It took a lure with a funny name to make a winter fisherman out of this fair-weather angler.
That was many moons ago when I was just getting my feet wet learning how to wrangle a few bass out of Beaver Lake. It was a new piece of water for me. I did OK in the spring and summer. Top-water lures and plastic worms were good for a couple of fish almost every trip when it was warm.
Soon as the weather turned cold, I put away the fishing rods and shifted gears to rabbit hunting. Now and then we'd have one of those warm winter days. I'd head out for some fishing, but rarely got a bite.
I gave up winter fishing. For years I never made a cast until spring.
One cold winter I kept hearing anglers talk about catching big bass on these things called jerk baits. Har-dee-har-har. Jerk baits. That's rich.
The Smithwick Rogue was the jerk bait of choice for Beaver Lake bass chasers. In those days all Rogues were floating lures. They'd dive when you cranked the reel, then float toward the surface when you stopped.
Fishermen like to tinker, and some of them started weighting their Rogues in different ways so they'd suspend when you stopped reeling. The weighted lure would just sit there motionless. That's when Mr. Big Bass would come calling, ready for a meal.
Jim Wolfe of Rogers was, and still is, an avid Beaver Lake bass man. He helped us out with a newspaper story in the 1980s about how to weight a Rogue so it would suspend. He showed readers how to drill holes in the lure and add lead sinkers. Or, lead wire could be wrapped around the shanks of the treble hooks.
Suspending Rogues weren't available back then. Nowadays, suspending jerk baits are top sellers for several lure companies.
That afternoon with Jim stirred my winter fishing fever. I bought a Rogue and weighted the hooks with lead wire like he showed me. One overcast February afternoon, I headed out to fish in the Cedar Creek arm of Beaver Lake, west of Rocky Branch park.
I'll bet I hadn't made five casts when kabam! A bass smacked my Rogue when it wiggled past some underwater timber.
I about fainted when I saw the fish underwater beside the boat. This was the biggest bass I'd hooked in my life. I remember shaking as I slid a net under the fish and hoisted it aboard. I hyperventilated, seeing this giant bass flopping on the floor of my boat. It had to be 6 pounds easy.
So much for that fishing trip. I high-tailed it home to show the big bass to my neighbor, the late Jackie Rogers.
Jackie was weigh-master at most of the tournaments at Beaver Lake. He probably weighed more bass than anyone on the planet. Jackie said my fish was more like 4 pounds, not 6. Still, it was a trophy in my limited bass-fishing universe. I'd kept the bass alive and released it back into the lake.
After that, I was on the lake every winter day I could manage. I forgot about rabbits. Now I was focused on big bass.
I'd cast that Rogue, crank it down and let it sit. Then I'd swim the lure forward with a sweep of the rod tip, then let it rest again.
Good fishermen let their jerk baits sit still sometimes for a half-minute. I'm not that patient. I can't stand to let it sit more than 10 seconds. Still, I caught some fine bass all through February and into March.
Now I'm a Rogue-aholic, a jerk -bait fanatic who uses the lure to a fault in winter when I ought to try something else. Hey, they work. Today jerk baits remain a favorite wintertime lure across the Ozarks.
Winter is big bass time at Beaver Lake. Bites may be few, but the ones you get can come from big fish. I never saw the light until I gave jerk baits a try.
Flip Putthoff may be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWAFlip
Sports on 02/02/2016