Hook set key to power fishing success

Posted on: February 14, 2018 | Bob Frye | Comments

Power fishing is a fun bass fishing technique.

Power fishing can lead to some trophy bass in the boat.
Photo: Pixabay

There’s little subtle about power fishing for bass.

Finesse fishing, in bass terms, involves using light line, small baits and small hooks. It’s a slow technique, too. A finesse fisherman may take hours to work just a bit of cover.

But power fishing?

Now you’re talking big baits, heavy rods, heavy line and lots of casting. Anglers toss baits to likely looking spots, trying to trigger stubborn bass to bite, then move on to similar locations, over and over and over.

“When I’m out fishing the heavy bulrushes, the heavy lily pad clumps, the big blowdowns, I use 65-pound braid. Not only that, but I use a longer-handled rod,” said Roland Martin, the legendary Naples, Fla., bass fishing pro.

“That’s power fishing.”

Jumbo-strength tackle in and of itself is not enough, though, Martin said.

To be really successful at getting big fish out of heavy cover, leverage comes into play.

Be slow to set the hook in heavy cover and even a smaller fish – a 2-pounder in Martin’s world – can wrap your line around obstructions. Then you’ve got to try and go get him.

Half the time, Martin said, you’ll lose him.

He sticks a big, knobby rubber butt grip in the end of his rods. Then, when he’s retrieving a bait, he anchors that against his stomach, just below his belt.

That allows him to set the hook hard and fast. When he’s set up that way, Martin said, before that big bass knows it, he’s fighting toward you, not away from you.

“The whole concept of heavy fishing, the whole concept of getting that big monster bass out of the thickest cover you’re ever seen, is that when he fights the lure and starts to swim away, you set the hook hard enough and pull him fast enough that it pulls him toward you,” Martin said.

“You’ve got him coming toward you. You turned him initially with the hook set, by having a big, heavy rod, by having the right leverage. He comes leaping out, almost at you, out of the heavy cover. In two seconds, he’s coming my way.”

He fishes that way just often in his native Florida. But that’s not the only place it works.

That technique, and power fishing in general, can and does put big bass in the boat everywhere, Martin noted.

“I’m talking about every bass water from Connecticut to California,” Martin said. “You can find heavy cover power fishing opportunities anywhere in the country.”

So is there heavy cover where you fish?

If so, this season, it may pay to power up.

Bob Frye is the everybodyadventures.com editor. Reach him at 412-838-5148 or bfrye@535mediallc.com. See other stories, blogs, videos and more at everybodyadventures.com.

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