Hey John,

How are you doing? I wanted to ask you for a few fall tips on bait selection and retrieval of the baits. If you could get back to me as soon as you can I would really admire that. I have my last tournament this weekend and it’s a 2 day competition. So your advice would really mean a lot Ito me because I haven’t won a tournament in my club this year and I would really like to try and end it with a bang. So just to give you an idea of the conditions of where I’m fishing:

1. It is the north east river in Maryland, area code 21901, the water is brackish

2. Lots of docks, rock walls, retaining walls, and sunk trees

3. Water is about 66 degrees

4. The forecast here is dropping to the 60s and calling for rain from tomorrow till Friday

Thank you so much,

dj mitchell

DJ… here is what I would probably use to fish a river tournament in mid fall conditions on a tide water.

• One – Strike king 1.5 KVD Crankbait in the sunfish color.

This has to be one of the most hyped baits of all time but it does work well for all of the different cover types that you will fish on the river you described. Use the bait on a moderate action rod with 14- 20 lb test in either mono or fluorocarbon.  Make sure to make every cast as close to cover as possible and retrieve your bait parallel to the cover.  Make sure the bait is close to hitting or is hitting the cover all the time. When fishing 3 foot of water or less keep your rod tip high to get thru the cover. When fishing 3- 5 foot deep remember to keep the tip down. Try fishing the bait super slow and finessing it most of the time while manipulating the height of the rod tip to make sure the bait is always hitting something. Occasionally try to retrieve the bait as fast as possible to trigger a reaction strike.  Take your time and make sure every cast is parallel to the cover or the bank… this is very important on a river.

• Two- ¼ ounce buzz bait, silver blade, white skirt or gold blade, black skirt.

This is classic fall bait for big fish. Fish the buzz bait on a medium heavy rod with either 20 lb mono or 50 braid, 50 lb braid is a good choice for fishing sparse lily pads as it gets caught less in the stems.  Make sure the buzzbait you use can be worked very slowly and still stay on the surface. Again 90 percent of the time fish it as a slow as it will possibly run without sinking. 10 percent of the time try to burn the bait super fast to trigger reaction strike. Again all casts must be parallel to cover and the bank. Make sure the bait hits the cover on the retrieve. Make short to medium casts and keep your rod tip up to keep the bait on the surface at slow speeds. When the fish strikes the bait drop the rod… wait ½ second and set the hook. Oh, and yes always use a trailer hook.

• Three- Fluke white or green pumpkin

Fish the fluke on a 5/0 heavy wire hook on 14 –20 lb fluorocarbon medium heavy 7 foot rod with a fast tip. Throw the bait out next to cover in likely ambush spots twitch it and kill it. It gets a reaction strike but still is a subtle enough to be finesse bait. Also it is a good option to fish as both a moving bait to cover shallow water and as a drop bait or bottom bait to trigger strikes on the fall.

• Four- 3/8 pepper jig-  gilley color with paca craw trailer

Fish the Pepper jig on 20lb fluorocarbon and a seven and a half flipping stick.  Make your first pitch to wood right to the very center of the tree where the biggest couple of limbs come together this is where the biggest bass will be at most of the time. Also pitch the pepper jig to all of the other pieces of cover you know hold fish. Make sure your jig always falls on slack line give it a couple of hops and then pitch it to the next target.

• Five – Red eye shad ½ red color.

This bait will catch some big bass out of grass and would be my go to bait if the weather gets crappy. In order to really score big with this bait you need an overcast sky, a good amount of wind and some vegetation. When you have all three of these elements then be sure to try rattle bait. Again you have to have all three at the same time… overcast and wind blowing into the weeds. If this occurs it will be a big rattle trap bite if not don’t even throw it, go for something else instead.

Keys to success

• Concentrate most of your time in 1 –5 feet of water

• Try to find bait fish activity

• Fish should be pulling out of dying shallow vegetation. If fishing weed try to fish the deeper outside edges in 3- 5 foot of water, however still hit ultra shallow targets in two foot of water if the targets are on wood rock or docks.

