Finesse Plastic Worming Largemouth Bass Tips: My Favorite Worm Hook Water

Finesse worming is warming up (before overheating by August.). Catching one of the few small bass at 18-acre Mount Hope Pond, I had bushwhacked along the east side for nothing but a few sunfish takes, having reasoned quick as I began parting bushes that the two west corners have the best spawning flats. So I got over to the southwest corner with 10 minutes to spare and sure enough sighted a bass (and a big one as I walked out). This little bass photographed and less than a pound I thought was a sunfish and barely hooked it trying to pull the Chompers free. (You can see how tenuous that hook-hold was.) I didn't sight this bass. It was right up against the bank by about a 20-yard cast.

I like fishing right in the thick of submerged brush and fallen timber here, which demands pin-point pitching and a slow worm descent (which keeps the plastic in  bass's visual field longer too). But next time I'm fishing the corners.

Lots of rocks on those flats and along the breakline into deeper water where bass stage before spawning and for feeding also. Females lay eggs then abandon beds, so they relate to the breakline during the weeks the males guard eggs and young. I leave the bucks alone. 

Lots of hype out there about banging brass or tungsten on rocks and tree limbs, and I don't discount that fish are alerted by sound (attracted or repulsed). Most of fishing is preferential and every individual angler who knows something has his own persuasions. I like to fish a worm without weight. When I need to fish deeper and get down faster, I tend to choose a long casting, fast sinking Senko-type. For quiet natural approach, I especially like 7 1/2-inch Chompers. I used to swear by four-inch worms.

I didn't notice any evidence of spawning here yet, besides a few bass in shallows that seemed to behave otherwise than guarding beds. Saw two sunfish beds.

Look forward to trying again Wednesday. The Pequest Hatchery truck was there. I saw two other anglers and one apparently fished for bass. "Raised with Pride," is written on the truck and I'm sure our trout are so. But these browns don't hold through the summer here in this pond with 15-foot depths as far as I know. If they did, there would be some real big browns to catch since no one fishes for trout here after May.