With post-frontal conditions coinciding with the start of the Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by HUK, Chad Pipkens will be placing his faith largely in jerkbaits — a technique he believes is a less vulnerable option in the changing weather than some of his more aggressive tactics.
“There are certain things that come and go with weather conditions, like throwing big topwaters, where sometimes the fish just don’t bite it,” Pipkens said. “For me, a jerkbait is one of those baits that you can just slightly change your retrieve and still get the fish to commit — you just might not be able to work the bait as fast.
“I’m just going to try to get into the right areas and mill around and just get a feel for what’s going on early and hopefully take that to other places that are going to fish similarly.”
On the flipside, Pipkens said he suspects some of the baits that produced during practice will likely fall from favor, at least until after the post-frontal conditions dissipate.
“They eat big swimbaits here and I had a couple of bites on that, but I don’t think that’s going to happen on Friday,” he said. “It could happen Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Sunday, it’s supposed to be in the mid-60s and when it gets right like that and you get a little wind, all of a sudden the light switch goes on and those big ones eat.
“You don’t need to win on Friday; you just need to stay in there, so I might be picking up something different to stay in the hunt.”