With ultra-clear and often eerily calm conditions, bluebird days mean spooky bass that’ll be even less tolerant than normal to intrusion.
Couple that with the fact that the fish can be tucked way back in some truly gnarly cover that’s nearly drained by that north wind and it’s easy to see how beneficial a push pole can be for bluebird days.
“If you take a big bed of hyacinth you might not want to use the trolling motor and spook them because they’re already finicky,” FLW Tour pro Jim Dillard said. “You can push pole in and around and through that cover. You can just push pole 10 to 15 feet, flip all around you, push pole another 10 to 15 feet and flip all around you again.
“That’s a good way of doing it on a high-pressure day, especially if you get a bite or two. Sometimes there’ll be more fish there and you don’t want to spook them. You want to take advantage of the situation because you need every bite on a bluebird day.”
For Bassmaster Elite Series pro Cliff Crochet, fishing post-frontal conditions means big-time wind challenges. Proper boat positioning is essential, and for this he relies heavily on his Power-Poles.
“When you’re dealing with the wind blowing 20 mph, casting and feeling baits — like flipping or casting a jerk bait — can be tough,” Crochet said. “Staying in contact with your bait sometimes is impossible when you have a big bow in your line.
“A big help here are PowerPoles — either anchoring them or dragging them. When you’re not trying to fish a specific area, but you want to slow down to fish an area, they allow you to stop and keep yourself lined up with what you’re fishing. You might need to Power-Pole down to fish a piece of isolated cover or drag them to slow down and work a grass line on Toledo Bend or a canal down south.”
