"Fishing with tubes"
Author - John E. Brady, Hanover PA-USA
Copyright 2001
e-mail - jeb@jebswebsite.com

Back in the late 80's when I was in my first bass club, I had the rare opportunity to fish a tournament with the best angler in our club. I say rare, because even though the pairing was by random drawing, I never got to fish with this guy. So I was especially excited about this tournament knowing I had a better chance of catching fish with my newly paired partner. I was also excited about fishing this tournament, because it was on the river and we would be fishing for smallmouth bass, which had become my favorite gamefish. What I didn't know at the time was how that day was going to change my fishing forever.

The first thing I noticed on that cool early spring morning as I boarded his boat was that all of his rods and reels were spinning outfits. You have to remember as I stated previously that this was the late 80's, and you weren't a bass fisherman unless you were using short stiff poles with baitcasters on them. So here's this guy, the most hard-core and successful bass fisherman in our club, and he's going to spend the day fishing with wimpy spinning outfits.

During the weeks prior to the tournament, it had been reported by a few other club members that my partner for the day had been using a new bait that was suppose to be dynamite for smallmouth bass. However he was a very tight lip fisherman and didn't share much of his techniques or successes. So the only way anyone got the change to find out the how or what with this guy was to fish with him. And the only way you got to do that was during a tournament. So here I was about to find out about his special baits.

The bait as it turns out, was the now famous "Gitzit," the first of the soft plastic tube baits to which a army of imitators would follow. A small unassuming plastic bait with a tentacle or skit-like tail. And for the next several hours with the guidance of my partner for the day, I was introduced to what is now one of my most favored plastic baits. And to top off a day of great fishing we came in first and second place in the tournament with me the student ironically edging out my teacher just by a few ounces.

These days the "Gitzit" has a multitude of imitators. Just about every soft plastic manufacturer has one in their line up and in just about every color of the rainbow and is now commonly known as a "tube bait". The term "tube" because the bait was hollow with a rounded end, similar to the shape of a test tube.

Key concepts to fishing with the tube bait is color, weight, and action. To determine the color of the tube you want to use can be the easiest and hardest concept. The easiest is the simple rule of thumb is to match the hatch as trout fisherman say of matching their flies. If you are fishing in an area known for a plentiful supply of baitfish, use the grays, silvers, whites and blacks. If you are fishing an area that has crawfish as most smallmouth rivers are, then stick to the browns and greens.

The harder part is trying to determine the shades or combinations of colors that may be required for the more finicky fish. For bait fish imitations, I'll use solid white, pearl, gray in clear water most of the time or the same with metalflake such as silver or black flake (called "pepper") on white. Sometimes blue or clear (see through) on rare occasion if the water is super clear. If the water is stained or muddy, I'll use black or dark blue solids or with some silver or red flake.

For the crawfish imitations I like to use pumpkin seed brown or green with clear tails in clear water. If the water is stained, I'll use the same but with the tail dipped in chartreuse or orange dye.

The key to determining the proper weight, is to use as little as possible, but enough that you can still feel you bait. If you cast your bait into the water, and can't "feel" the bait go to the bottom or you can't feel it working across the bottom, you need to use a heavier weight. My usual rule is one eighth ounce in flat water (no current) down to ten feet. Below ten feet I'll usually use one quarter ounce. In flowing water (current) I'll use one quarter to 5/8 ounce depending on the force of the current. If you can't feel the bait in the rocks or as you pull through grass, you'll need to add more weight.

Rigging is rather simple. While tube baits can be used with several rigging methods including now popular Drop Shot rig, the most common is with a jig hook (see fig 1) where the weight is hidden inside the bait. Another popular style is the texas rig (see fig 2) which is popular for rigging plastic worms.

Action for the tube bait is rather simple. You can swim it like you would a grub, drag or jig it on the bottom, or dead sticking. Dead sticking is a technique of casting the bait out and letting it sit on the bottom for a longer than normal period of time (30 seconds to a minute) before dragging or hopping or jugging a short distance. Then repeat the action. For best bait control, don't cast far. I have found that multiple short casts are better than longer cast allowing less looping and stretch in your line. Although much depends on the type of cover or depth you are fishing.

Many of the hits you will get on a tube bait is as it falls to the bottom or on the drop after it is jigged or hopped. And because the bite comes this way you usually don't get an aggressive strike. The only tell tale sign you might get is just seeing your line jump, have it never falling all the way to the bottom, or slowly moving off in a different direction. Although it is customary to have slack in the line between hops, keeping contact to the bait is key to catching fish. When one of these occur, you need to set the hook. So if you have any gap in the line, you could loose your fish.

Another key to using the tube bait successfully is scent. Most tubes these days come with some kind of scent locked into the plastic such as the Berkley Power Baits with Berkley's secret formula, or Gene Lerew's salt impregnated products. My favorite is "Real Craw" or a similar crawfish scent on my brown and green tubes when fishing the river.

Also popular with hard core soft plastic fisherman is using special dye to add color to the lure (usually to the tail) (see fig 2). There are several types of dye applicators. Most common are bottles, and pens similar to magic markers. With bottles you can dip the tube tail into the die. With pens or markers, you can apply just a little for accents.

I've also added my own little personal touch to some of the tubes that are to mimic baitfish by adding eyes. I purchased mine at a craft store. Some are punched through one side then capped on the other side, and some are attached with Super Glue. Now I see they are available through Cabelas and Bass Pro Shops.

As I mentioned early in my story, spinning tackle is the preferred tackle. Mainly due to the light weight of the rig can be cast easier on spinning tackle. My preferred rod is a 6 or 6 ½ ft medium action fast taper rod. That gives me the ability to have a little give in the tip for playing the fish, but it's stiff enough to be able to pull the fish out of the rocks or grass when needed. Line weight should be no lighter than 6# test, and no heavier than 12# test. My preferred is 8# for all occasion. My line choice also includes a line that I can see while working the bait. Berkley's Trilene Photochromatic line works best for me.

These days you'll never see me fishing without having a tube bait tied onto a spinning rod whether it for immediate use of as a just in case bait it's a staple for me. If you haven't tried a tube bait, you need to tie one on and find out why it is regarded as on of the staples for almost every professional fisherman. So when the going gets tough, I get out the tubes.

Remember... "they call it fishing, but the goal is catching."

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