Sharing one of our Papuan Bass lure techniques.

Some anglers will find this very useful in their black bass hunting expeditions. It also destroys the myth that Papuan Bass can only be caught in deep waters. Bass are opportunistic and will use their environment to their advantage to hunt effectively.

During my last trip to Seram, it was raining everyday and the water conditions was as muddy as possibly could be. The flow was fast and the speed varied through the different stages of the tide. These conditions are a nightmare for river anglers but common enough that we should be prepared for these situations. We found out that this dirty freshwater pushes bass out of the rivers. On this trip, we caught most of the fish at the mouth of the rivers right in the middle of the fastest flows in shallow sand banks with depths varying between 1-2m. The dirty water actually became a blessing for us as the fish concentrated in certain holes and drop-offs and became more easy to target.

We used the Fangbait 120DR for this style of fishing. This is how we use deep diving lures over shallow sand banks in fast flowing water. We position the boat at various points of the river in the fast current and cast our lures across the narrow river mouth at 45 degrees or more diagonally across the river. We use a diving lure because we need it to catch the water quickly, get down and start knocking the bottom quickly.

Once the lure vibrations start, we use an ultra-slow retrieve to keep the lure in contact with the bottom. When you lose contact with the bottom, it means the water has gotten deeper, like a hole or drop-off. Speed up the retrieve a bit to push the lure to continue contacting bottom in this case. The technique is to drift the lure sideways naturally with the flow, THERE IS VERY LITTLE FORWARD WINDING. The idea is to use very slow hard vibrations while drifting the lure body sideways into the path of any fish waiting in the current for food to come to them. So if you cast 45 degrees right into the current, you will finish your retrieve on the left dragging your lure almost behind the boat.