THE LATEST NEWS

The post Brent Ehrler : Bank Fishing 101 appeared first on Bass365.com.

While Gerald Swindle is eager for tournament competition to be given the green light, the hilarious Bassmaster Elite Series veteran is holding up all right. Between projects on his farm, working in the shop, ample time on the water, and chasing around grandbabies or the occasional turkey Swindle is staying plenty busy.

The Team Toyota pro usually averages a couple thousand miles a month behind the wheel of his Tundra this time of year, but like most of us Swindle’s travels have come to a halt. The “G-man” and his faithful shotgun rider “LuLu” have compiled a few hundred miles in total during this whole deal driving back and forth from their Lake Guntersville home to their farm near Smith Lake in Northern Alabama.

His Phoenix bass boat stays loaded-for-bear, but don’t think for a minute that Swindle rolls around in his Tundra unequipped. Swindle keeps a small ‘emergency stash’ of fishing tackle, including three rod and reels, in his truck at all times and thinks you should, too.

With many of us having a little extra time on our hands, you never know when you’ll have the opportunity to wet a line. Swindle laid out what he hauls around in his Tundra as only bass fishing’s funniest man can.

A Chatterbait AND spinnerbait setup

When it comes to his mobile fishing supply, Swindle is pretty particular. He opts for versatility in both rod and reel combos and the baits he carries with him to avoid lugging around half a tackle store.

“I take the bare necessities only, I don’t try to take the whole tackle box,” Swindle said. “But whether I have some time to kill at a pond or my nephew Trey calls wanting me to hop in the boat with him for a few hours, I always keep some gear in the truck.”

I pushed him to narrow it down to one combo, but Swindle explained that “just ain’t true”. He keeps two baitcasting rod and reels with him at all times.

One being a 7-foot glass rod specifically for slinging chatterbaits, and the other is a 7’3 medium heavy Ark Rod he typically keeps a spinnerbait tied to. Though Swindle won’t hesitate to swap the spinnerbait for a 3/8-ounce Buckeye Ballin’ Out Jig if the conditions call for it and he’s feeling funky.

“If you don’t have a spinnerbait or a chatterbait tied on this time of year you’re messin’ up,” Swindle joked. “In all seriousness, those techniques cover a lot of your bases. They are good around grass, wood, or rock and they’ll catch a pond bass just as easily as they’ll fool a Lake Guntersville five pounder.”

Both of Swindle’s truck bed combos are paired with 6:4:1 Lews reels with spools full of 16-lb Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon. Swindle trusts those combos in any scenario and urges you to add something similar to your arsenal.

7-foot medium heavy spinning rod for shaky heads and wacky rigs

In a perfect world Swindle would power fish everyday of the week, but when it comes to getting a bite he knows the power of a good spinning rod and reel.

“I don’t go anywhere without a spinning rod,” Swindle admitted. “I keep a 7-foot medium heavy Ark spinning rod with medium sized Lews reel for slinging shaky heads and wacky rigs with me at all times. Whether you’ve got clear water, pressured fish, or you just like setting the hook it’s hard to beat those presentations. Keep a few VMC Neko Weights with you and you’re ready for anything.”

As far as Swindle is concerned a 3/16-ounce shaky head, a few VMC Ike Approved Neko Hooks, a pack of Zoom Beatdown and Zlinky Stick worms paired with a can-do attitude will catch a bass anywhere. He prefers 10-lb Sunline braid for his base line and keeps a spool of 10-lb Sunline Shooter fluoro to tie for his leaders.

“I can have fun and keep myself occupied for hours with these setups,” Swindle explained. “Hey man, I might not win a tournament with those three rigs but they’ll catch fish anywhere in the entire country. I’ve even been keeping some 6-lb monofilament leader line and a handful of crappie jigs with me this time of year… just in case!”

You never know when an opportunity will arise to make a few casts and it’s certainly better to have it but not need it, than to need it and not have it. Follow Swindle’s lead and add some fishing gear to your vehicle this spring while we continue to #FishSmart, be responsible, and use common sense.

The post Three Combos Swindle Takes in his Tundra appeared first on Bass365.com.

When he’s not on the road competing as a Bassmaster Elite Series pro, a phone call with Team Toyota’s Matt Arey can cover a wide range of topics, and young daughters Reese and Wren can often be heard in the background.

Arey often plays the role of “Mr. Mom” to his two blonde-headed girls, while sweet wife Emily fulfills her full-time career obligations as Director of Records and Educational Partnerships at Cleveland Community College near their Shelby, NC home. But now, under C-19 virus stay-at-home orders, he’s added “distance learning” instructor for 7-year-old Reese to his daily obligations.

“I have to be honest, when I first started teaching her I got frustrated a fair amount, and it really tried my patience. I had to learn to slow down and be really repetitive,” admits Arey, who earned a degree in agriculture business and economics from NC State.

Things are going just fine now. In fact, on the morning of our call, Arey had already successfully covered a reading comprehension worksheet, math fractions, and an adjective project in which Reese had to use various words to describe bubble gum.

Away from the makeshift in-home classroom, Arey has tested his patience in the turkey woods, as well as trying to perfect his skills with the relatively new category of lures referred to as glide baits.

Extremely realistic looking in their highly detailed design, glide baits are hard baits with a single mid-body hinge that allows them to swim with a very lazy “wide S” motion to tempt aggressive bass. They typically range from 4 to 12 inches long, and cost anywhere from $35 to $235 each. Arey often favors throwing a 6.5” version called the Hog Father Jr. on 20-pound P Line fluorocarbon.

“A glide bait is definitely a specialized bait that’s probably not going to get you 40 bites a day, but the bass that commit to eating it are generally bigger fish,” says Arey.

Weather and water conditions have to line-up well to precipitate glide bait success. For Arey that includes fairly clear water that allows big bass to see the lure, but also wind and sunshine to increase visibility and mask their shyness.

“Glide baits are a great bait for drawing strikes from big female bass suspended around boat docks either right before the spawn, or seeking their first good meal right after the spawn. But you have to exercise a lot of patience until you catch your first bass of the day on a glide bait, as well as patience to carry you through to that second bite of the day. But again, the bites you get are going to be good ones,” he says.

Few outdoor adventures teach patience more so than turkey hunting, but Arey has proven himself savvy on four successful hunts this spring. He shot one in North Carolina, one in South Carolina, called one in for a buddy, and his most rewarding time in the turkey woods was calling one in for daughter Reese.

“Turkeys are born paranoid, and they die paranoid, because their whole life is spent avoiding their many predators. So walking into the woods, sitting next to a tree, calling a few times, and killing one, only happens about 10% of the time,” he says.

Arey says for starters you need an in-depth understanding of the terrain you’re hunting because that dictates a gobbler’s potential travel path to your call. He also warns that too many hunters try to ‘take their call to the gobbler’ by walking closer to where they believe the bird to be, rather than waiting on the bird to come to them.

“Let the gobbler work. Let him do his thing. Don’t over call, and don’t get in a game of chase with him. Have patience and make the gobbler come to you,” he says.

From bubble gum based adjective lessons with daughter Reese, to luring gobblers over a ridge top and big fat bass from under docks on glide baits – patience is indeed the central fiber to success in Matt Arey’s life these days.

The post Arey Guided by Patience as Teacher, Angler and Turkey Guide appeared first on Bass365.com.