When I’m fishing deep for largemouths, I want to get down to where they’re holding to ring their dinner bell. One of my favorite lures for catching largemouths in deep, clear lakes is a 3/4-ounce football head jig. I like to use either a Zoom Super Speed Craw or a Zoom Super Chunk in the green-pumpkin color. These lures are especially productive when you’re fishing highland reservoirs, and when largemouths are holding on rocks and very deep structure.
Another tactic that always works when not only the largemouths are in deep, clear lakes but also when they’re reluctant to bite is fishing a drop-shot rig or a swimbait. Largemouth bass are like any other subspecies of black bass. Just because the lake is deep and clear doesn’t mean that the bass will be holding in deep water. Shade is another place where largemouths prefer to hold and/or in shallow brush, which provides shade.
First I’ll try to pull a largemouth out of the shade or out of the cover by fishing a top-water lure like the Storm Arashi Top Walker, probably in the pro blue color. The other advantage of fishing this lure in deep, clear lakes when the largemouths are holding in shade and shallow-water cover is I can fish the lure fast, cover a lot of water and develop a pattern relatively quickly. Although I like to fish the drop-shot rig when the largemouths are very deep, I’ll also fish the drop shot when the bass are holding in shade or shallow cover. When bass are in shallow cover, they’re searching for their food to be just on the outside of the water, and the drop shot will be deadly effective.
Another bait that I like to fish for largemouths is a Storm Arashi Glide swimbait. I’ll be fishing that on 20-pound-test Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon line on an Alpha Angler Zilla rod and a Daiwa Tatula 150 reel.
