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Techniques that trigger reaction strikes

“Why try to get a hunger strike when bass aren’t feeding?”

Michael Iaconelli is sitting in his boat as a hoard of reporters and photographers quiz him about how he just brought in a 20-pound catch when a lot of anglers could barely break into double digits.

“The technique I use whenever fishing is tough, be it after a cold front, heavy angling pressure or whatever, is to trigger a reaction strike,” the New Jersey pro explains. “Basically, you appeal to their instinct by speeding a lure right by them or doing something very erratic and unexpected with that lure.

“Instinctively, the bass react by striking. It works on any lake anywhere, in two feet of dingy water or in 30 feet of clear water.”

Heavy weights for plastics

When he’s using soft plastics, which he really likes to do, Iaconelli uses a large profile lure like Berkley’s Beast, and rigs it Texas style with a one-ounce pegged sinker. He’s not necessarily fishing thick cover or deep water when he does this, either. At the recent Bassmaster Elite tournament on Lake Oneida he caught his fish in 12 feet of water with very thin weeds.

“The heavy weight simply creates a fast fall,” Iaconelli continues, “and nine times out of 10 the bass hit on the initial fall. It’s pure instinct, because you don’t want to give them enough time to really see the lure. I don’t want a lure with a lot of appendages, like a creature bait because it falls too slow, but I want something more than a worm or a tube because I want a larger profile.

“If a fish doesn’t hit on the fall, I let the lure reach the bottom, shake it a couple of times, maybe hop it once, then pick it up for another presentation. That’s the only chance I give the fish.”

Hit the cover

“We’ve all heard how important it is to hit the bottom when you’re fishing a crankbait,” but I try to hit cover with every lure I use, and it’s especially important when you’re fishing clear water. When your lure hits something, it changes vibration, speed and direction, and again, this appeals to the instinct of a bass. When I can see my lure about to hit something, I even speed my retrieve a little so it hits harder and deflects more.

“I do this not only with crankbaits but also jerkbaits and spinnerbaits. When I’m fishing a weedless crankbait around vegetation, I rip it out of the greenery and create that same sudden, unexpected movement, and this is what triggers the strike.”

Change retrieve speeds

“When I’m fishing spinnerbaits or jerkbaits and don’t have any specific cover to hit, I try to create erratic actions by occasionally speeding up my retrieve or jerking my rod suddenly to the side. With a spinnerbait, this type of change makes the blades spin differently so all of a sudden the lure sounds different to a bass.

“With a jerkbait, a faster cadence for few seconds accomplishes the same thing in that the lure unexpectedly does something different, either diving deeper or veering to one side.”

Even with topwater lures like chuggers, poppers and even floating frogs, a stop-and-go retrieve or a change of speeds can be used to trigger strikes. While it’s true that a “walking” action is often extremely effective, when bass don’t respond a faster “running” retrieve may kick their instinct into action.

Remember topwater expert Zell Rowland’s tricks for modifying the famous Pop R? He not only sanded the body to make the lure smaller and more streamlined, he also sanded down the bottom lip so he could move the lure faster to more closely resemble a fleeing baitfish. It was all about getting instinctive strikes.

Iaconelli emphasizes that one reason all of these tricks produce reflex strikes is because the bass generally do not get a good look at the lure or have a chance to follow or study it. It’s been proven in numerous tournaments in clear Western lakes that the best spinnerbait retrieve is as fast as you can spin the reel handle, and this is the very same principle.

“Even when bass do have a chance to look at your lure, making that lure do something different will trigger the same reaction,” Iaconelli said.

Repeated casts

When he’s fishing crankbaits or jerkbaits and he knows bass are present in a particular area, Iaconelli may resort to repeated casts to that area because if he can get one fish to bite it often triggers an entire school.

“The idea is to cast to the same spot but to really keep your lure moving fast. Again, you’re dealing with bass that for whatever reason are not active, but if you can trigger one fish to hit, you very likely can excite that entire school. I’ve seen it happen numerous times.

“Just keep casting and make sure you use a fast and erratic retrieve each time.”

Constant practice creates good habits

Iaconelli learned these tricks during his bass club days learning to fish heavily pressured lakes in his native New Jersey. He faced inactive bass far more often than active ones, so he taught himself different presentations in order to catch them.

“You should never have a straight cast-and-retrieve presentation,” he said. “You should teach yourself to jerk your rod or speed up and slow down your retrieve on every cast.

“Even something as simple as raising your rod tip to make a spinnerbait or a jig climb, then lowering your rod so the lure falls back creates enough of an erratic movement to trigger a strike.

“If you consciously practice these types of retrieves when you’re fishing, they’ll eventually become habits and you’ll do them without thinking. And I promise that when you do, the number of strikes you get will increase.”