Most of the bass around the country are in the postspawn by now. A lot of anglers don’t realize it, but this can be a really good time to flip and pitch for bass. They’ve moved off the beds and are often setting up on isolated pieces of cover along the same path they followed into their beds. It’s a reverse scenario of the spawn.
I’m mostly looking for the first or second stopping place along that path. What that might be depends upon where you’re fishing. In Florida they usually pull up under a mat of some kind. Where I live now, Lake Amistad, it’ll be a bush that’s out in fairly deep water. (It’ll be a lot shallower than normal, however, because the water is way down here.) In other parts of the country it might be a stump or a rock. Really, they use anything that’s available to them.
Another good place to flip and pitch right now is up in a creek after a rain with a resulting heavy runoff. The water moving in will push everything up along the bank and the water will almost always have some color to it. That’s really all you need. Nearly every lake or river in the country has such a place, and they all have a heavy spring rain or two hit them at this time of the year. Find a target and go after it.
What I’ve just described is basically true anytime. Whenever you get high, muddy water, you should be reaching for your flippin' stick. There’s very little light penetration and the fish will follow the rising water. Flippin' and pitching isn’t so much about what season of the year we’re in as it is the conditions you’re fishing.
Regardless of where you find them you can figure they’ll be aggressive. These are fish that have just finished spawning. Their metabolism is high. They want something to eat. That means you should be using heavy sinkers and a Texas-rigged plastic bait with a lot of movement to it.
I generally use Strike King Tour Grade Tungsten Weights between 1/2- and 3/4-ounce. I want to be able to penetrate anything that’s around, and I want my bait to drop fast. They get the job done for me.
My first choice when it comes to plastic baits is a Strike King Rage Tail Craw. Sometimes a worm with a ribbon type tail will catch them, but I always start with a Rage Craw. I want as much movement as I can get. I rig my plastics with a Mustad Grip-Pin Max hook. No matter what else happens you won’t get them to the boat if you don’t get a good hookset.
My other tackle choices are well-known so I won’t go into too much detail here except to say that I am now flippin' and pitching exclusively with my new Denny Brauer Pro Series Flip & Pitch Rod made by Ardent.
