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When asked what three words best describe his early-season fishing style, 21-year-old bass pro Jacob Wheeler machine-guns “Go, Go and Go!”
And this trifecta has been Jacob’s ladder to success.
The young gun earned his stripes in 2008 by taking top honors in the Junior Northern Divisional, and last year became the youngest stick in history to win the 2011 FLW Outdoors Bass Fishing League All-American National Championship.
“I put the trolling motor on high and try to figure out as much in a day as I possibly can. I never let satisfaction enter the picture. You have to be willing to make critical, on-the-fly adjustments, even when things seem out-of-place.”
In early March 2007, while fishing a tournament on Indiana’s Lake Wallacy - just days after ice-out—keeping his head on a swivel definitely paid off. “The water was 43 degrees and gin clear, and everybody was fishing hair jigs. I look out from the boat and see what I think is a massive group of ducks splashing, so I put the trolling motor on high and as I get closer I see schools of busting fish! So I picked up a topwater rod and won the whole thing on that danged Skitter Walk,” says Wheeler.
While Wheeler’s ability to think outside the box put him in the money, freak bites are sometimes just that. Typically, bass will exhibit similar behaviors year-after-year and catching them is simply a matter of routinely bringing their calendar into focus.
But whether it’s trying something new or fishing from experience, early-season bass are right in Wheeler’s wheelhouse—and more often than not, his livewell, too.
Pre-Procreating
Increasingly longer days and rising water temps in spring set into motion a series of physiological changes in bass that prepare them for the huge metabolic drain of the spawn. These changes also trigger movement from wintering locations to transitional areas in close proximity to shallow spawning grounds.
But it doesn’t happen over night. An angler still has to locate these transitional pre-spawn fish over days, weeks and even months up to prepping of the conjugal bed.
“Most of the time I’m looking for a long tapering point with a sharp break on one side or the other - it could be a hard-bottomed spot, a row of stumps, a ditch that runs along the flat or a point, a depression, or something else they’re going to sit on prior to moving into spawn habitat,” says Wheeler. “During this transition time—temps through the lower-to-upper 50s, I absolutely crack ‘em on cranks like #5 and #7 Shad Raps.”
Wheeler distills the Shad Rap how-to into something easy to understand: “Whenever those fish are up shallow, I simply roll it until I hit something and then stop my retrieve. I’ll twitch it, then keep it trucking. A lot of times you get bit when it sits, and then starts up again. Boom, you lock up, and that’s the best feeling in the world!”
With more tournament pros (like Aaron Martens) fishing spinning gear, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that Wheeler is 50/50 fishing these days. “I’m throwing cranks on a 7-foot medium-light spinning rod with 10-pound Sufix 832 Advanced Superline and a 5-foot 10-pound fluorocarbon leader. Most guys fish leaders that are too long; I don’t want to reel that knot up into my reel!”
When it comes to crankbait colors for pre-spawn bass, Wheeler keeps it simple. “You don’t need every color crank on the baitshop shelf. Most of the time, pre-spawn-to-post-spawn fish are gonna take shad, crawdad and perch colors,” says Wheeler. In Rapala’s rainbow, that means Bleeding Original Shad, Crawdad and Perch or Firetiger.
Wheeler’s stained-water must-have is the new Dark Brown Crawdad pattern Shad Rap, especially in the early spring when water temps are in the high 40s to low 50s. “It’s really as simple as paying attention to what’s going on around you,” says Wheeler, “Then when the water temp gets to about 52 or 53, bass will begin feeding on shad - and if they’re eating shad, well, I’m throwing shad.”
Wheeler believes the perch color is under-utilized by bass anglers, who are really missing out on its double-duty potential as not only a perch, but also a bed-robbing bluegill. In that same vein, the Shad Rap also comes in a true Bluegill pattern.
Tactical Home Defense
As the water temp nears 58 degrees bass focus on the spawn and go into tactical home defense mode. They become increasingly territorial and aggressive toward bluegills, perch, or any myriad scavengers who near their nests.
When a body of water is clear enough, Wheeler spends several minutes just watching the water around him through polarized glasses. “A lot of guys miss beds,” says Wheeler. “A lot of fisherman assume beds are always white, all fanned out. Not so. Don’t miss that batch of 20, 4-pound fish on green or black spots! Slow down and observe.
“Once I’ve located active beds, I switch up and put on a Trigger X Flutter Worm, Texas-rigged with a 1/8-ounce weight, 4/0 EWG or straight-shank hook and go down in that two, three, four-feet of water,” says Wheeler. “A lot of times I can slide in right behind other tournament guys with that Flutter Worm and catch the fish they don’t.”
Like his simple preference in spring crankbait patterns, Wheeler sticks with a few key worm colors.
“Watermelon Red Flake, Green Pumpkin, and in stained water, I’m gonna throw Black Blue Flake. Those are the big three,” says Wheeler.
“I’m using a 7-foot medium-heavy baitcaster rod - something with a little tip on it but with enough backbone to get ‘em out of docks, reeds, whatever.” And when it comes to line choice, he warns anglers from going too heavy. “I’m throwing 14-pound Sufix Castable Invisiline. Get up into that 17- to 20-pound line class and the worm loses its natural action. The fall rate with 14-pound test and that 1/8-ounce weight drives the bass crazy,” says Wheeler.
Post Partum Snacks
Spawning takes up a huge amount of energy for both male and female bass. Once the females make their early departure and the males finish guarding the fry, they’re ready for food, and lots of it. “I’ll get out that Bluegill Skitter Walk and start twitching,” says Wheeler. “It’s not just a bed thing. It’s kind of like they’ve got a score to settle. Bass coming off the beds will be looking for that big meal. And more often than not, it’s bluegills.”
Wheeler fishes a 6’ 10” medium- to medium-heavy jerkbait stick for walking the dog. “That backbone is critical. When a fish eats that topwater I need to be able to lay into them,” he says.
And line choice is critical to good topwater hooksets. “You want a good mono—something that’s supple and doesn’t have a lot of memory. I throw 15-pound Sufix ProMix line for these reasons. Plus, it casts that dog a mile,” Wheeler says.
Summer Bound
When the post-spawn topwater bite tones down - and fish pull back out to those transition spots on points - Wheeler pulls out bigger, deeper-diving cranks like the Rapala DT-6 and DT-10, fished on fluoro to keep them down, and with a little bit of stretch to prevent lost fish. He fishes a rod with a lot of tip for the same forgiveness.
“Look to those same areas where fish were staging in early spring - harder bottoms, stump rows, and wall points with sharp breaks. These are key spots when fish start to pull out and move to their summer haunts,” Wheeler says.
Here And Now
Wheeler is currently preparing for the 2012 FLW Tour’s second stop at Table Rock, Missouri, where he’ll encounter low water temps and transitional fish. “The bass on Table Rock are going to be just pulling up shallow as I back in my boat. We’re talking about pre-spawn fish that really want to spawn, but it’s all foreplay at this point,” says Wheeler.
Given his solid early-season playbook, only a few of its tried-and-trues described above, our bet is Wheeler once again finds the fish he needs to fill his bag.
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