Learning to read the water plays a HUGE role in your success or failure in a tournament situation. Taking in your surroundings, the cover, the weather, the water temp, the action of your lures, what the fish are keying in on... There is a lot to keep track of. Today we have @Mongo Fishing​ walking us through a recent experience he had while prepping for a tournament. He talks about how he learned from the situation, and ended up WINNING!

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#tournamentfishing​ #bassfishing​ #crankbaitfishing​ #lunkerhunt​ #mongofishing

Video transcript:

John Carroll:
Hey, what's up guys, John, from Mongo Fishing. Today, I'm here in the MONSTERBASS Channel to talk to you about a day that I had recently throwing the Lunkerhunt Jolt 8F from the December box and how not catching a fish on this bait actually helped clue me in to what I should be throwing. Let's get into this.

John Carroll:
All right guys, like I said, my name is John from Mongo Fishing and this is the MONSTERBASS Channel. If you are new to the MONSTERBASS Channel, please hit that subscribe button right down there, along with the bell notification button so you guys get notified every single time MONSTERBASS comes out with another video. My channel will be linked down in the description below, but let's talk about this.

John Carroll:
This is the Lunkerhunt Jolt 8F that came in the December box. And last week I was on a highland reservoir here in central Arkansas, practicing for a tournament. And I'd been fishing drains and ditches and humps and grass and islands, rock piles, timber, pretty much everything you can think of and not getting bit at all. And I threw all sorts of baits. When I said, "Let's go burn some rock transitions on main lake and main lake points and see if we can get bit doing that.

John Carroll:
Hey guys. This is a perfect example of a transition bank right here. We have sandy gravel right here. If you keep following it, it goes into some chunk rock and then keep following, it goes into a bluff wall. This is actually an ideal area to be cranking this time of year. The bass will sit either on the bluff to chunky or the chunky to sand. This is actually a really good area to look at during winter and early spring.

John Carroll:
I tied on this Lunkerhunt Jolt 8F and start working down that bank. Now, why would I tie this on? Me personally, if I'm throwing a crankbait this time of year in winter, late winter, early spring, whatever, up basically through pre-spawn, I'm throwing a craw pattern. That's just a personal preference of mine. And so Jolt 8F, this has the pattern, the color that I'm looking for. Two, it's got a small body profile. This is only two and a quarter inches long, dive, eight feet down, has a nice rattle to it. And the biggest thing is it is a flat side, very narrow body, which means it has a tight wobble, which is perfect for this time of year.

John Carroll:
Now, again, I said, I was throwing this and I didn't catch a fish, even though I just mentioned all the good things about this and why I should be throwing it, it didn't work. I fished it for, I don't know, an hour or so burning down that bank, not catching anything and my battery on my GoPro died. I'm swapping out GoPro batteries and I decide, let's swap out baits also. And the reason I did that is because everything that I've been throwing earlier that day had noise. When I was throwing a lipless, that's rattling up a storm. This thing got a nice rattle to it. And so I thought we got a high pressure front, we have a cold front moving in, these fish are probably in a negative mood, they may not want anything that's noisy and rambunctious. I tied on a totally different bait, very similar style. Also dives down about the same depth. It's also nice and narrow and it has a rattle, but it's much more subdued, not nearly as loud as that. Maybe the same on the GoPro in real life, they are two totally different sounds.

John Carroll:
But anyway, so I tied this on. I forgot to turn the GoPro back on and third cast, I catch a two pounder and he has this thing completely choked down in his throat. I didn't get the catch on camera, but I did get the unhooking and releasing on camera. I let him go, but that's one fish. That's a coincidence. One fish is a coincidence, two fish is a clue, three fish is a pattern. I have coincidence. I come out of that little transition, go round a little point to another transition, throw back out there, bam, catch a three pounder.

John Carroll:
Here we go. Yep.

Speaker 2:
[inaudible 00:04:45].

John Carroll:
He did. He choked it too.

Speaker 2:
Camera on this one.

John Carroll:
Yeah. Nice. Nope. The rear hook popped out, but he still had the front hook really good.

Speaker 2:
Almost three pounder.

John Carroll:
It falls right out.

Speaker 2:
Can't beat that.

John Carroll:
Now there's fish number two. In a short timeframe, you're talking just five minutes maybe between fish one and fish two and right around the corner from each other. Both on a red crankbait, just like the Jolt 8F, but significantly more subdued sound. The guy I had fishing on the back of the boat, he ties on a completely silent crankbait, throws out there and catches a two pound spotted bass. There's fish number three. I have two on a subdued sound, he has one on a silent. There it is, noise was the factor. Everything that we've been throwing throughout the day had rattles in it and made all sorts of ruckus. These fish were in a negative mood due to the high pressure front and the cold front that was moving in. They didn't want rambunctious baits. They wanted quiet or silent baits.

John Carroll:
And so we killed that little pattern right there. And we went and ran a bunch of other stuff throughout the day. Didn't throw any more rock transitions and didn't really fish those baits that much. And we also didn't catch anything else the rest of the day either.

John Carroll:
All right. How do you fish it? This jolt 8F, I personally throw this thing on eight to 12 pound mono or fluoro. There are pros and cons to each. Monofilament has a little more stretch to it so therefore the fish can get it in their mouth a little better. The downside of that is mono floats. You may lose some of your depth. Now you can adjust the depth anyway. If you don't want this thing diving all the way down to eight feet, hold your rod tip just a little bit higher. If you do want it getting down a little deeper, hold your rod tip down, that'll help adjust your depth a little bit. The downside with mono, the abrasion resistance, it's not very abrasion resistant and it does float. There's that.

John Carroll:
If I'm throwing fluoro, the advantage of fluoro, it's a lot more abrasion resistant. It doesn't float so you may get a little bit more depth. The downside is it doesn't really stretch either. You need a softer rod when throwing fluoro. Now, do you need an actual cranking rod? No, you don't. Cranking rods, I'm not a big proponent of people going out and buying technique specific rods. I think that's a luxury, not a necessity. If you have the financial means to buy a dedicated cranking rod, then do it. If you don't, then buy something that's comfortable for you. The key to a crankbait rod or a suitable rod for using for cranking is a soft tip. This is a Lew's TP1 Black all purpose rod, actually. And it's a medium, moderate, fast, which means instead of just being tippy at the front with a fast action, it's a moderate fast so it bends down here a little deeper, kind of like a crankbait rod would. This is actually my backup crankbait rod.

John Carroll:
For reels, me personally, I'm a fan of the KISS method, keep it simple, stupid. I throw almost everything on 7 to 1 gear ratios. Now I know that's kind of fast for crankbaits, but I just slow it down. It's not that hard to slow your reel down, but if you want a dedicated crankbait rod with a dedicated crankbait reel, then dropped down to a five or six to one gear ratio. It'll make it a little easier for you.

John Carroll:
But that's that guys. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video. If you did, please give it a thumbs up. If you guys have any questions, feel free to drop them down below. Myself or someone else from the MONSTERBASS staff will answer them for you. Again, my name is John from Mongo Fishing. My channel is going to be linked under description below and my tournament video from that practice that I was talking about will be on my channel shortly. Again guys, thank you very much for watching. As always. Get onto the water, be safe and go stick some lips.

John Carroll:
There you go, guys. Absolutely choked that.