Zaldain knows smallmouth love pink

Chartreuse, green pumpkin, red craw, sexy shad, and black-blue will probably always be the top sellers on bass fishing’s menu of popular lure colors, but every once in a while, a special shade sneaks in and appeals to the appetites of the finicky finned critters we chase.

Pink is one of those – especially anytime clearwater and smallmouth bass are involved like here at Lake Champlain — and Carhartt-Yamaha pro Chris Zaldain is very aware of that.

“Yup, everybody knows I’m going to have a Magdraft swimbait tied on everywhere we go, but this is one body of water where the pink version can be a player,” grins Zaldain.

Interestingly, other than putting pink in his starting line-up, when it comes to basic swimbait strategy, Zaldain doesn’t treat this northern body of water near the Canadian border much different than the famous swimbait waters of the Southern U.S. such as Guntersville or Lake Fork.

In fact, his primary goal Thursday to begin competition was to find schools of the biggest alewife baitfish that swim in this massive body of water on the New York-Vermont border.

Seagulls and other diving birds often provide a hot tip on where to find the bait, but for Zaldain, the key is finding jumbo sized bait. “Big bass eat big baits. Some of the best fish I caught in practice were coughing up 6” long alewives, so that’s what I’m trying to match with this 6” swimbait.”

Classic thinking for the always classy San Jose, California native who now calls Fort Worth, Texas home. Go big or go home. And this week, don’t be afraid to put some pink in the mix.