provided by John E. Phillips
Twenty-eight-year-old Jordan Lee, who now lives on Alabama’s Lewis Smith Lake, has been a professional bass fisherman for 6 years, currently ranks as the no.7 best bass fisherman in the world and won the 2014 Bassmaster College Series Championship while fishing on Auburn University’s bass fishing team. He’s won two Bassmaster Classics – 2017 and 2018 – and today fishes with Major League Fishing (MLF) having earned $1-1/2 million in tournament fishing. To learn more about Jordan Lee, visit https://www.facebook.com/Jleefishing/.
I like to fish crankbaits this month, and one of my favorites is the Berkley Dredger 25.5, which is a big crankbait that dives up to 30-feet deep. The bass are very aggressive during this time of year and haven’t seen many crankbaits in that deep water, so I like to make long casts and crank the bait down deep to catch the bigger bass in the school. I’ll either go for a shad-pattern crankbait or a translucent-colored crankbait, but the bass aren’t really picky about choosing a color they’ll hit in late May. So sometimes I may even choose a shad pattern with a chartreuse lateral line.
To get my crankbait down, I’ll be fishing 15-pound Berkley Trilene Professional Grade 100% Fluorocarbon Line. If I’m only going to be fishing a crankbait that will dive 15 feet, I may use 12-pound-test fluorocarbon line. When I’m fishing a big crankbait, I’ll typically use a 7’10” medium heavy Abu Garcia Ike Signature Delay casting rod with an Abu Garcia 5.4:1 Revo Winch casting reel. This long rod allows me to get a longer cast and keeps the crankbait in the bass’s strike zone longer.
Typically, if you pinpoint a large school of bass this month, you can catch possibly up to 10 bass out of that school before they start moving. After that, I start casting either a football-head jig or a 10” Berkley Power Worm. I’ll usually put the Power Worm on a 1/2-ounce shaky jighead and slow drag the worm through the school. If I’m fishing in less than 20-feet-deep water, I like using a 1/2-ounce football head jig, and I don’t want that jig to bury down in the bottoms of rocks or shells as I drag it. Instead, I want it to barely tick the bottom as it swims with the current. If I’m fishing in more than 20-feet-deep water, I may use a 3/4-ounce head on the football-head jig. My favorite color skirt in May either will be brown or more often, green pumpkin. As a trailer, I’ll use a 4” Berkley Chigger Craw. The real secret to these two lures catching bass in late May is to allow them to tag the bottom of the lake and then slowly drag them along the bottom.
