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What is the best technique for catching bass suspended offshore with swimbaits?

Catching offshore suspended bass with swimbaits can be a highly effective technique, especially during the fall migration when bass follow schools of shad. Here's a step-by-step guide to help you target these elusive fish:

  1. Locate the Bass: Use your sonar to find suspended bass in the water column. Look for them around offshore structures like ledges, humps, or points, and also by cover such as brush piles, rock piles, or standing timber. Pay attention to the depth at which the bass are suspending, as this will be crucial for presenting your swimbait effectively.

  2. Choose the Right Swimbait: Select a swimbait that matches the size and profile of the baitfish the bass are feeding on. As mentioned in the video by Fish the Moment, a larger swimbait, like a six-inch Megabass Magdraft Freestyle on a one-ounce underspin head, can be effective for targeting bigger fish and maintaining the right depth during retrieval.

  3. Proper Rigging: Rig your swimbait on an appropriate jig head. The weight of the jig head should be enough to get your swimbait down to the desired depth without sinking below the level where the bass are suspended.

  4. Count Down the Bait: Cast out your swimbait and let it sink to the depth where the bass are holding. You can count down the bait to ensure it reaches the right depth. For example, if you know the bait sinks at a rate of one foot per second, and the bass are suspended at 15 feet, count to 15 before starting your retrieve.

  5. Retrieve Technique: Retrieve the swimbait slowly and steadily, keeping it within two to three feet of the bottom or at the depth where the bass are suspended. Remember, bass often feed upwards, so you want to keep the swimbait above them. If they're at 15 feet, you might let the bait sink to 10 feet and reel it over their heads.

  6. Watch Your Line: As the swimbait comes off a ledge or structure and over deeper water, it should be in line with where the bass are suspended. Keep an eye on your line for any subtle ticks or changes in tension that might indicate a bite.

  7. Stay Alert: Suspended bass can be nomadic and may move quickly. Be prepared to adjust your tactics, such as changing the depth of your retrieve or switching to different swimbait models or colors based on the conditions and the bass's behavior.

By following these steps and paying close attention to the behavior of the bass and the conditions of the day, you can increase your chances of successfully catching offshore suspended bass with swimbaits. Remember, practice and patience are key, as this is one of the more advanced techniques in bass fishing.

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Complete Guide to Offshore Swimbait Fishing | Sonar, Tackle, and Areas Explained by Fish the Moment fish in your fish finder how to count down the bait how to reel it in everything you know so that you can be an expert at offshore swimbait fishing in the fall as well so let's get into it first let's explain what a suspended bass is basically it's a fish that's not related to the bottom or the surface of the water they're in that in between zone a lot of times bass will suspend just randomly out in the middle and follow big schools of bait fish around other times they'll suspend over the top of a structure like a ledge a hump or a point other times they'll suspend by cover like a brush pile a rock pile or standing timber in all these cases these fish are basically just roaming around chasing bait fish but some of these fish are more easy to catch than others let me explain how that works in general the toughest type of suspended bass to catch are the fish they're sitting out over the creek channel over the deepest part of the lake just randomly chasing bait these fish are not related to any structure or cover and they are very migratory they move a lot or nomatic this makes them really challenging to pin down and even if you graph these fish or electronics if you try to spin around and cast on those fish there's a really good chance they've already swam
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No One On Your Lake Can Catch These Bass - Learn How You Can! by Fish the Moment the drop like in this third example here they're going to be much more difficult to catch in this case you're going to have to employ different baits than you normally would offshore and use a mixture of unique baits and retrieves to trigger these fish into biting this is one of the more advanced skills of offshore bass fishing so let me walk you through all the baits that i use and how i retrieve them to catch these inactive suspended bass now let's get into the top baits that i throw for suspended bass on offshore ledges the first bait i would recommend especially to new offshore anglers is a swim bait this is by far the easiest of the baits i'm gonna talk about in terms of targeting suspended bass because if you're throwing this swim bait on a ledge all you need to do is cast it out let it sink down to the bottom then just slowly reel it in you want to reel it really fast maybe just barely turn that reel handle keeping it within two to three feet of the bottom and as that bait comes off the ledge and over the creek channel it's going to be right in line with where the lip that ledge was and those fish that are suspended in line with the top of that ledge are basically going to be right in the path of that swim bait it'll then go right
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Complete Guide to Offshore Swimbait Fishing | Sonar, Tackle, and Areas Explained by Fish the Moment what's up y'all welcome back fish to moment in this video i'm going to explain how to catch suspended bass offshore on a swim bait let's get into it okay guys fall is almost here and that means that a lot of bass are going to start their migration from the main lake back into the creeks and they're going to follow big schools of shad when they do this a lot of these bass are going to be suspended around offshore structure and out in the middle of the creeks this makes them very difficult to catch with your traditional power fishing techniques but it makes them actually really susceptible to a swim bait this is actually one of my favorite ways to catch fish in the fall and if you're fishing anytime from about september through november you should be able to find a swimbait bite for suspended baths now fishing a swim bait for suspended bass is definitely one of the more advanced techniques in bass fishing there's not a lot of great information out there i had to learn through trial and error over 10 years to really dial in how to fish a swim bait in the middle of water column and trigger those fish to bite fortunately i figured it out about three years ago and i feel like i'm an expert on it at this point so i'm going to explain this video the entire process of fishing swim bait how to identify
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Complete Guide to Offshore Swimbait Fishing | Sonar, Tackle, and Areas Explained by Fish the Moment see where the majority of those fish are sitting in the water level or depth that they're in and what i'm going to try to do is actually cast my swim bait let it sink down to the level of those fish and then reel it through those fish again if you aren't finding these fishy electronics and you don't know what depth they're at it's very difficult to catch these suspended bass you really need to bring this bait pretty close to those fish for them to actually react to it now one thing that's really important to note is that most fish that are suspended offshore actually feed upwards this means that you don't want to bring your bait below the level of the fish let's say you're suspended in 15 feet of water you want to bring that bait over the top of those fish so maybe let your bait sink down to 10 feet and reel over the top of them as opposed to letting it sink below those fish into 20 foot of water if that bait sinks below the level of those fish a lot of times they're just not going to react to it or they're not going to eat it but if you bring it over the top of their heads they'll come up and eat that swim bait as it's swimming over the top of them therefore knowing the level that those fish are at is really important and then
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Suspended Bass : Locate & Catch Fish Offshore by The Bass University swim baits changed fishing bass fishing at least on this part of the country a lot you know really changed how we approach fish and how we catch fish you know people say it replaced spinner baits people say it replaced crank baits in places and it has well the swim bait 10-15 year we didn't talk about them for bass we didn't talk about them for you know especially the bigger ones for bass you know whether it was I was right or wrong it just wasn't part of the conversation so now it's changed a lot in and you go on tackle warehouse and you hit swim baits and you're gonna be able to see every style every color every size every everything you want on swim baits they've done a great job of keeping all the current good swim baits and you can really have fun with it and it's an ongoing it's an ongoing process like suspended fish there's swim baits that are out now that weren't out your two ago that are awesome I mean it's stuff we've been asking for so I think that's really where what when I talk about swim baits I'm showing you a couple the ones I use but there's a lot a lot of good ones when it comes to swim baits and some of the best ones are really hard to get really hard to get a handle of there's one that I use a lot
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