Just as cabin fever seemed inevitable, I received a long-awaited text from Bill Kespert, good friend and local hammer. The text was simple, one that I receive annually with the same anticipation and excitement: “The launch is thawed.”The spring melt had finally made flows high enough to break up the ice at our favorite boat launch, giving us access to a wonderland of hungry pre-spawn largemouth bass. I fumbled through my tackle closet, reaching past finesse baits and small offerings to pull out a large Plano box labeled “Glide Baits.”
The “launch” is more of a crooked, sloping bank than a boat ramp, and even under perfect conditions, launching is a difficult task. We began at an outflow at the southern end of a network of ponds and made our way upstream. Bill maneuvered his Ranger 198 through the debris-filled stream, dodging newly fallen trees and shallow boulders in the moving water. Along the way, several sections of the stream were blocked by a tangled, impassable web of trees felled by a heavy spring snow. Using a small battery-powered chainsaw, I slowly cleared the way while Bill stayed on the motor and avoided breaking rod tips and power poles. As we headed out of the stream and into the main lake, we felt a sense of relief and focused back on the mission at hand.
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For many seasoned anglers, the spring bass bite presents the best chance at hooking a personal best. While most anglers instinctively reach for a slow-moving soft plastic or a lipless crankbait in these cold conditions, we grabbed our heaviest setups in anticipation of the fabled pre-spawn swimbait bite.
Under the right conditions, big glidebaits entice trophy-sized, pre-spawn bass that are fattening up on large baitfish after a long, mostly-dormant winter.
Our approach is much more deliberate and aggressive, capitalizing on a number of natural processes all happening in concert come spring. The willingness of a largemouth bass to eat a seemingly obnoxious-sized bait paired with the proliferation of large spawning baitfish can mean a “big bait” beatdown in areas where largemouth come in contact with baitfish like yellow perch, white perch, alewives, and herring.
Building a Glide Bait Combo
A baitcasting reel with a high gear ratio, like the Shimano Curado K 300HG, is generally preferred when using glide baits. The fast retrieve speed helps to pick up the slack in the line created when the bait glides from side to side.
Maintaining contact with your glide in between twitches (without impeding the gliding action) can help with feeling strikes and increasing your hook up ratio when fish eat on a slack line. The large spool holds plenty of line for those long, bombing casts, and a locked, powerful drag is imperative for turning the fish’s head and getting it headed toward the net.
A rod with a fast tip and sturdy backbone, like the Dobyns Mike Bucca Bullshad, provides a combination of finesse and power, to impart precise action to the glide bait without sacrificing strength when the time comes to set the hook. A parabolic action helps absorb headshakes and keeps trebles pinned while fighting fish.
Dobyns Mike Bucca Bullshad
While some anglers prefer a shorter rod, extra length helps with casting distance and keeping the line close to the water, preventing the nose of the bait from pointing upwards at the end of the retrieve. Look for lure ratings of 1 to 5 ounces to comfortably throw large baits that get the attention of big bass.
Locating Pre-Spawn Largemouth
Without the need for discussion, Bill steered the boat toward a shallow backwater that we both knew boasted an array of structure and water perfect for large spring bass. In preparation for the impending spawn, largemouth bass stage and move in waves into warmer, shallow spawning bays to build their nests. Certain flats and coves are more productive, depending on a number of features like structure, vegetation, and water temps. The bass filter in and out of these areas throughout the pre-spawn. The small males generally arrive first, followed closely by larger spawning females. As water temps reach mid- to high 50s, baitfish such as white perch, crappie, and yellow perch make their way out of the deep lake basins, using the same areas in preparation for their own spawning. With crystal-clear water and a maximum depth of 5 feet, our target area was packed full of structure and, we hoped, feeding bass.
Shallow backwaters and coves warm faster than the main lake, so bass move into these comfortable areas to feed and build their spawning beds.
