How-To

How to finesse fish in current, part 2

Last time we covered the various options for bass in current. Now I want to tell you about the various finesse presentations I use under different moving water conditions.

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Michael Iaconelli
New Jersey

Last time we covered the various options for bass in current. Now I want to tell you about the various finesse presentations I use under different moving water conditions.

Here's how I decide which presentation to use: A horizontal presentation usually works best in slow to moderate current. This means your choices should include soft, weightless stickbaits, a tail-weighted French fry, a grub and possibly a weightless fluke-style lure. In 2005, I won a national tournament on the Potomac River by finesse fishing in current. The area I chose to concentrate in, Chopawansic Creek, was receiving extremely heavy pressure from at least two dozen contestants, so I stayed in the mouth of the creek to target postspawn bass filtering out of the creek into their summer habitat in the main river.

Because the fish were locating behind individual clumps of milfoil in water less than 4 feet deep and waiting for food to flow past in the current, I chose a soft stickbait, rigging it weightless and working it on 8-pound-test line. The majority of the other anglers were power fishing with spinnerbaits and big Texas rigged worms, but these lures never reached the bass. The spinnerbaits went over the fish and the weighted worms snagged in the milfoil. When I cast my smaller weightless stickbait upstream, however, the current brought it back down in a natural drift. After the tournament, I can't tell you how many of the pros admitted to me how they'd totally missed the need for such a natural presentation under those circumstances.

In faster current, or when bass are deeper, a vertical presentation often works better. This means drop shots (even power shotting), a shaky head, and certainly, a tube. Don't forget, you want your lure to appear as natural as possible to the bass, and in current with finesse tactics, this nearly always means casting upstream and letting the current work for you.

I remember the June 2005 Bassmaster Elite 50 on Lake Wissota in Wisconsin, where I finished ninth. Smallmouth were feeding in the middle of strong current, not in the eddies or the seams. They were on the bottom, too, usually behind small rocks and other cover. In this case, the weightless soft stickbait I used at the Potomac would never get to those fish. In fact, few horizontal finesse presentations would have been effective. I used a drop shot rig and a tube, with heavier weights to get them deeper and offset the current.

There are no set rules for how much weight you should use in a situation like this, or even which lure. I try to pick a weight just heavy enough to maintain bottom contact. In slow to moderate current, a 1/16-ounce sinker or jighead might work, but in faster water, I'd try 3/16- or 1/4-ounce weights.

When you're casting upstream, as I did at Wissota, you can guide your line by raising and lowering your rod tip, but you need to let your lure do its own thing as much as possible. Every finesse technique I use and write about here has some action of its own, and current will bring out that action.

Think about tailrace fishing below a power dam as an example of working lures in current. On Alabama's Coosa River, for example, the fast water below Logan Martin Dam is famous for spotted bass, striped bass and hybrids, and the most popular lure choices are grubs and tubes, usually rigged on 1/4- or 3/8-ounce heads, depending on the volume and strength of the water flow.

I can't tell you how many big fish have been caught there simply by casting upstream and then letting the current wash the bait down. All you do is hold your rod up slightly to keep the grub bouncing along the rocks. Up on the Tennessee River, tons of big smallmouths have been caught drifting the light Charlie Brewer Slider worms and grubs in the current around stumps and rocks. Those fish are usually caught on 6-pound line, too; so yes, finesse fishing is certainly a workable choice whenever you're fishing moving water.

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