• Use a loop type pitch cast with all of you baits including your crankbait in order to get the bait as close to cover as you can at all time. Every cast you make needs to be close to cover or parallel to shore. This is the most important key to doing well in a river tournament.

• Position your boat and all your casts to put your bait moving parallel to the cover or shore all of the time. Keeping the bait in the strike zone especially with the crankbait and buzz bait is the most important thing I can tell you.

• Remember falling tide is the best. If you find a definite pattern with certain bait and a certain cover type during falling tide move quickly and try to repeat the pattern in as many spots as possible.

Here is the biggest thing.  I can tell you what might work… but every day the set of conditions is very different. I think the baits I said will work well, but the most important thing is that any bait that you use is one that you know how to use and have caught a lot of fish on in the past. The one thing you never want to do in a tournament is use a bait that you do not have a lot off confidence and experience in catching Bass with. If you have never caught a lot of bass on shallow cranks and buzz baits it is going to be pretty hard to master it in one fishing tournament. So the most important thing is to use baits you have confidence in and works for you.

A great way to get some more tips and advice on bass fishing and fishing tournaments is to listen to my audio seminars. They contain a lot of good information and are very helpful. Normally I do not release my audio’s but for a few short weeks I am allowing you to purchase my 13 best downloadable seminars.  They are now available at the link listed below.

Click Here for the audio seminars

Good Fishing…. and let me know how you do this weekend.

John W. Torsch

Check out the Hog that I caught this past weekend on the New Custom Spinnerbait.

This guy could not resist the giant 5/o Gamakatsu hook and the Superior skirts.

For more information about these Custom Spinner baits Click Here or give me a call at 269-213-4334.

Good Fishing,

John W. Torsch

Bass Fishing Replay

Sunday night was our first conference call of the fall season with Jeff Little. If you were on the call please email me the phone number that you used to call in for the call and the address you want your free jig to be mailed to.

Thank you everyone for leaving a question for the call. For some reason my website was not displaying them immediately because of the spam filter for the comments. I am still not quite sure why it did that but we will get it fixed for the next call.

If you missed the call here right here where you can listen to it and download it from the website.

River Smallmouth Seminar with Jeff Little

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

DownLoad

Also for the rest of September, if anyone orders Jeff’s new fall fishing for river smallmouth at this link he will give you a free set of lures. When you check out simply put in the comments box “Hog Bass” and he will include a tackle pack with birds and draggin heads. (If you don’t know what birds and draggin heads are then listen to the replay). Also, when you order send me the email receipt and I will send you in the mail a free Pepper Custom Spinnerbait worth 8 dollars for free.

To order Jeff’s new DVD click here

Sunday Night Conference Call

We will be having a conference call Sunday September 25th at 8:00. This is the first conference call of the fall season. I have an extra special guest to kick off the new season.

Sunday night we will be talking with Jeff Little from Blue Ridge Kayak Fishing. Jeff is a small mouth fishing guide from Maryland who has been guiding for 10 years. Jeff gives seminars all over the country about small mouth bass fishing, river fishing and kayak fishing. Jeff has two books and DVD’S that cover these subjects. He also has his own bait company “ Confidence Baits” of lures designed and produced by him specifically designed for river small mouth fishing.

If you look at the picture that I have posted on my website you will probably recognize it. Jeff was in Bassmasters magazine June 2011 edition as a featured expert on small mouth fishing in the North East.

After talking to Jeff on the phone for well over an hour I realized that he is one of the most knowledgeable bass anglers that you will ever meet. Every question that I asked he had a well thought out answer for. He does a great job of putting his experience into easy to understand examples. Even if you do not river fish or kayak fish for small mouth I guarantee that you are still going to learn a load of information from this seminar that will transfer over into you bass fishing.

