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Bacarrac Bruisers Bust the Big Grubs
By Jerry Puckett

May/June 1993

If you were choosing partners to share a day’s fishing on Mexico’s Lake Bacarrac you could not have gotten a more international mix than that represented by our group. On the front deck was Kawabe, on of Japan’s top three tournament pros, who spoke nearly no English and zero Spanish. In the middle was yours truly, Jerry "Bubba" Puckett, with a minimal grasp of Spanish and zero Japanese. In the rear of the 20-foot fiberglass panga was Luis, one of the top guides from Chapman and Balderrama Lodge, who spoke neither English nor Japanese.

To say that communication was an international co-operative exercise is putting it mildly. However, the one thing we had no trouble with was producing a load of large fish. Among fishermen there is no language barrier. One of the more amusing aspects was getting Luis to estimate weights for us as these talapia-fed largemouth were super footballs. We were catching two to three-year-old fish in the three to five-pound class. Their head and overall length were about standard for their age but their bodies were absolutely huge. Luis would sneer at these fish and pronounce them to be "little ones". Later we checked some of the fish by electronic scale and found that some of the "little ones" were nearly seven pounds!

After the first two hours, neither Kawabe nor I had any feel for what constituted a "good one". After releasing a boat load of those little ones, our sense of proportion was shot.

A day with Kawabe proved to be a learning experience for me. In addition to being one of the best casters I had shared a boat with (his mechanics were incredible), he also employed a couple of unique spinning rod techniques. Using a medium-heavy 5 1/2-foot spinning rod with a quick tip, he would cast directly away from his body while holding the reel at belt level and the rod at a 45-degree angle. He employed a very abrupt, almost violent action of his casting hand to propel the bait on a very low and exceptionally accurate trajectory. We were fishing in and through a heavy growth of flooded trees and monkey brush. Essentially the cast was either perfect or hung up and Kawabe executed that cast all afternoon without a hitch. I was impressed.

In addition, he was using a braided line that did not absorb water, making it high floating and perfectly suited for his topwater trick technique. He was buzzing one of the new twin-tailed big grubs (17-10-035) like a buzzbait. The big grub plopped its tails and swam and gurgled its way across the surface and drove those Bacarrac bass completely crazy.

As we were there to test the effectiveness of the new baits, I was fishing other tried and true styles for comparison. I was able to generate fish on a spinnerbait, sluggo, and various topwaters but only on a one-to-three ratio with the big grub. When I switched over to the big grub we consistently caught fish for fish. Those fish wanted that grub.

Of all the other test baits the best performer was a bone-colored Pop-R. It generated a fair number of strikes but I had trouble boating the fish. The heavy cover required heavy line (XT 17-pound) and a fairly tight drag setting in order to move the fish out of the trees. That combination does not work well with #6 Gamakatsu treble hooks on a Pop-R. I went to short-shank #4 VMC’s (shortshank to prevent hook overlap) in an effort to improve matters, but still managed to pull the hooks out of a pair of estimated 12-pounders at the boat. It was simply too much pressure for hooks that size.

The rigging method for the big grub, using a 5/0 offset wide gap Owner, put an end to all the problems before they started. We never lost a fish on the grubs. Although, with visions of a world record in my mind, I did snatch a number of three-pounders out of the water and over the boat on the hook-set. One of these ballistic bass hit Luis full in the chest, bringing forth some descriptive words about the "crazy gringo".

The key to hooking these fish was to be patient. Because they wouldn’t spit the scented and salty grub, you could be too early but you couldn’t be too late. You had to give them just a second to make sure they had the big bait fully in their mouths before showering down on them. In this case, it was much like any other topwater bait.

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