We quietly snaked our way into the cove, our eyes glued to the water, scanning for signs of life. Instantly, we noticed that adult white perch had found their way into the cove and, much to our surprise, some even seemed to be in the process of spawning. With their heads down in the mud and their tails waving just below the surface; the females were laying eggs. Fully immersed in the process, the perch seemed completely oblivious to their surroundings. With every fiber of their being focused on reproduction, they were easy targets for largemouth looking to fatten up before the long, arduous spawning season. We were even able to sneak up on a few perch and net them off the bottom. After quickly observing their bulging stomachs, we released them to finish what they had started. Other male perch, or females who were not yet turned into living zombies by the natural cycle, swam aimlessly nearby, waiting for nature to direct them.
We both reached for our glidebait rods, already rigged with large, articulated lures. The perch and their sluggish, meandering movements were easily replicated by my 8-inch Bull Shad glide as it patrolled the shallow, warming water. The first bite was violent and could be felt deep into the butt end of my rod. The bass T-boned the bait on a slack line in between twitches and was met with a sweeping hookset that buried the stout treble hooks. Fighting a fish on a glidebait (and big swimbaits in general) is almost always a quick and violent event. It isn’t the time to test out the drag system on your new reel or fumble for a net. Once hooked, the goal is to keep the fish’s head down and its momentum headed toward you. I did just that and began dragging the bass toward the boat where Bill was waiting with a net. I used the forward momentum of the fish to bring its head to the surface, and with one measured jab of the net, we accomplished a goal that we’d spent the entire winter thinking about.
Bill hoisted the net into the boat and dropped it directly onto the front casting deck. The 8-inch bait pinned sideways in the bass’ mouth seemed as if it would have disappeared down the fish’s gullet had the hooks not caught. The fish weighed 5 pounds, 8 ounces, and was a welcome sight after a long, cold winter. We had barely made it into the cove and the bite was on.
Large glidebaits do a fine job of replicating the sluggish movements of spawning baitfish like white and yellow perch.
A slight wind created the perfect amount of chop on the water’s surface, concealing us and making the fish much more willing to eat in the shallow water. Held in place by a Power-Pole, Bill and I continued to inch our way forward, blind-casting and covering water with our glide baits. We gradually closed the distance on a slight channel that snaked through the cove, noticeable only in the spring before the thick weeds and lily pads inundate the area and hide the bottom contours. The slight variation in depth seemed to be exactly what the fish were looking for.
Eager to get a bait back in the water, Bill sent his KGB Legend glidebait soaring over the channel, hoping to answer with a bass of his own. The violent splash of his glide on the water was instantly met with a larger explosion, one that threw water and revealed a large fanning tail and broad green shoulders. Before Bill could even rotate his reel handle enough to engage his reel, the bass took line, darting sideways and frantically searching for a piece of cover where it could lodge the large foreign object dangling from its mouth. Before I could retrieve my bait and grab the net, Bill was already winching the bass over the side of the boat, his rod bending to the reel seat. A bulbous green critter lay on the front deck, temporarily stunned by the violent fight. A quick weight confirmed what we already knew—the fish broke 6 pounds. After a sequence of high fives and celebration, we put the fish in the livewell to recover. The bass were stacked in the channel, ambushing perch as they wandered off the flat into the slightly deeper water.
Glide Bait Categories
Glidebaits fall into two categories: open-water glidebaits and cover/structure glides. They can differ in swim pattern, sink rate, and size. An open-water glide generally has a wide, fluid swim pattern that covers a larger swath of water. It may have a faster sink rate, allowing anglers to explore different columns of water with the same bait. Open-water glides tend to have tight joints that limit its articulation, causing a much wider “S” pattern.
Cover glides usually have a tighter, sharper glide.A wider joint allows the bait’s two pieces to articulate further, creating sharper side-to-side movements. Another characteristic of cover glides is their tendency to be made in slow-sink, floating, or low-float variations. They can be fished right up against cover and suspended in the strike zone for an extended period of time. On this day in particular, the sink rate of our glidebaits is what made them especially deadly. By using a slow-sink glide, we capitalized on its ability to suspend in place in super-shallow water.An open-water glide would have had a presentation of a few seconds before it laid on the bottom or got hung up in vegetation. Presenting the slow-sink bait over the top of flooded grass and making slight contact with structure was what it took to entice eats and convert followers into strikes.