Call in Details….

The call is free to all that would like to attend.

The information needed to call in is listed below…

Call in Information:
first call in at
Conference Dial-in Number: (218) 339-2500

then
Participant Access Code: 441005#

Till then ,

Good Fishing,

John W Torsch

Tony from Georgia sent me a picture of this giant 12.5  pound bass that he caught on a frog…. here is what Tony had to say…

John,

It was nice to get your call tonight, Thanks a lot. As for my big bass, I was using a watermelon red ribbit. I had just thrown it in the pads when she simply sucked it down. There was no big explosion she just had it and was moving towards deeper water. As you say in your video “wait till you can’t see the frog before you set the hook.” Well you were right! I didn’t see the frog anymore so I set the hook and the fight was on. Even though this is the slow time in north Fla and south Ga. we still catch quality fish.

As for your your video on how to catch big Bass on a frog, I can honestly say that from what I have learned from you, your daily emails and your videos I now catch more Bass and Bigger Bass. Simply put you are responsible for me catching this #12 1/2 pound bass and the 11.6 that I caught last month. You have made me a better Bass Fisherman.

Thank You.
Tony Canington

If you want to catch a big bass on a frog get my DVD… “Advanced Frogging”   Order Here

Tim and his fishing partner have been kicking some serious BASS!  Take a look at their fish caught during tournaments.  Tim loves the Pepper Jigs.  It is absolutely the best jig for fishing heavy cover.  This is the 3rd set of jigs that he is on since the beginning of summer. He is catching a lot of Bass!

John,

Here are some pictures of Bass all caught on Pepper Jigs over the last few weeks. It’s been a BIG FISH BONANZA thanks to Pepper Jigs!!!!!! My tournament team partner Bob and myself have been slamming not only big fish but quantity’s of fish too.

Jigs catch big fish that is a fact… and Pepper jigs are the King of jigs hands down. Pepper jigs are a must have for any serious bass fishermen.

Good Fishing.

Tim W

To get your own 12  jig custom jig kit and catch fish like Tim and Bob Click here

This weekend Carl Russel called me and told me that he had caught a giant 5.58 lb bass in a tournament on White Lake. When I asked him what he had caught the fish on he yelled over the phone “ PEPPER JIG”! Carl caught all of his fish that day on the 5/8 oz pepper jig in the Gilley color. Carl used a 7 ½ foot rod with 20 pound fluorocarbon and fished the jig 14 ft deep off the edges of deep weed lines. He made long casts and dragged the jig back slowly. This is the biggest fish that Carl has ever weighed in during a tournament. Even though Carl did not place in the money for total weight he still won Big Bass of the tournament worth $258.00.

Carl is a big believer in the pepper jig this spring and summer having caught limits of fish on them. He has also bought and watched my jig fishing DVD “Crouching Largemouth Hidden Pigs”, my “Pepper Jig Info Kit” and my “Special 12 piece Pepper Jig Kit”. Needless to say… Carl is very happy with the results that he has been getting.

If you want to catch giant fish like Carl does on a jig check out all the products below.

to get Pepper jig info kit click below

http://www.hogbass.com/pepperjiginfokit.html

to get Crouching Largemouth Hidden Pigs click below

http://www.hogbass.com/jigandpig.html

to get the 12 piece pepper jig kit click below

http://www.hogbass.com/pepper.html

Good Fishing,

John W Torsch

Here is a Great Interview with Matt Walker. He was fishing a tournament Sunday morning with Jeff and hauled in some pretty great BASS!

He called to tell me that he had some 4 pounder’s…. so I headed right over to the lake to see if he was telling the truth. Sure enough he had a full bag!

Check out this interview to see the fish and here how Matt and Jeff caught them with a Jig and of course…. the FROG!

Good Fishing,

John W. Torsch

2 fish for the WIN!.

