The Bagley DB3: The Best Lure for Calico Bass Fishing

Calico bass eat much the same lures you would use for freshwater bass, I have used all my freshwater lures and caught fish on all of them, some are better than others, but they all catch calicos. Depending on the type of structure/area you are fishing, lure choice is basically the same as freshwater bass in the same type of area. For fishing breakwaters parallel to the rocks my old favorite comes up again, the Bagley DB3 in chartreuse and white really shines, early and late in the day, calicos will really clobber the DB3.

I use my trolling motor to parallel the breakwater and cast the DB3 right up against the rocks in the white water area caused by the breaking waves, this is where the larger calicos like to hang out to prey on hapless bait fish caught in the powerful wave action. The calicos being big and strong can easily overcome the effects of the waves and make easy meals of small fish caught up in the breaking waves. After the DB3 lands next to the rocks, I start a stop and go retrieve to mimic a bait fish thrown about in the powerful currents next to the rocks, these breakwater bass really smash a crank bait hard, you have to use heavy tackle and forty pound test line and have your drag cinched down as tight as you can get it, this is the calicos home court and he knows every nook and cranny and if you give him a foot he will get in behind a rock and you might as well say good by to a five dollar crank bait, as the line will break before you pull the bass from his hole.

The best time to fish with the DB3 is on an incoming tide through high tide and the first hour of the outgoing tide. The outside of the wall, as the breakwater is called, is usually the best place to fish but you can also catch fish on the inside when the wind and waves make it to dangerous to fish the outside. Always use caution when fishing the wallas many very large boats are always going in and out and their passing makes very large waves that if you aren't being watchful can push your boat into the rocks in a heartbeat, always wear your life preserver at all time when fishing the wall on the outside or inside. Even on the inside there are lots of large fast moving boats going by a mile away, and you may suddenly be hit with a very large wake that can throw you out of the boat. Don't fish the wall unless your boat is in tip top shape and always starts right up, first time every time.

Make sure all your running lights are in good working order and you have at least two large volume bilge pumps that work, I have almost been swamped several times when large wakes came out of nowhere and hit me broadside, you need to remove water quickly before it does any damage to your motoror electrical systems in the motor area. I usually fish with three people in the boat, two fishing and one watching out for large wakes or waves. The lookout sits in the drivers seat where he can see a wave or wake coming and quickly start the motor as he shouts "wave" and turns the bow into the oncoming threat as this is the best way to take a wave is head on. We usually change watches every every fifteen minutes and with three guys you watch for fifteen minutes and fish for a half hour.

Although calicos can be caught on many different types of lures, there are a few that stand out above the rest. For fishing shallow water the shad type single tail is one of the best. They come in all colors of the rainbow and sizes from three to twelve inches in size. Colors are basicly used by lure company's to get you to buy more than you need, ninety percent of the time I use lime green, rootbeer ( brown ) and rainbow trout. I know there are no rainbow trout in the ocean, but bass just eat rainbow trout colored swimbaits with gusto. Early in the year I use three to four inch models and later in the year when bait fish are larger I go with five to six inch baits.

Any time you are in a hot bite, throw a larger bait and you will catch larger fish. If the bite is really strong and you are catching many three to six pound fish, that is the time to try a eight to twelve inch swimbait. You won't catch as many bass but the ones you catch could be huge. I have caught many bass from seven to ten pounds on these super large swimbaits, remember big fish big bait. One of the best places to fish the large baits is around boiler rocks.

A boiler rock is a rock that sticks out of the water and the waves boil around them. It can either be an offshore reef or a rocky shoreline, usually found around offshore islands where the waves crash into the island. You want to throw right up against the rock and let the bait sink into the boiling water, keep the reel in gear and have the rod tip at about the nine o-clock position.

These boiler rock bass are in this shallow water for one thing, to eat! There is no mistaking the hit of a boiler rock calico, they try to take the rod right out of your hands. When you feel the hit just wind the reel fast until the rod bends down then pull as hard as you can to pull the fish away from his rocky lair, the fish must be short pumped hard and fast or he will rock you and break you off in the rocks. You will lose lots of fish and lots of lures in this kind of fishing but you will also catch some of the biggest bass of your life.

I use a heavy seven to eight foot rod with a quality baitcasting reel loaded with forty to fifty pound test line. This is true mano a mano fishing, and if you don't have the heavy line you will lose most of the rounds. Back in the seventies and eighties I fished Santa Cruz Island and it had miles and miles of boiler rocks and they were loaded with extra large calicos, if I had kept the ten largest fish most days I could have easily had seventy to eighty pound limits ( ten fish ) but even back then I did not keep any calicos over four pounds. I had many days when we caught forty to fifty calicos over five pounds and only quit fishing the boilers because everyone on the boat had "feeble arm", then the gillnetters moved in around the islands and that spelled doom for the fantastic calico bass fishing.

You can still catch quite a few four to six pound bass this way but the really big bass are few and far between. WARNING: This is a dangerous type of fishing as it is best when the waves are three to four feet and it should not be attempted by inexperienced skippers, one small mistake in judging the waves and your boat could end up on the rocks! When fishing like this always have a person at the helm with the motors running, ready to pull away from the rocks at a moments notice as a larger set of waves to six to eight feet is always a possibility. I usually slowly back the boat in to casting distance and let the anglers on the stern make their casts to the boilers, when someone yelled "fish on" I quickly put the boat in gear and used the boat to pull the big fish away from the rocks, our fish count went up and our lost lures went down with this strategy.