As we reached the back of the cove, we found ourselves in two feet of crystal-clear water with a sand bottom dotted with the occasional young lily pad. With high visibility and the action happening in such close quarters, a hyper-realistic bait like a glide kept even the smaller bass tantalized. Mature, hungry bass followed closely behind, mesmerized by the cadence. While baits like soft plastics and jigs caught their attention, they were soon dismissed in the gin-clear water. However, even bass that had no intention of eating still covered distances of 15 feet just to investigate our glidebaits. Even in the skinny water, the loud splash of our lures seemed to attract the fish rather than spook them.
The Bull Shad glide is a versatile bait that I think has a wider application than some other glidebaits. Its slow sink rate allows me to pick a column of water and remain there for the entire cast. It reacts to quick, erratic reel twitches and hard sweeps of the rod, but also swims very wide on a single hard twitch. I can cover water with a slow retrieve while also fishing close to structure with the glide remaining suspended in the strike zone. If retrieved immediately, the bait will actually wake on the surface and is perfect for triggering bites in sparse weeds and young lily pads.
Available in resin or ABS plastic, the Chad Shad is the perfect cover glide and is often fished in a “chopping” action with quick erratic rod twitches. With a slow sink rate, the Chad Shad is deadly in shallow, structure-filled water and fits perfectly into my spring arsenal. Its aggressive darting action is unmatched at drawing aggressive fish from heavy structure.
Baitsanity Antidote – 7.5”, (Slow Sink)
Boasting a wide glide and a slow sink rate, the Antidote is designed for covering large, shallow spawning bays in search of active water and aggressive fish. Its wide sweeping action has serious drawing power that pulls fish from a distance.
Soft-bodied and infused with Berkley PowerBait scent, this slow-sinkingglidebaitwas designed withinput from basspro Mike Iaconelli. It can be skipped beneath docks or overhanging trees with ease, so it doubles as an open-water and cover glide. Stabilizing belly fins lead to a balanced S-pattern, and all three sizesfeature a brush tail to contribute to the lifelike profile and natural swimming action.
This slow-sinking glidebait is highlighted by Shimano’s FlashBoost technology, which is an internal spring-balanced mirror designed to enhance the lure’s natural baitfish appearance even at rest. Additionally, Shimano’s ArmaBoost system allows the lure to temporarily disconnect from an internal magnet so it folds into a compact, aerodynamic shape, which improves casting distance—an important feature when bass are feeding in shallow or clear water and are easy to spook.
By the time we tucked the bow of the boat into the tiny tributary stream, the water was so shallow that I had to move to the back of the boat to balance our weight and prevent the trolling motor from dredging up mud and scaring the bass. Still, we pulled fish out of the tiny stream, their curious natures causing them to tail the darting plugs.
Converting followers into “eaters” isn’t an exact science, and there is no secret cadence or movement that makes tentative bass eat. Observing body language and overall behavior of individual followers is the best way to determine whether or not the fish are willing to eat. Aggressive bass will follow the bait very closely, their nose tight to the tail as if they are trying to taste the bait without eating. Some bass dart back and forth, positioning themselves in front of or below the bait in an ambush position, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. Others will eat a glide with reckless abandon, leaving you with absolutely no doubt of their intentions.
In clear water, observing the behavior of bass that follow a lure helps dial in a cadence that yields the best results.
The frustrating aspect of glidebait fishing is that by the time the fish are close enough to the boat or bank to observe their body language, you are often out of room and forced to watch them turn away as your glide loses action or comes too close to the boat.
High sun brought the best bite as the water warmed and more fish ventured into the shallows in search of a substantial meal. We continued to catch bass right as our glides hit the water, the splash triggering a reaction bite from nearby fish. Subtle rod twitches and sharp, deliberate reel rotations steered our baits through sparse weed and around ancient, sprawling stumps whose sweeping roots seemed to reach up and grab the bait, lodging the hooks in their waterlogged limbs.
The prospect of a long productive season seemed like an inevitability. A quick hero shot of five healthy largemouth emptied the livewell, and we returned the fish to the very cove where they would spawn in the coming weeks. Cabin fever cured, Bill steered the boat out of the small opening between the points that isolated the cove from the rest of the lake and back toward the launch.
