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

When targeting suspended bass in deep water with swimbaits, there are several effective methods you can employ to entice those finicky fish. Based on the video context provided, here are some strategies that can prove successful:

  1. Countdown Method: As mentioned in the "Offshore Bass Fishing Technique You've NEVER Tried Before!" video, you can use the countdown method to get your swimbait to the correct depth where bass are suspended. After casting, count down the bait to ensure it's above the fish, as bass are more likely to feed upwards. Start with a quicker retrieve to activate the swimbait's tail action, then slow down to a more natural pace.

  2. Burning and Killing: The "Tips for Fishing Pre-rigged Swimbaits for Big Bass" video suggests the burning and killing retrieve. Cast your swimbait, let it hit the bottom, then reel quickly for a few cranks before letting it fall back down. This imitates a fleeing baitfish and can trigger aggressive strikes from bass on the fall.

  3. Deep Structure Fishing: When fishing swimbaits around deep structure, as per the same video, you can slow-roll the bait along the bottom, maintaining contact with the structure. Alternatively, you can work it off drops or ledges, letting it fall down the contours to mimic a baitfish moving through the area.

  4. Visual Bites: In the "Offshore Bass Fishing Technique You've NEVER Tried Before!" video, it's highlighted that swimbait bites in deep water are often visual. Ensure your swimbait is presented where the bass can see it, which is typically above them.

  5. Size and Weight Selection: In the "How to Fish Big Swimbaits in Deep Water" video, the angler discusses using big swimbaits with an exposed head for better bottom contact and feel. This can be especially effective on pressured fisheries where presenting a larger profile might entice a bigger bite.

Remember, the key to fishing swimbaits for suspended bass is to mimic the natural movement of their prey and to keep the bait in the strike zone where the bass are most likely to feed. Experiment with different retrieves and pay close attention to how the bass are reacting on a given day, as conditions can change their behavior.