I won last nights Bass tournament with 2 bass. I had a 4 pounder that I caught on a spinner- bait and a 2 ½ pounder that I caught on a crank-bait.

Out of ten boats I won with 6 ½ pounds….. it was pretty tough fishing, It just goes to show you that never know exactly how bad fishing is until the weight in. Now here is the funny part.

My arch nemesis…. Matt Walker (the one who stole all of my frog secrets) told me that he was not going to weight in because he only had two fish.

Matt had entered in both the BAM tournament and in the NBAA tournament. The BAM one ended at 9:00 while the NBAA tournament ended at 9:30. At 8:45 Matt told me that they only had 2 little fish and that they were not going to come back for the 9:00 weigh in because two fish was not enough to do anything so they decided that they would fish another half hour and try to catch a few more fish for a chance at winning the NBAA tournament. Well guess what? Those 2 little fish would have won them second place if they would have weighed in at 9:00!

That means that they lost out on $124 dollars… OUCH.

I can’t say I feel bad for Matt (he is after all my arch nemesis who stole my frog secrets and used them to win thousands of dollars in local bass tournaments over the last 2 years).

However I do feel bad for his partner Jeff who put up 82 dollars in entry fees for two tournaments and got nothing back. I felt bad for Jeff. Matt has an appointment tonight so I thought that I would have Jeff fish with me in a tournament tonight at Duck lake. We will see what happens.

If we get two fish tonight we will definitely weigh them in for sure.

Good Fishing,

John W Torsch

P.S. If you would like to learn how you can catch a four pound bass off a log on a spinner-bait …. even in tough fishing conditions, order my DVD “Master of the Whirling Blade”  HERE.

I went fishing on Brace lake last week. Is was a small tournament with only a few boats. I only went because my buddy Matt said that the fish were not biting because the weeds had been poisoned off.

Well I caught 2 fish within the first half hour just going down the docks. I flicked the frog under the dock and a big bass fish popped it 3 times…. but did not hit it hard enough to take it under. I kept throwing it under the dock but the fish would not get mad enough to take it. So I pulled out a stick worm on a spinning rod with 10 pound fluorocarbon. I threw it under the dock… and after a few seconds the fish bit it. I set the hook and pulled him out with the fish wrapped around a metal pole and him jumping out of the water at the same time!

When I finally got the fish to the boat he was smaller than the fish that had missed my frog. I threw him in the live well and re-tied my line. I threw back again and caught the bigger female. Two fish down, three more to go….

When I looked at my watch it was 6:27. It was a good start for a night tournament. I tried fishing a crank bait but I only caught a smaller bass and a pike. Between 8:00 and 8:30 I caught a fish on a jerk bait and a erie darter. The fish that I had caught on the erie darter was on a lure that I had made my wife go buy a few hours before at the tackle shop.

With less than 30 min left I was only hooking little fish with the top water baits. With 6 minutes to go I headed back to the boat ramp and tossed out my Zara Spook that Kim had just bought me that afternoon. It was my secret weapon. It hit the water, rested for a second… the bass popped it and the spook flew up into the air! It landed in the water…. I gave it another twitch and the fish slammed it! He was hooked up! I dragged him to the boat the whole time hoping and wishing that he was not a short fish. Because that would be a cruel joke!

I hoisted the fish in the boat and he was almost 16 inches. I hurried up and motored over to the boat ramp. I had caught the winning fish with only 4 minutes left to go in the tournament. The closest boat to me had limits of fish at 9 lbs. I had 10 lbs! There is nothing like catching the winning fish during the last few minutes of the tournament!

Even though I did not catch and fish on the frog… the frog eventually gave way the position of the bites of my 1st and 2nd fish. The #2 fish being the biggest of the night. Remember… you can’t catch your limit of fish if you give up early!

Good Fishing,

John W. Torsch

To get my Frog DVD Click Here
To get my Darter DVD Click Here
To get my Jerk bait DVD Click Here