My friend, Dwayne Nugent, lived on a lake on the border of Calcasieu and Beauregard parishes. It is named Coward Lake. It is 52 acres of beautiful clear water. I spent many a clam afternoon fishing there. He passed away last year and I doubt if I will ever get to fish it again. I fished this lake many time over the last 15 or so years and learned many things fishing its clear waters. One of the things I learned, I want to share with you today.
The buzzbait was invented many years ago and have caught countless fish by just throwing out and reeling it in. Like many lures, spinnerbaits, crankbait, and lipless crankbaits, they will all catch fish by just chunking and winding. But, many anglers know that if you do different things to these, so called idiot lures, you can catch more fish.
One of the first commercial buzzbaits was the Lunker Lure and it created quite the "buzz".
One trick that we always used was to bend the wire down to where the blade just touched the wire arm. Then when you started reeling and the blade started turning, it would "tick" on the wire and that was sometimes money.
There are many other tricks that you can do to them and you can sometimes see them being flown off of truck antennas to help tweak their sound to make them squeakier.
All of those are good but none of them is as good as the one I am about to relate to you. On Coward lake we mostly fished out of small Jon boats. I always have too many fishing poles and sometimes a lure will be hanging off the side of the boat. This is what I thought was happening when I discovered this amazing thing....
I was pulled up to a windy point of this small cove and I was casting into the wind and working my bait back with the wind; from deeper water to shallower water. The wind wasn't' blowing very hard, but, there was a slight ripple on the water. That is when I heard it. A buzzbait gurgling sound. Was my buzzbait hanging over the side? I looked over and to my amazement, I saw a lizard scurrying on top of the water along side the boat. Ahah! So that is what a bass thinks it is!!!
So if you will put a worm tail trailer (ripple tail is best) on your buzzbait, it will seal the deal. The bass will hear what he knows is a Lizard. He will see the tail swagging in the water and most times, he won't be able to resist.
Tip: Reel just fast enough to keep it on top. It doesn't hurt to bang it into things either. (waiting for the lizard to knock himself out?)
Soft rides and hard strikes!!!
Mark