Related videos
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This MASSIVE Misconception About Swimbait Fishing Is Costing You Bass by Bass Fishing Declassified bait can only be fished for suspended Bass this is definitely not the case though and I catch some of my biggest bass of the winter fishing small swim baits near the bottom around Rock piles there are a couple reasons why a small swim bait fished deep and close to the bottom is very effective the first is that schools of bait fish are not always going to be suspended and roaming out in the middle of the water column despite what you might hear from a lot of other guys on YouTube You're Going to see a lot of videos including myself fishing for suspended bass that are just randomly chasing Bait fish over Creek channels in the middle of ditches and drains and all that stuff using the live scope and while that does happen and it allows you catch a lot of good fish there is a much simpler way to catch bass that doesn't require live scope at all and is something that's very overlooked by a lot of Anglers basically what I'm talking about is fishing for bass that are actually tight to the bottom and it feed on Bait fish schools that go and feed around the rock piles offshore the one thing about Bait fish is that there's no food source for them out there suspended in the middle of the lake where there's nothing around they have to at some Point move up to some
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02:09
Video
Tips for Fishing Pre-rigged Swimbaits for Big Bass by Wired2Fish what we're gonna talk about today is the new swim baits that are on the market and how to apply them to deep structure fishing the ones we're using in this show we're the ones that have a lead head built-in and are kind of heavy and they sink fairly quickly now fishing the swim baits on the deep structure there's a lot of different you trees that could be very effective you can let us think at the bottom slow roll on the bottom stop periodically let it sink back down make sure you're pretty close or have contact with the bottom pull it off the drop let it fall down the stair steps of the drop or whatever you have another way and probably my favorite way is to actually it's the burning kill retreat let your swim bait hit the bottom burn it five or six cranks to reel everything as fast as you can go kind of get your reaction track your bait off shoot up right through and then it falls back through them and they'll hit it on the fall they'll hit it really really hard it's really a lot of fussing another way you can fish them is if you see an fish suspended on your graph safe you're in 20 feet of water over some structure and the fish are up off the bottom maybe they're only 10 or 12 15 feet down you can ask the cast out
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10:35
12:44
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Offshore Bass Fishing Technique You've NEVER Tried Before! Fishing Swimbaits Uphill by Fish the Moment retrieve with this bait what I'll do is cast it out into deep water to the area where I marked fish on my fish finder and let it sink down to where those fish are so for example if I marked fish on my graph in 20 feet of water I want to let that bait sink down to about 15 feet you don't want that bait to sink deeper than the fish because these fish in deep water actually will feed up towards the surface they're not going to feed down very well and pretty much all the bites in the swim bait are gonna be a visual bite and so you need to have that bait above the level of those fish to get them to bite and so because these fish were in 20 feet of water I was counting down my swim bait to 15 feet and with this quarter ounce head and that 3 inch spark shed I find that this bait Falls about a foot per second and so I counted it down for 15 seconds then once it got down there I engaged my reel and serve reeling somewhat quickly to start out but still get the bait moving in the right direction and engage the action of the tail then after I reel it quickly for five or six turns the reel handle I'll start slowing down my retrieve and I'm basically going to be moving my reel
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03:03
05:21
Video
How to Fish Big Swimbaits in Deep Water by Wired2Fish me you know I live on a highly pressured fishery that probably has more bias in it than most lakes in the United States so for me it got to be a game of you know how big a bait can you throw knowing that they eat 12 and 14 inch gizzard shad to maybe get a 6 pound bite out of a school instead of 15 2 pound bites that's what got me into throwing big spoons and especially a big swim bass so I'm not as necessarily concerned about catching limits of fish as I am getting the big fish out of every school I hit I mean they make tons of different swimbaits they've got hard baits that suspend and float and in sync and do all different things those have generally got treble hooks and stuff hanging on the bottom which is no good for the way we fish the scenario that I'm fishing I'm fishing fish on on the bottom in like 25 feet of water so I use an exposed head for a couple reasons they make swim baits that are molded in the swim bait it's actually molded around a heavyweight those are fine but I found I can't feel the bottom as well I can't feel the bait on the rocks without an exposed big head like that in front it's an ounce VMC head with a Berkley slim shot on it that's just about a six
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08:17
10:47
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How I Catch Bass With Big Swimbaits At Small Pressured Urban Ponds! by crazybassfisher cast that far to those fish so they're definitely more out towards the middle and they suspend and suspending fish can be the hardest fish to catch just because they're suspending they're not really relating to anything they're always following shad or bluegill or trout around the pond and you kind of just have to line up your cast and hope that there's a fish kind of nearby in the vicinity so with that you have to think in your mind okay like these fish are suspending out there in the middle of the pond what can i fish out there to get the reaction so one of the baits that i like fishing for the suspended fish is a multi-segmented bait this just so happens to be like a dowel swimmer a triple trout my buddy captain chris's baits and what you do is you just fire it out as far out as you possibly can and you burn it on top of the water and you make this cast like three to eight different times just kind of in the same spot and pretty much what you're doing is you're calling those fish up the first cast you burn it you rip it you're running it through and you bring it back in what that's supposed to do is supposed to kind of alert the bass and the general vicinity like oh it sounded like something was being chased like something's going on
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07:06
09:11
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Offshore Bass Fishing Technique You've NEVER Tried Before! Fishing Swimbaits Uphill by Fish the Moment causes them to suspend over deeper water now deeper water can be very relative depending on how deep your lake is and the water clarity of the lake you're fishing for example on Table Rock Lake deep water might be 25 to 30 feet of water like I'm fishing today but for example on Lake Dardanelle which is a shallow dirty water lake a lot of times these fish will be setting up to spawn in two to three feet of water and when that cold front comes through they might pull out to seven to eight feet of water out in front of shallow grass lily pads or just down the bank and you might be able to catch these fish fish in Alabama rig or a jerkbait and find them suspended in four to five feet of water over eight feet of water just in front of where they're gonna spawn and if your lake is kind of in the middle in terms of water clarity maybe two to three feet of visibility those fish might be pulling up on secondary points or on a row of bushes and pull out to that 10 to 15 foot zone set up in a brush pile or an offshore rock pile you can catch them again an Alabama Rig deep diving crankbait a football jig things like that and usually you can actually see these fish using your electronics and what you're looking for our dots that

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