Guide Wendell Wilson often uses live bait to help his clients catch more spotted bass, and he said live bait can be dynamite on really large fish this month.
“I still use light tackle, but I’ll typically keep at least one or two live baits in the water as we work the points, humps, ledges and flats with cover,” he said. “One key is ensuring I stay around baitfish, and I’ll usually pull a freelined bait behind the boat as well as one on down rod in a rodholder.”
Wilson uses two sizes of bait: medium shiner minnows about 2 inches long and larger blueback herring.
He fishes the shiners on a down rod, rigged to swim just off the bottom.
“I’ll rig this either as a down rod or use a slip float to precisely control the depth if I’m fishing over cover,” he said. “That way, I can keep the bait just above top of the brush, stumps or underwater trees or even in the middle of the water column if they are suspended and target the specific depth they’re marked on the graph.
“I’ll also use a larger blueback herring on a freeline behind the boat,” he said. “We’ll pull that over the structure after we’ve fished it with artificial lures and often catch some really large spotted bass on the herring, a few in the 5-pound class.”
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