Pre-Spawn brings with it one of the best times of year to get your chance at a PB largemouth! With waters getting warmer, bass are becoming more active and beefing up before the spawn. When they begin chasing baitfish, a squarebill can be one of the best options to have tied on. A squarebill is one of the most versatile baits around, and can be thrown in a variety of situations.

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Video transcript:

Speaker 1:
Freaking water's warming up. I'm talking like, it's almost pre-spawn, and this is one of my favorite bites to get on. That's crank baits. Let's talk about these today.

Speaker 1:
What's up guys. Welcome back to the Monster Bass Channel. If you do not know who I am, words are still hard. My name is Alex. I'm Oklahoma's Worst Angler. And today, as you can tell by the title, we're talking about square bills and just some good basic tips and tricks for pre-spawn fishing. And yes, that's right. I'm talking pre-spawn because it is warming up in Oklahoma. I mean, I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt the other day when I was fishing, and flip it flops. I was blown away, but we've got one last, little cold front coming through here in Oklahoma. One big, last screw you from Oklahoma in the wintertime, but it's right here. It's right around the corner.

Speaker 1:
These fish are feeding up. They're starting to move up. We're finding them in the shallows. We're finding them on the humps. We're finding them coming up out of the deep and out of the open and starting to move up. And this is a blast.

Speaker 1:
So let's try and get ahead of it. Let's grab some square bills. Let's get out there and start banging around that cover. Banging to the ground, stir up that rubble, stir up all that dirt and that mud, depending on where you are. Start hitting the grass, ripping them through grass. I love ripping a square bill through grass. I love ripping a square bill through grass, even more so than a lipless. So sue me, that's just me. The reason I love a square bill in the grass is the fact that when it starts banging against that grass, I can feel it pulling down. When I rip it through there, it floats the back up.

Speaker 1:
So I just stop and let it float back up. And a lot of the time when you're crashing through that grass and that bait is floating back up, that's when you're going to trigger that reaction strike.

Speaker 1:
Now colors. Me personally, I'm going to go with a few different colors. I'm going to go with something that is very shad imitating. Like, okay. This is a little [Castaic 00:02:05], 1.5. I love the little 1.5 square bills. These things are just, they're bite size. They're just an easy meal, a quick easy meal to where I feel like those fish, they don't feel they have to exert that much energy. And this is going to help put some fish in the boat or on the bank, that little Castaic 1.5 there.

Speaker 1:
Now another one that I love for this time of year, especially fish in grass, and the reason I love this one for fish in grass is the 13 fishing Jabber jaw.

Speaker 1:
Now this is one of the colors. I mean, everyone talks about, get your reds, get your oranges and all that. I believe in it. I 100% believe in it. Okay. I've got some footage that I'm going to show you guys to where it shows that I believed to be throwing the reds, throw the oranges. Color matters, especially with your water clarity. It definitely matters with your water clarity. Okay? If it's dirtier, you want to throw something that's brighter, something that's easier to see. Okay. Now the Jabber jaw. I mean, I did a video over this thing and you've probably seen it anyways. Silent in a sense, except for that bill, it's got a slight click to it.

Speaker 1:
Now when to throw a silent square bill. Lucky for you guys. I've got the brand new Alex Rudd Edition Hammerhead 1.5, new color...

Speaker 1:
Freaking moth. Seriously. This is what I do not look forward to about warmer weather. The bugs, not ready for that.

Speaker 1:
Anyways, as I was saying before that moth ruined my hype intro, the brand new Alex Rudd Edition Hammerhead 1.5, silent square bill...

Speaker 1:
Freaking trucks driving by and everything. Can we start again? The brand new... The brand new Alex Rudd Edition, Hammerhead square bill, 1.5 in orange cream sickle. Good golly Miss Molly. Look at this thing. Look at the color on this. This is hot. This is hot. And that's got those sticky Kitana hooks on there, but this thing is a silent square bill, completely silent.

Speaker 1:
I still got a little bit of stuff shaking around there. Silent square bill. Why silent? Why silent Alex, if you're talking about murky water and everything like that. These fish, they don't have just hearing, okay. You want to work with their lateral lines. This is going to be putting off enough vibration to where it's going to hit their lateral line. They're going to be able to pick up on that and they're going to be able to see it. Okay. They are side hunters. So they're going to be able to see this in that dirtier water.

Speaker 1:
And here in Oklahoma, we're dealing with some dirtier water. We had a really late snow. We had a lot of ice, a lot of rain, a lot of these lakes are getting filled back up and they're getting filled back up with some dirty muddy water.

