Zell Rowland’s 1-2 Punch
Story and photos By Steve Price
Feb. 11, 2008
Bass fishermen around the world know Zell Rowland as a topwater expert, the angler who basically re-defined the way we fish and who all but turned surface fishing into an art form with his special lure modifications and paints.
What people do not know is that mixed in with all those boxes of topwaters in his storage locker are nearly as many boxes of jigs. They’re the second part of Rowland’s special 1-2 punch. If a bass misses his Pop R or Spook, or if he gets a really weak strike, he immediately follows with a swimming jig.
“Following a missed strike with a different lure isn’t anything new,” acknowledges Rowland, “but the majority of fishermen cast back with a plastic worm, not a jig. The idea is to give the fish something different to look at immediately and bring an impulse strike.
“I use a jig because it creates more flash, like an injured shad on its side, particularly when I jerk it and pause. A worm falls much slower, and I personally don’t want a bass to have much time to actually look at a follow-up lure.”
Another reason Rowland uses a jig instead of a plastic worm is because while he knows where the strike occurred, he does not know where the bass came from or where it went after the strike. A worm will fall where it lands but a swimming jig can be moved actively through the entire strike zone. With a lot of rod tip action, the fish can literally be pulled right back to the spot.
Rowland’s favorite is Pradco’s Booyah Swim’n Jig, a flat-bottom jig designed specifically for swimming on or the near the surface and through cover. Other jigs will draw strikes, of course, but the Texas pro prefers the flat swimming jig because of the way it glides. Rowland adorns it with a stiffer twin-tail trailer which provides even more action because of the way he works the jig itself. He also trims the jig skirt to the hook bend to insure the trailer has complete freedom of movement.
“I fish the jig just like a Spook,” he says, “with quick rod tip motion that gives the lure a jerky but fast stop-and-go movement just below the surface. Normally, if a bass is going to hit again after missing a topwater, he’ll do it within one or two casts.”
Rowland’s 1-2 technique works through the spring, summer, and fall months and the jig can be fished behind practically any topwater lure, including buzz baits and other prop baits, not just the poppers for which he is so well known.
If there are any universal keys to Rowland’s success with surface lures, they might be boiled down to location and perseverance, rather than retrieve speed and cadence, the two factors many fishermen concentrate on.