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Tube baits are fantastic for capturing this species as a result of their motion and small size. Anglers favor this bait type as essential for a complete bass fishing arsenal. However, if you want to have any success, you must know how to fish a tube for largemouth bass.
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How to Fish a Tube for Largemouth Bass
If you are new to largemouth fishing or have previously fished smallmouth and want a different experience, some strategies are essential, especially when using tubes such as the ‘swim the tube technique’. Generally, these methods increase your chances of landing a good catch. However, you should note that applying them would typically require a measure of experience.
Swimming the Tube Technique
When swimming, anglers frequently make the mistake of focusing too much on the tube’s bottom regions. This lowers the tube’s impact. However, floating your tube off the bottom with a lead head jig is another great way to capture this species. Use a spinning rod and a line with at least a 10-pound strength when swimming the tube. It also helps if the tube is shad-colored or the tails are dipped in chartreuse, which is known to attract bass.
When the sun is high and the water is warm, largemouth bass, like most bass species, prefer to roam in low-light settings. This provides them with more oxygen as well as allows them to enjoy cooler water. They also seek out underwater plants to hide in while waiting for a stray shag or other small fish to feed. It is recommended to swim your tube around these locations.
The largemouth bass is known to follow schools of shad and consume them, especially in warm waters and when the sun is at its zenith. If you want to capture this species of bass throughout the day, especially if it isn’t early in the day, cast your tube past the largemouth and then right back towards your target fish utilizing the swimming the tube approach. This would typically get the largemouth to bite.
Rigging Slowly on Shallow Areas Technique
This was the first extensively utilized rigging type for all tube rigs. It works well for catching largemouth bass that is lurking in the shallows or hiding among rocks and bushes. If you apply this to these spots, you would have a better chance of catching a largemouth.
If you want to apply this technique, you would need a tube that looks like a crawfish. In shallow water, this color is ideal because it attracts their attention. This method also necessitates the use of a light tube, especially if you are looking for a largemouth that is less than 10 feet away.
Giving your tube gliding freedom is also important for luring these species, which may be accomplished by sharply pushing the tip of your rod with a tube on a semi-slack line. A spinning rod would be required for this technique. The majority of anglers utilize a medium-power, 7-foot rod with rapid action. A braided fluorocarbon line with a minimum strength of 10 pounds is necessary as well.
Deep Cover Technique
There is a strong possibility that the reason your tube is not attracting any fish is that you don’t understand the impact of weather conditions on largemouth bass. The deepwater approach comes in handy in this situation because it can be used in various weather conditions. Dropping your tube into regions with deep cover, which are bass hotspots, is required for this approach.
The underwater, deep cover is good for this species to use as a stronghold. A location where they are less frightening and do not have to work as hard to eat a stray fish. These places also have more oxygen and cooler water, allowing the largemouth to relax. You could also use your tube and a metal slab. These slabs are heavy enough to go down the depths and they easily go into covers.
They also have a lower chance of being caught up in vegetation. Tubes have smooth sides and the bottom tentacles aren’t strong enough to stick to vegetation or wood cover, so they are ideal for largemouth lurking in this cover. To explore the depths, all you need is a line with enough weight, and this method could mean the difference between a good catch and none at all.
How to Rig a Tube
Tube fishing approaches for largemouth bass do, in fact, boost the chances of capturing one. There are a variety of techniques to rig a tube, and you don’t have to rely solely on the internal jig head.
Internal Jig Head
This is the most common way to set up your tube properly. When you cast an internal jig head, it has a round weighted top right below the hook eye, which helps it to fall naturally. It also generates a hopping action when retrieving the line, making it ideal for largemouth fishing.
It’s Pretty Easy to Utilize This Jig:
- Simply wet the head of your internal jig and push it up into your tube, stopping when the eyelet reaches the tube’s top.
- Then you expose your fishing line by pushing it through the open eyelet at the top.
- The final step is to expose your hook point by pressing it through the tube bottom.
If you did everything correctly, you would have a hook at the top and bottom of your tube, providing you with more alternatives when fishing for largemouth bass.
Weightless Tube Rig Action
A weightless tube could be exactly what you need to catch this species, especially if you plan on fishing around two hours before dawn or after dusk. These weightless tubes work well in shallow water, and bass is known to relocate closer to the shallows when the weather cools, making this rig extremely useful at that time.
A weightless tube features a falling rig movement that attracts any hungry bass, especially largemouth bass. This weightless tube can replicate the walk the dog strategy used by bass for a bite. If you wiggle your rod tip quickly while you fish, this significantly ups your chances of making a good catch.
Texas Tube Rig
If you want to fish in man-made reservoirs or thickly vegetated natural lakes. One of the biggest advantages of rigging your tube Texas-style before fishing for largemouth bass is that you may cast your tube into any forage, grass, or wood cover without fear of losing it if it gets trapped.
The Texas rigging technique gives you a lot of options. This means you can use this technique with either light or heavy lines, such as monofilament or braided lines. Anglers will also find that setting up this rigging approach is relatively simple, as long as the weight of their tube, line, hook, and rod is correctly balanced.
The fishing line would be threaded through a nose weight, which would be put directly before the tube and hook. Then, before adding your tube, you’ll need a 3/0 hook on the line. For best performance and precise rigging style, you must place the hook at the bottom of your tube. Also, knowing what kind of fish largemouth bass feed on where you wish to fish makes catching these fish with your tube easier. It’s a nice addition that saves you some time on the water.
Conclusion
As an angler, catching a largemouth should not be a Herculean endeavor, and with these tube fishing techniques and rigging styles, you should be able to have a successful largemouth bass fishing trip in no time.