

In my last column I wrote about a recent trip to two of Mexico’s top bass lakes---Lake El Salto and Lake Mateos.  I shared that trip with Bob Schmidt, the guy who calls the shots here at Mack’s Lure.  I also mentioned that on one morning at El Salto Bob and I put 19 bass in the boat out of 20 casts.

Be assured our combined experience that morning is also going into my memory book underlined in red.  And I’ve got to believe that if Bob hadn’t set the stage and primed the pump on the first day we fished it probably wouldn’t have happened.

Look close and you can see a blue Smile Blade hanging out of the big mug of this dandy bass Bob Schmidt caught at Mexico's Lake Mateos.

We fished at Lake El Salto for three days.  As I mentioned in my last column, on the first day Bob wound up putting the most fish in the boat and one of them, weighed 7-pounds, 8-ounces.  Except for the fish we took off the surface during the early morning bite, all of Bob’s bass came on a plastic bait rigged with a Smile Blade.

The second morning started out the same way.  We caught fish on a variety of surface lures, and then switched to plastics when the guide moved us to deeper water.  After what I’d watched Bob do with his Smile Blade and plastic combination the first day, I was rigged up and ready with my own similar set up the second day out.

There wasn’t anything particularly unusual about the place where the guide took us that second morning.  But Pepe, our guide, knew what he was doing.  The area where we stopped was loaded with bass.  We started catching one fish after another and wound up one stretch by boating 19 bass out of 20 casts.

Now that’s great action even by El Salto standards.  And those fish weren’t dinks.  Most of them ran from 2 to 5-pounds.  Again, every last one of them hit a plastic bait that had a Smile Blade out in front.

The plastic bait we used for those fish was a 5-inchYamamoto Swimming Senko.  If you’ve thrown one of these dandy little baits you know it’s made so the tail wiggles and waggles on the retrieve.

After we’d caught a bunch of fish I got to wondering where the credit really belonged for the super action we’d been having.  Just how much did the addition of the Smile Blade have to do with it? One of the keys to the effectiveness of a Smile Blade used ahead of a worm is that the lightweight plastic blade gives the worm a unique action.  The Swimming Senko has a good bit of come hither action on its own.

I made a comment along that line just as the guide unhooked another of Bob’s bass.  Instead of taking time to rig with another Senko as he had been doing, Bob just cast his Smile Blade out toward the submerged trees we were fishing.  Wham!  A bass smacked his Smile Blade and its bare hook before you could blink. 

The guide eventually netted that fish and I don’t think Bob quit smiling for the next two hours.
Now I’m not recommending that you rig a Smile Blade in front of a bare hook the next time you go bass fishing.  I’m sure Bob doesn’t either.  But by golly that twirling little blade that you slide on your line or leader ahead of whatever you’re throwing will, at least some of the time, increase your chances of catching fish.

After we’d caught all those bass on a Smile Blade/Swimming Senko combination, I found myself wondering how a Smile Blade would work ahead of a 10-inch black and blue Berkley Power Worm.  I picked that particular worm because ever since El Salto Lake has existed that big worm has consistently caught some of the largest bass taken there each year.

I got my share of those Mexican bass as soon as I hung a Smile Blade ahead of my plastic baits.

It didn’t take long to find out.  As soon as I got the big worm rigged behind my Smile Blade I cast it back into the area where all the other fish came from.  I’d only crawled it along the bottom for a half dozen feet before something chomped down on it.  This wasn’t the sharp, quick jerk so often associated with the strike of smaller bass.  It felt more like I’d hooked a snag and then suddenly the snag began to move off.

I snapped back on my rod and immediately there was that tremendous downward surge of a really big bass.  Before I could get my thumb off the reel spool there was a sickening “snap” and my 20-pound leader popped like a piece of cheap cord string.

If you’re into bass fishing chances are what you’ve read in these last two columns has left you with a few questions.  My guess is you’re wondering exactly what kind of set up we used; what was the size and color of the Smile Blades, etc., etc.

Stay tuned.  I’ll provide those answers in my next column that starts October 1.

-To Be Continued-