Escape Move

Did you every watch a small fish or minnow in an aquarium when a large fish made an aggressive move? They looked to me like they made an escape move to the side rather than trying to out run them.

I bass fish with streamers that match the natural minnows such as hogsuckers, creek chubs, and darters. By imparting a fast spurting action to my streamer I can often catch large bass which will not take a streamer fished with a conventional retrieve.

To impart this “Escape Move” to my streamer is very easy. Casting my streamer straight across stream I retrieve it with a 6 inch line hand stripping action every 10 seconds. When I’ve stripped the streamer to within 40 feet of me, if I have not gotten a strike I impart a roll cast pick up that brings the streamer up just below the surface of the stream. At this point I swing the rod tip quickly 6 feet to the left. This causes my streamer to dart 6 feet to the left, then I quickly swing the rod tip 6 feet to the right which causes the streamer to race to the right. Usually a violent strike comes as my streamer races across in front of me.

Recently I caught two large smallmouths in this way on the South Fork of the Shenandoah River after fishing the same area with conventional streamer tactics that brought no strikes.