Speaker 1:
So those brighter colors, that's what I'm going to be throwing in the murkier water; and that clear water, that's where I'm going to be throwing the shads. That's where I'm going to be picking these guys up right here. The whites, the blues. I'm not big on like chartreuse personally. I like more natural. So that's why I'm going to be picking these guys up.

Speaker 1:
Now, as far as this guy in the grass right here, the reason I like that is because it has a very slow float, a very slow float. And that again, I think is really good for those pressured waters, where you're dealing with those fish that have seen a ton of baits come by and know, that thing hurt my mouth last time I ate it, so I don't want to mess with it, But if you got something that's going to float a little slower, a lot of time, you can get that fish to just look at it and watch it enough and just say, "You know what? I'm going to risk it for the biscuit. I'm going to try and eat that thing."

Speaker 1:
So let's go ahead and just... I should have turned my phone on silent. I'm sorry, guys. This is really unprofessional of me and, I really do apologize. It's probably my buddy blowing me up about the fish that he's catching right now while I'm stuck here at the house with my kids. I say stuck here at the house, but I'm blessed to be here at the house with my kids. Let's show some footage of fishing square bills and pre-spawn last year.

Speaker 2:
There's a fish. That's a fish. Oh, you got spunk. Okay.

Speaker 3:
That's not a bad dude.

Speaker 2:
That's... Oh my gosh, dude. Holy crap.

Speaker 5:
Unhook.

Speaker 3:
No. Hey.

Speaker 2:
Look at that.

Speaker 3:
Double fives, bro.

Speaker 1:
And we had a good time. We had a good time last year, as you can tell, the weather was a little bit different. It was much colder this time of year, but we'd had a really good warming trend leading up to that. I looked back in the history to make sure that I wasn't going to lie to you about that. Had a really good warming trend. Water was warm. Grass was holding a lot of heat. We were fishing the grass, those fish were there. I love fishing grass. I love fishing the grass with square bills. I like to go around those rockier points and really just try and get that square bill down as deep as I can, banging off those rocks, deflecting, coming off of there, and just really getting that reaction bite.

Speaker 1:
So talk about line, talk about real, talk about rod. I always say, go with a moderate. If you don't have a moderate, a moderate fast, okay. Those I believe are the best for your crankbait baits. Crankbaits, crankbaits. Moderate to moderate fast. You want something that's going to have a good parabolic load to where those treble hooks are not getting ripped out of that fish's mouth. Speaking from experience, because I just recently did that with a swim bait, but that's besides the point. You want to have that broad load up and absorb all that shock, like you saw in some of those clips. Just let that rod absorb that fish fighting and also let that rod just bury those hooks in there without being too fast to the tip and ripping it out there.

Speaker 1:
As far as line goes, 12 to 15 pound. Now some guys will say lighter, some guys will say heavier. I say 12 if I'm going to be fishing around rockier points, it's a little more open water, because I want less resistance from that line to where that square bill can get down just a little further. I'm going to go with 15 if I'm fishing around a little more heavier cover, as far as structure or grass. That's what I'm going to do. I want that line to be strong enough to where I'm starting to rip through there, that I'm not really going to sacrifice the integrity of my line.

Speaker 1:
Reel. I fish with them all, except an eight gear. I don't do an eight gear, but I mean, I'll do a seven down to a five. My go-to is a five gear. That's what I really prefer for my square bills to where I feel like I'm really cranking on it, but I'm getting a good depth and I'm getting a good dive on it without it going too fast. A little more torque on them as well, but it really doesn't matter. In my opinion, fish with what you got.

Speaker 1:
Okay. But line and rod are extremely important when fishing the square bills. That's my tips and tricks for you guys for fishing and square bills in pre-spawn. Find those secondary points. Find the humps. Find the creek mouth channels and just start chucking and winding the square bill. Okay. Swap them out. Try different colors. Don't be afraid to retie. That's one thing I was horrible about. I used to be horrible about it. I would never retie. I would try and force a bite. That's something I do a lot more now is I retie quite a bit.

Speaker 1:
I want to try and figure out what color, or what pattern, or do they want sound? Do they want a knot? Do they want a big rattle? Do they want little rattle? Do they want a big square bill? Like your magnum size square bills. Do they want some teeny tiny, like one, like a size one or 1.5, something like that. Figure it out. Don't be afraid to retie.

Speaker 1:
Thanks for watching guys. I appreciate every single one of you. If you're not subscribed to the Monster Bass channel already, please do so. And if you got time head over to my channel Oklahoma's Worst Angler. There will be a link down in the description. If there's not, Jim, I'm coming after you. I'll see you guys next time we're on the water.