Fishing tip of the week

Fishing Tip of the Week

Tuesday, 19 July 2022 11:30

Keys to Skipping a Bait
As the summer progresses and the water continues to increase in temperature, we all find that the bass start to hunt the shade during the day. On most lakes that means that the bass start heading to the cover and there is no better cover than the enormous number of boat houses that line the shore along any of todays lakes.

Although as a guide its hard to pitch or skip boat houses as it just not conducive when there is more than 1 maybe 2 people in the boat as it is difficult to align a full boat to skip under a boat house. Having said that there are keys to skipping and with a little practice and personal commitment to learn you can easily make skipping a bait part of your summertime presentation.

Some important keys will make it easier to achieve; first is the length of your rod, a long rod is just not easy to skip with, keep the rod 6 ft. 9 in. or less and make sure it is a fast tip that you can put some whip in when you present it. Stiff tip rods just are not flexible enough to get some whip with to make the bait skip across the top of the water. Next do not fully fill your spool with line if you keep your line spool filled to 80% or less it will make it easier to avoid back lashes while you learn. Line peels off your reel more evenly when the spool is not completely full of line on bait casting equipment. Not all baits can be skipped easily as some are just not made correctly to master getting it under a boat dock.

Choose your bait correctly, jigs, frogs, worms with pegged weights make it easier to skip. Jigs rigged with small trailers are easier to skip than having bulky trailers on your jig. Frogs having flat bottoms like a flat stone skip easily and can be placed up under docks with little effort.

Lastly peg your sinker, if the sinker slides up the line it can cause the bait to catch the water instead of skip. Skipping just takes practice and will help you catch more fish in the heat of the summer!

-Captain Mike Gerry