Elite

Dock Talk at Lake Fork

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Photography by
Shaye Baker
Captions by
Shaye Baker
Scott Canterbury
The summer deep biting is setting in across much of the country. We caught up with a few of the Elite Series pros to see what their go to baits are when the fish move offshore. First up, Scott Canterbury shows us a Carolina Rig.
Going with a NetBait Mad Paca Craw, Canterbury likes to throw a bigger soft plastic on a Carolina Rig to try to draw a strike from a big fish that might have let a fast-moving crankbait pass right by.
Next up for Canterbury is a big Texas rig worm, another staple for summertime out deep.
Canterbury’s worm of choice, an 11-inch NetBait C-Mac. Again, he’s using this bait to draw a strike from the more reluctant fish when they won’t react to a fast-moving bait. He also prefers this bait to others when fishing brush because it is so weedless.
Canterbury’s third bait of choice is a Dirty Jigs Luke Clausen Casting Jig trailed by a NetBait Paca Chunk Senior.
Canterbury likes the casting jig because he can fish it around all sorts of cover or out in the open, and “a jig is just a big fish bait.”
Scott Martin
Moving over to Scott Martin, we see the Texas rig come into play again.
Martin has a Googan Baits Mondo Worm rigged up on a Trokar 4/0 EWG hook with a 1/2-ounce tungsten weight and 15-pound test P-Line Tactical Fluorocarbon. But the big difference between Martin’s setup and some of the others is the bead he adds between his hook and his weight. This added bead generates a little clicking sound as the bait is drug along.
Martin also favors a Carolina rig when the fish move deep.
But he prefers a baitfish profile soft plastic, like the Googan Baits 6-inch Dart he has rigged up here.
Last up for Martin, a Googan Squad Banger 12.
Martin goes with the crankbait over the dragging baits when there’s a little wind or current present.
Josh Douglas
Josh Douglas is up next, showing off a magnum spoon.
Douglas likes the spoon because he can fish it throughout the water column. But he stressed that this is not a search bait. He uses it more when knows for sure the fish are there but he’s unable to get them to bite a crankbait for instance.
Douglas goes with a 3/4-ounce Outcast Tackle Football Jig when he’s wanting to mimic a crawdad or bluegill along the bottom.
The key with the jig is that he can fish it as deep as he wants, where a crankbait maxes out at about 25-feet.
The Outcast Tackle Chicken Jig is another bait Douglas really likes offshore because he can fish it at various depths and it’s great at getting fish to react when they won’t bite a crankbait. It’s meant to mimic a dying shad.
David Williams
David Williams is another big fan of the Texas rig when the bass move out off the bank.
His worm of choice, a ZOOM Magnum U-Tale in either Red Bug if the water is fairly clear or Green Pumpkin if it’s a little dirtier.
Next up for Williams, a deep-diving crankbait, the Duo Realis G87 15A to be exact.
Williams prefers to start with this 15-foot diver when he pulls up to a school of fish and then use the Texas rig as a cleanup bait once the bass stop biting the crankbait.
Austin Felix
Austin Felix pulls a few rods out of the box to show us what he likes to use for the offshore bite as well.
The All-Terrain Football jig is a staple for him anytime the bass get offshore. It’s a bait he can use to “coax them into biting if they’re not in a biting mood.”
Felix is also a fan of the big spoon.
He uses the spoon as a secondary bait once he’s pulled the fish off the ledge. He says he can typically use his forward facing sonar to pick off a few more with the spoon even once they’re suspended around the boat.
Next up, a deep diving crankbait. Felix rotates through several crankbaits depending on the depth the fish are and if they want something more aggressive like this Strike King 8XD or something a little more subtle like a Rapala DT16.
Jake Whitaker
Jake Whitaker is next up to bat.
He also likes to go with a Carolina rig whenever the fish are slow to react to moving baits.
But first, he prefers to fish a crankbait through the school in hopes that the fish are active and willing to eat right away.
The Strike King 6XD is his bait of choice when first pulling up to a school.
But he’ll switch to a hair jig if the fish stop biting the crankbait, and offer the fish a different profile bait with a completely different action.
Where a crankbait is simply reeled through a school of fish, you’re supposed to stroke a hair jig, ripping the bait up off the bottom and then letting it fall again on semi-slack line.
Bryan New
Bryan New is up next.
And he shows us one of his favorite “clean-up” baits, a ZOOM Magnum Trick Worm rigged on a big shaky head.
If the fish are a little more aggressive, New prefers a 1-ounce Pulse Fish Lures Pulse Jig.
This is a bait that combines the subtleness of a swimbait with the aggressive action of a vibrating jig and is a bait that New will go to in the middle of the rotation, when the fish won’t bite a crankbait but he doesn’t quite want to slow down to a worm yet.
But if he can, New likes to go with a deep diving crankbait like the SPRO Lil John Super DD, since he’s able to cover more water with this bait faster and catch more fish. But if the bass won’t go for the crankbait, he’ll then slow down and make his way through the rotation of other baits.

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