Hey, folks. Glenn May here with BassResource. com. Today, I’m going to talk to you about fishingthe Hula Grub. Great bait for smallmouth fishing. This is a bread and butter bait. If you’refishing for smallies, this is an awesome baitto use. What’s we’re going to do is I’m goingto show you a little bit about how to rigit, how to use it, and then we’re going totake you out on the water and we’re goingto go fish it. I’ve just got this rigged on a ball headjig that very straight forward. I’m not fishingthis in any cover or anything, just open water,not a whole lot of rocks and stuff so I’mgoing to be fishing that ball head jig. Footballhead jig works just as well. It actually worksreally well if you’re fishing a lot of rocksand stuff. It doesn’t get hung up as much. If you want, you can get jig heads with awire guard on it. That will prevent weedswill get hung up in there if you’re fishinga little bit of weeds or a little bit of woodycover. It’ll help prevent some of those hangups. But that’s it. Just a ball head jig ora football head, perfect for those situationsfor fishing this bait. I’m using an eighth-ounce jig head. That’sa good starter. You can go a quarter-ounce,a three-eighth-ounce, any more than that’sa little too heavy. A lot of the bites comeon the fall, so you want a slow fall, so aneighth-ounce is perfect for that. I’m using six-pound fluorocarbon line on this. Nice, clear line. It’s got good sensitivityon it. I can feel that since we’re using thison slack line, you need that sensitivity,so fluorocarbon line is what we’re using today. Six-pound test. Because it’s a real light-wirehook here, we don’t want to get too heavyon that. Don’t want to use heavy line. A lightline also allows this bait to fall freely. It’s not going to inhibit the action of it. But also we want to make sure that we matchit with the right rod. So this rod is a medium/lightaction rod spinning outfit. That’s what we’regoing to be using today. Don’t use anythingheavier than that. A medium/heavy action rodis too much. You might end up breaking theline or straightening out the hook duringthe hooks out of the fight back to the boat. So medium/light action’s got plenty of give. It’s got good backbone still to fight thatfish and set that hook. All right, so that’sthe gear we’re going to be using. Now let’sgo out and fish it. All right. So with the Hula Grub, it’s verysimple to fish, actually. All you’re goingto do is cast it out there and pay real closeattention while the bait is dropping. Youwant to fall on a completely slack line. Sowhen you’re doing that, it’s really hard todetect the bite. The only way you’re goingto know is by watching the line where it entersthe water. So you want to see if that linetwitches, jumps, pops, moves, if it startsto peel off faster than it was, just anythingdifferent that you didn’t cause, it’s probablya fish. So first thing you want to do is cast it outthere, and that’s what I’m going to do. I’mgoing to cast it out here and watch that line. I’m just going to flip the bail over, bringthe rod tip down so I’m ready to set the hook,and watch that line carefully. I’m watchingit fall, watching it fall, watching it fall. Okay, and it hit the bottom. And the reasonI know it hit the bottom is the line juststopped moving and it went slack. Okay. Now what we’re going to do is we’regoing to lift that, reel down to it and justlift it up the bottom, and let it fall againon slack line. Only this time, if you watch,I’m going to bring the rod tip down aboutthe same speed as the bait is falling, andI’m going to reel up that slack. I still wantthat bait to fall straight down, but here,I’m going to maintain contact with it. Thisis what some people refer to as a semi-slackline. The reason you want to do that is becausea lot of times, the bite happens on the fall,or when you lift up on it, sometimes that’swhen it’ll hit. They’ll watch it sit on the bottom, you liftit up, and suddenly they’ll just grab it. Come here, good. I want to show your face. Come here. It’s a good fish. These smalliessure fight hard. All right, come here. Comehere. Oh, good size fish here. All right. That’s all the Hula Grub. It’s the kind offish you’re going to catch with this bait. Yeah, moving along the bottom, I just sitand let it sit down there, and when I liftit up, that’s when he popped it. Let him go. There we go. All right. Now. So just pay realclose attention when you do that stuff becausethey’ll just lift a hint, he never thumpedit. I didn’t feel a tap tap or anything. Youjust lifted it up and grabbed it right whenI started picking it up off the bottom. Throw it back out there, and I’ll show youone other way to do the retrieve. So thatone was you lift it up, let it drop on slackline. Again, I’m watching the bait. Here,though, this time we want to drag it on thebottom. It’s like, you want to imitate a bait,you know, a fish that’s feeding off the bottomor a crawdad. Like a sculpin or somethinglike that or a crawdad. So all you’re goingto do is keep the rod tip pointed down, andyou’re just going to crawl it on the bottom. Just reel it, move it with your rod tip, reelup the slack, keep your rod tip down so you’reready to set the hook, and just move it. And if you notice, when I set the hook. Youknow, I didn’t set the hook that hard on thatfish. You have an exposed hook, it’s a light-wirehook, I won’t use a six-pound test so youdon’t have to set it really hard. Not at all. And you’ll have that fish. And those are thebasic ways to fish it. Another way I’d like to do this, you know,I’ll throw this out there, past the back ofthe boat, and I’ll give it an extra couple10, 15 feet of line, and I’ll just drag italong the bottom using the trolling motor. I’ll drag it along maybe, set the trollingmotor about 10, 20, drag it along and justcover in deep water. Great way to fish particularlyin the winter, or in the summertime when thefish are holding off on drops, ledges, creekchannels, when they’re fishing, when they’reholding off on rock humps. Anything like thatduring the winter or the summer time, that’swhat you want to fish and just drag it alongthe bottom. And a lot of times, the fish willjust pick it up right up off the bottom. Greatway to fish. All right?Anyway, those are the different ways to fishthis bait. You can see what kind of fish itcaught, like the one I just caught. You’regoing to have a whole heck of a lot of funwith this. For more tips and tricks like that,visit BassResource. com.
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