A lanky, laconic Texan from Jasper, Sebile pro staffer Todd Faircloth shares much with us in a concise manner, wasting nary a word to explain exactly how he achieved his formidable third place finish in the 2010 Bassmaster Classic.
“I caught probably 75% of my fish at the 2010 Bassmaster Classic on Lay Lake in Alabama on the Sebile Flatt Shad. I was throwing it in coontail grass that was growing in water depths up to the five foot range and just fishing flats and anywhere that the grass was a little bit thicker, it seemed like it was better for me,” explains Todd.
“One of the differences between a Sebile Flatt Shad and a lot of other lipless crankbaits is you can fish the Flatt Shad a lot, lot slower in the grass as opposed to a traditional lipless crankbait. I think that slowness was one of the real keys for me in the Classic, especially the last two days when the intense angling pressure really got to those fish.”
“I was fishing the Flatt Shad real slow. I was almost pumping it like you would work a worm through the grass. I’d pump it out of the grass, let it sink back down, and that thing has a little swerving action when it starts to nose down again that triggered all the bites for me whenever I would pump it out of the grass and let it fall. That’s when I caught all my fish.”
“The Flatt Shad was definitely a difference-maker for me. I was fishing behind a bunch of different people, some of the best anglers in the world, and that Sebile bait is not near as noisy as other conventional lipless baits. It has got a tight sound (vibration) to it, and I think that was another thing that helped me is the fact that, number one, I could fish it so slow and two, it has a more natural sound to it as well.”
“I used two colors, the Holo Greenie (D9) which is a shad with a green back. The blue-backed Sea Chrome (SC) color seemed to work best for me on the final day of the Classic,” recalls Todd.
“Red is also definitely a really good color in the south region of the country in the springtime, particularly if the water is a stained to off-colored clarity. In practice I was catching them on a red color, but it just seemed like I had better luck on the shad colors as the water cleared day by day. There were a lot of shad present in Beeswax Creek during the Classic. Besides, I like to use a more natural color in clear or clearing water as opposed to stained, murky or darkening water.”
“I caught all my fish on 16 lb fluorocarbon line, a 7′2″ medium action rod and a fast 7:1 gear ratio reel. What’s real important for using a lipless bait is using a real fast reel. That way when you get bogged down in the grass, you have that quick reel where you may pick up line real quick and free your bait from that grass.”
“The best advice I can give anglers for ripping the grass with a lipless Flatt Shad is to use a fast reel, and use at least a 7′ rod or even go up as far as a 7′6″ rod. I like to use a long rod, a fast reel and just hold your rod at about the ten o’clock position. Just reel the bait, in the Flatt Shad’s case that can be very slowly such as I found best in the Classic or it may be moderate to fast in other situations. Just reel until you come into contact with the grass, and whenever you tick the grass, you simultaneously kind of lift your rod tip as you crank the reel. What you want to do is you want to come into contact with the grass, but you want to keep your bait right on top of that grass. The fish usually aren’t down in the grass, but sitting right on top of it. You just want to make contact with the grass but pop your lure free whenever and as soon as you hit the grass, and a longer rod and fast reel both help you do that so you keep from getting bogged down in the grass.”
“I was using the 1/2 ounce model Flatt Shad 66 SK during the Classic, and I was just fishing grass. It seemed like the thicker grass that I found out the further off the bank, the better. These were pre-spawn fish just staging and coming up and I was fishing next to a big spawning cove, and it was just a textbook pre-spawn type situation,” describes Faircloth.
“They were out on the flats, and there were small, subtle points every so often, which was where I caught them. The little points were really just built-up bank, no special bottom composition or cover on them. The biggest key deal for me was just the coontail grass. There was not a whole lot of coontail on Lay Lake at this time except in Beeswax Creek. The one particular area I was in had a bunch of it, and I think that was the biggest reason why there were so many fish in there. Coontail is not found all over the country, mainly in the south is where you find it. It’s kind of like milfoil yet a little different in that coontail normally doesn’t grow real deep like hydrilla does or milfoil can. Coontail tends to be a shallower-growing grass. Most of my fish were between 2 to 5 foot of water depth, and the coontail the fish were in ranged from a 1/2 to a foot off the bottom, it wasn’t very tall. Some places it may have been as tall as two feet, and the taller the better it seemed like. It was just patches of grass. It wasn’t like I was following a defined grass line, it was just patches of grass,” reveals Todd.
“I had this one other thing also, and that was a natural drain coming down off the land. It was just like where a little spring branch would come in, and that held some fish for the duration of the Classic. That’s pretty much it in terms of the areas where I was catching them.”
“If you are fishing real thick grass, and you find that you’re having a hard time from keeping the bait from bogging down, the only other thing I would suggest, would be a braided line. A braided line will definitely help you keep the bait on top of the grass, and it will also help you rip free of the grass a lot easier. You need to go to a little bit softer action rod whenever you go to a braided line because you have no stretch there and you’ll tend to lose a few more fish if you don’t go to a softer action rod using braid. The grass wasn’t real, real thick at the Classic, and that was the reason why I used fluorocarbon there as I was deliberately trying to keep my bait down in the sparse patches, and fluorocarbon helped me do that because the grass wasn’t so tall and fluorocarbon sinks. Braid has a floating quality to it. In the summer when the grass gets much thicker, you bet I’ll be using braid then.”
“To sum things up for you, I think a lipless crankbait such as the Flatt Shad is one of the most productive baits you can fish in a pre-spawn situation, given that there is grass present. It is a great bait for covering water, and a lot of times when the fish are cold and sluggish like the ones I caught during the Classic, it takes a reaction bait to provoke a strike, and that’s exactly what I was doing at the Classic with the Flatt Shad.”
“The trebles that come on the Flatt Shad from the factory are the highest quality hook, second to none. So you don’t have to change them out. They’re the perfect size. I may have lost one fish total is all in the Classic, and I’m not even sure it was a bass, I didn’t get to see it. As long as you stay with a soft action rod and keep the fish down so it doesn’t jump, you’re good.”
And there you have it, a Classic explanation of how to rip the grass with Sebile’s lipless Flatt Shad from Todd Faircloth, third place in the world championship of bass fishing, the 2010 Bassmaster Classic.
