February and March are my favorite months to try and catch a really big bass, but when April arrives, not only do you still have a chance for a big fish, it’s a month when you can catch a lot of fish.
April is a great time to fish a floating worm or a Senko — that’s become my go-to bait in the spring. Even though some of your larger fish have finished spawning, there will still be a few fish spawning, and there will be a lot of fish still in the shallows.
I fish a Senko as a search bait the way I used to fish a floating worm, but this bait has so many advantages. It’s heavy enough that you can cast it on a baitcaster, and if you’re fishing around shallow cover, you can let it fall next to the cover to catch bass that aren’t aggressive enough to come to the surface.
The other good thing about a Senko is that it will catch fish that have seen all the fishing pressure that comes with April. In March, everybody got rid of their cabin fever and got out on the lake, and those fish have seen a lot of artificial lures.
I like to fish a Senko in clearer water; usually by April, our lakes have started to clear up, so you can’t really fish a spinnerbait the way you do in stained water. But that’s the way I fish a Senko, just going down the bank and hitting every target I see or just casting to the bank. I want to cover a lot of water, but when I come to a piece of cover like a stump or brushpile or the corner of a dock, I can kill the retrieve and let it fall down next to the cover. That’s one reason I think it outfishes a floating worm, a spinnerbait or crankbait or Chatterbait.
I usually fish the 5-inch Senko, but I will fish the 6- or 7-inch bait if I’m trying to catch a bigger fish. If I’m fishing an area that’s gotten an extreme amount of pressure, I’ll wacky-rig it on a 4/0 Owner wacky hook. Most of the time, I’m fishing it Texas-rigged on a 4/0 Owner rigging hook, unless I fish the bigger baits, and then I’ll use a 5/0 hook.
I like to fish a Senko on Trilene 100 Percent Fluorocarbon, 10- to 12-pound test, or if I’m fishing grass or a lot of brush, I’ll go up to 15-pound test. Fluorocarbon is great because it sinks, so when you kill a Senko’s retrieve and let it fall, it doesn’t hinder the fall. Plus, it’s invisible, and that’s what you need when you’re fishing something like a floating worm or Senko. With the lighter line, I use a 6-foot, medium-action All Star baitcasting rod; with the heavier line, I move up to a medium-heavy rod.
A Senko is a visual bait; the fish can’t seem to resist the way it quivers when it falls — whether you’ve got it Texas-rigged or wacky-rigged. If you’ve seen a caterpillar fall in the water and start to sink, that’s the same action.
You have a choice to make as far as colors are concerned. If I’m trying to fish it at or close to the surface, I’m going to go with a brighter color like a white or yellow so I can see it better, especially if I’m making long casts. But if I’m going to fish it down, for fish that aren’t as aggressive, I’ll fish it in more natural colors.
I like to work it with a pretty fast retrieve, twitching it along with my rod tip, but I can kill it quickly and let it fall — and nothing falls quite like it.
Davy Hite, a 45-year-old native of Saluda who lives in Ninety Six, was BASS Angler of the Year in 1997 and 2002, and he has won the 1999 Bassmasters Classic and the 1998 FLW Tour Championship. He is sponsored by Triton boats, Evinrude outboards, All-Star rods, Pfleuger reels, Berkley Trilene, Yamamoto Baits, Owner hooks, Humminbird depthfinders and Solar Bat sunglasses.
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