74 Mississippi Sportsman^ | April 2015
Y
ou can load the boat at Pickwick Lake this
month with bass, if you’re not too choosy about
what type of bass you want to catch — large-
mouths, smallmouths and spots.
Or if you want to switch gears and just catch numbers of
fish, you can go to the tailrace of Wilson Lake and catch
those species plus striped, hybrid, white and yellow bass,
catfish, drums and many other game fish.
In April, the Tennessee Valley Authority will start bringing
Pickwick up to summer pool, and the current and warmer
weather will cause the bass to move shallow, begin to cre-
ate beds and get ready to spawn.
My favorite bait this month will be Mann’s Reel N’
Shad, a new swimbait without a tail that I can fish many
different ways, even as a jerkbait. This lure is really
simple to fish, but it produces a lot of bass.
The Reel N’ Shad comes with a ¼-ounce weedless
jighead, and you simply cast the lure out and reel it in to
catch bass at Pickwick.
During the first part of April, the bass will be moving
up to extremely shallow water to feed in preparation for
the spawn, so you can cast the Reel N’ Shad almost up
on the bank.
My two favorite colors are watermelon red and the
Hartwell special/blue glimmer color, a clear bait with
blue metal flake.
I’ll be fishing 20-pound-test White Peacock fluorocar-
bon that’s about the diameter of 12- to 14-pound-test
monofilament on a 7.3:1 Pinnacle reel with a 7-foot,
medium-heavy Pinnacle rod.
In shallow water, I’ll cast this lure around any type of
brush, logs, stumps, rocks and the dead, brown grass
along the shoreline.
As soon as the bait hits the
water, I’ll start swimming it back
to the boat on a slow retrieve.
Two other types of retrieve will
also work. I’ll cast past the target
(bushes, logs, stumps, etc.), killthe bait and let it fall right by the structure, which often is
when bass will attack.
Another tactic is to swim the bait right up to the struc-
ture with a slow retrieve and speed up your retrieve by
making four or so quick turns on your reel; the bass will
think the lure is a baitfish that spotted a bass down in the
cover and is swimming quickly to escape.
On different days, bass usually will prefer one type of
retrieve over the other.Bet on the pea gravel points
Pickwick Lake has numerous pea gravel points whereload the boat with bass
this month at Pickwick
lunker lines
Paul Elias
Working a Reel N’ Shad on a
Pickwick pea gravel point is a great
way to catch April bass.Paul Elias, of Laurel, has
fished 15 Bassmaster Classics
with career winnings of
over $1 million, including
one Bassmaster Classic
Championship. Elias also holds
the current record for a four-
day BASS tournament weigh-in
with 132 pounds, 8 ounces, on
Falcon Lake in Texas.