 By Rich Zaleski | ||
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I chuck lots of different grubs. Curly tails, flat tails and boot tails. But other than in mid-summer, it's the boot tail design that dominates my grub fishing.  The single grub I use most — the one that's caught more fish for me than any other — is a plain, no-flake-no-flash-no-frills, smoke colored, boot tail grub. I've caught fish on a pretty wide array of grub colors, too, from bright chartreuse with flakes and pepper, to dull brown, black, and even clear. Yet I know I could select three or four colors and feel comfortable relying on them in 99% of the grub fishing situations I face. Smoke; Green Pumpkin; Motor Oil and Gourd Green. Yeah, that about does it. I'll take those colors and be happy. Heck, if I had smoke and any one of the other three, I'd be happy 99% of the time.
The common thread that runs through my grub color selection (admittedly it's not a very long run) is a low-vis, blend-with-the-background quality. What does a chunky, 2-1/2" hunk of plastic that becomes nearly invisible in the world of the bass and has only the slightest hint of wiggle imitate? Nothing. Everything. Anything. Minnow. Shad. Crawfish. Insect. Invertebrate. Whatever. Because it's almost but not quite invisible, and has no pronounced action or vibration pattern, a bass can mistake it for whatever it's willing to feed on. I think it's imperative to realize that a bass's natural prey is camouflaged. Its survival depends on not being noticed. A smoke grub — especially one without any energetic action of its own — does a great job of imitating something that's naturally camouflaged and doing its best not to get noticed. It almost blends with just about any aquatic background. It moves gently (and usually slowly). In short, it does a better job of emulating the subtle cues that a bass is conditioned to respond to, and actually does a better job of emulating what a bass really sees when it spots a real meal than any detailed imitation of a specific type of prey.
The grub is definitely not best fished by just casting and winding. Sure, every now and then that approach will work. But grubbing isn't about every-now-and-then, it's about catching fish consistently. And once it clears the edge of the cover, I usually don't wind it back. Instead, I fish it across the bottom -- nudging it and jiggling it along, feeling for anything different or interesting. I fish a grub sliding down next to vertical or near vertical structure too, scraping the edge and catching on any protrusions. But I'm darn sure going to give it some extra time to work in the crease at the base of that vertical structure, once it reaches bottom. Above all, I try to keep the grub in jeopardy, and when it's not somehwere it might get hung, I'm using it as a probe, feeling for the next potential snag; The next potential fish holding lie. I want to keep that grub in contact with the bottom, trying to get itself in trouble. I use it to fish by braille, searching for the next spot that's likely to hold a bass. Admittely, over the last dozen years or so, the dropshot rig has supplanted the grub as my #1, go-to finesse presentation. But there are still days when that chunky little grub will kick some serious tail while the drop shot's not getting bit, and it remains one of my most used presentations early and late in the season. | ||
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If I had to pick one lure to catch a fish from any body of water, it would probably be a jig of some type. In fact, there's a very good likelihood that it would entail an unpainted, lead head jig sporting a pair of wire weedguards and dressed with a nondescript, smoke colored plastic grub.
I don't just cast a grub to the edge of cover and let it sink or swim it away; I fish it in the cover. (Thus my preference for the wire weedguard style jighead shown above).