Prop Baits for River Spots - Major League Fishing

Prop Baits for River Spots

Jamie Horton’s secret weapon for river spotted bass
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Spots are aggressive, bordering on angry, and will thrash a topwater. Photo by Jody White.
December 20, 2016 • Jody White • Archives

Chasing down the big spotted bass that live in the Coosa and Alabama rivers can be pretty electrifying. They pull hard, get big and will smash a topwater plug given the right circumstances. FLW Tour pro Jamie Horton has a lot of experience hunting tournament-winning spots on the rivers near his home in Centerville, Ala., and one of his favorite ways to target them is with a prop bait.

 

Jamie Horton chunks topwater all through the fall and early winter to target river-dwelling spotted bass.

The pattern

Though spots will eat a topwater for much of the year, Horton says that the prime time for chasing truly big spotted bass is the fall, usually around Thanksgiving, but it’s good even later in warm winters.

“For the topwater it [the water temperature] needs to be about 56 degrees and higher,” says Horton. “In the fall there’s usually more current. When it cools off or the water gets more color it seems like the spinnerbait or a lipless crankbait is better.”

The best time is whenever current is running. A quick check of the generation schedule is a good way to predict when to go. Once out there, Horton targets eddies and current seams.

“For some reason that prop bait will only work on those eddies on the gravel bars and every now and then on a stump or a ditch mouth,” says Horton. “It seems like just going down the bank you’re better off throwing a buzzbait if you want to fish topwater. They relate to the eddy itself, more than a particular spot. Depending on how high the water is the eddy will move. So it’s not like they’re on a waypoint.”

Most of the gravel bars are easily visible if the water isn’t too high. The brightly washed gravel sticks out from the drab soapstone or mud banks and makes for an obvious target. Horton will fish from the head of the bar all the way down to the tail end, and fishes in the slack water behind the current break, on the seam and a little in the main current. 

 

A simple prop bait is Horton's favorite topwater lure for spotted bass.

The bait

Horton’s bait of choice is a Cripple Killer, an old-style prop bait that spots apparently love.

For tackle, Horton likes a 7-foot, medium-heavy-power Phenix casting rod with 20-pound-test monofilament. He says the mono is key for keeping the props from tangling.

Horton usually fishes it pretty slowly, working it through the water a bit and then letting it pause. Most of the time, he works the bait back to the boat at about a 90-degree angle to the current, or perhaps casts a little upstream and works it at a slight angle across the current.

Target the slack and fast sides of a current seam, and right along the seam itself, to see how bass are positioned that day.

“It works best if you can work it with your rod tip to the side. It’s a really hard bait to fish in that current, especially when the line gets in the water,” says Horton. “When they really get on it a lot of times you can see them come up under it and shake the water. When you move it again they bust it.”

Topwater fishing is always a ball, but when the big spots that the Coosa and Alabama rivers are known for start busting then it can be an absolute blast. Horton nearly always makes time for a few fall trips to the Alabama River, and a hard-pulling spot in heavy current is quite a treat for anyone.