Click HERE to watch the video of this entire presentation by Todd Kline!
BY MIKE STEVENS
REDDING – With the WON BASS Lake Shasta Open right around the corner (Feb. 5-7), Todd Kline let Western Outdoor News readers get a look at his playbook as he –and the rest of the WON BASS field—gets ready to kick off the season with an event that has all the makings of an instant classic.
Keitechs
Kline will mix in Keitech swimbaits ranging anywhere in size from 2.8 up to almost 8 inches (depending on location, depth and the type of forage fish he’s imitating), and when using them with jigheads he prefers to roll with a baitcasting setup.
“I’m going to throw these on outside points and humps, and even shallow” said Kline. “When I get up there for practice, I’m trying to find the fish from 2 to 50 feet deep, because they’re going to be somewhere, and I can cover the whole water column depending on how fast my retrieve is and where I go. So to my point, with bluff walls, you’re going to cover from 2 to 50 pretty darn quick.”
Kline suggests letting the bait hit the bottom and going with a slow, steady retrieve.
“If you feel like you’re getting too high in the water column, you can let it fall down,” he said. “Those Keitechs on a swimbait head are tough to beat.
Underspins
Another go-to method for Kline that also calls for Keitech swimbaits is working underspins on lighter spinning tackle.
“I’ve had a lot of success on a lot of fisheries on Cool Baits underspins,” said Kline. “It’s a smaller profile, and I usually put a 2.8-inch Keitech on it.”
As for the technique, for the most part it’s just a scaled down version of the same presentation presented on lighter gear.
“Same thing, cast it out, let it hit the bottom and then a slow, steady retrieve,” he said. “A lot of times it’s just a slight tick or your rod loads up, and one thing about Shasta, all three species but the main species that mainly play up there are the spots and largemouth, and they both love all these baits up there.”
Kline likes to use a 7-foot, 6-inch Okuma Reflexion rod matched with a 2500 or 3000 size reel loaded with 10-pound braid to a 5- to 10-pound fluorocarbon leader for this angle of attack.
FFS-friendly minnows
This type of soft plastic bait has been skyrocketing in popularity among tournament bass anglers, thanks in part to the arrival of forward-facing sonar. Most of them are in the 2.5- to 6-inch range, and Lake Shasta anglers in particular reach for them to imitate the trout and kokanee found there.
“This is a great one to fish around timber, because a lot of the time those spots like to suspend up in the tops of the timber,” said Kline. “You can see it on your forward imaging, fire out there, watch the minnow come down, and a lot of times you’ll see the fish look up. You just want to keep it away from them, and it’s a little bit of cat and mouse trying to get them to commit.”
Football jig
While the FFS-powered minnow is a new trend, this one has been around for years and has won a lot of money at Lake Shasta. One of Kline’s go-to baits in this department is a football jig sporting a peanut-butter-and-jelly colored shirt matched up with a Yamamoto Twin Tail trailer, and he will also use this setup to probe for bass hanging out in anywhere from 2 to 50 feet of water.
“For me, it’s a slow, steady drag,” said Kline. “I picture a nickel: hit the front, get on top, drag it over the top and drop it off the other side. You can get some real aggressive hits from the spots and from those big largemouth on a jig.”
Yamamoto Senko
Obviously a proven producer anywhere, Senkos come through in the clutch at Shasta especially when the lake is particularly clear, and that’s usually the case if there has not been a recent storm. Under those conditions, Kline likes Senkos in watermelon, green pumpkin or even a shad pattern.
“Those are the three stables, and when you are throwing it weightless, it’s going to be in 2 to 15 feet of water around trees, bluff walls and around bridges,” said Kline.
Kline went on to say he also likes adding a screw weight into the nose of the bait which allows it to “shoot to the bottom” and perform as a Neko Rig.
“You can see them on ActiveTarget, fire out to them, watch it shoot down and the fish go down after it, and you can literally start shaking it on a slack line and, boom, you’ll catch them. This is one that I know is going to stay on the deck during the tournament all day.”
Bigger swimbaits
Winning tournament anglers know in any event, they’re almost always going to need to chase a “kicker” fish to anchor their bag, and many times that means fishing with a larger swimbait, especially at Shasta. Kline used a DRT Tiny Klash as an example of a versatile bait in his arsenal used to drum up kicker largemouth or spotted bass.
“I like to fish it withthe bill in it and just a slow, steady wind,” said Kline. “I also can take that bill out and make it more of a glide. This is going to emulate trout and kokanee, and you’re not going to get as many bites, but it’s probably going to put a kicker in the boat.”
Kline works this type of bait in the top 10 feet of the water column around Shasta’s bluff walls, trees and points, and he will switch gears if he wants to go deeper.
“When I know there’s fish out deeper and there’s bigger marks that I’m seeing on the electronics, I’m going to take a Huddleston and fire it out, or a swim bait of choice that you like to get down to the bottom like a big Basstrix,” he said. “Let it get all the way to the bottom and slowly turn that handle. Tick the rocks and tick the bottom, and those bites are going to be violent when you get bit.”
Two more for the road
Kline will also reach for umbrella rigs which can produce both numbers and kicker fish at Shasta. He likes to mix up the sizes of the baits as well as the weights of the heads depending on the depth he is working.
A Float ‘n Fly is a favorite rig for Shasta Lake’s local bassers who are dialed on when and where to use them. If Kline is casting one, he’s likely working around bridges or bluff walls.
“That’s something I’m still working on and learning, but it definitely will be on deck.”
