Big Bites Bait of the Month

Cane Thumper

This month’s Big Bite Bait of the Month is the new Dean Rojas Cane Thumper. Dean designed the Cane Thumper to give him the option of being able to cover water with a soft plastic bait. When you look at this choice it is a great follow up bait to either the Fighting Frog or Cane Stick baits. Dean can now cover water with the Cane Thumper in between spots where he fishes the Fighting Frog or Cane Stick. Let’s take a look at a few different ways to rig and fish the new Big Bite Cane Thumper.

Texas Rigged

I rig and fish the Cane Thumper a couple of different ways texas rigged. The first option is to rig the Cane Thumper on a weightless regular worm hook. In this presentation I am able to swim or hop the Cane Thumper through the shallow weeds or fishing the shoreline. This is a good presentation to use when the bass are located in the shallows and somewhat inactive.

If the bass are active and on the bite I will use a weighted worm hook to rig and fish my Cane Thumper. This rigging allows me to move the bait faster and cover more water when the bass are active and on the feed. I will also use this rigging when the bass are scattered on the flats. I can swim the Cane Thumper down and tick the tops of the weeds as I work my bait back to the boat. The key to this presentation is to make contact with the weeds as the Cane Thumper is coming back to the boat. Yes you can get some strikes by just free swimming the Cane Thumper; but you will get more bites if you try to make contact ticking the tops of the weeds as you swim the bait along.

I have also fished my Cane Thumper like a traditional texas rig. Make your cast and let the Cane Thumper swim to the bottom on a semi-slack line I will then use a lift and drop retrieve as I work the bait back to the boat. A few things of note here I will underweight this presentation. This allows the Cane Thumper to swim to the bottom instead of sink to the bottom. When I lift the bait up off of the bottom I will lift it higher than I would a traditional texas rig then let the bait fall back to the bottom on a semi tight line to be able to detect strikes. When you go to pick up the Cane Thumper for the next lift; see if you feel any weight. If you detect weight or see your line start to move off reel up the slack and set the hook.

For the texas rigged presentations I use a 7ft medium heavy to heavy action baitcaster rod, teamed with a matching reel, spooled with 16lb Sunline Sniper fluorocarbon line.

Swim Jig Trailer

I have quickly found that the Cane Thumper is an excellent swim jig trailer; by cutting the bait down I have used the Cane Thumper as a swim jig trailer. Using the Cane Thumper gives the swim jig a different action than I get when using a grub trailer. I have quickly found that the added vibration that the Cane Thumper gives off helps the bass in finding my swim jig when fishing in dirty water or heavy cover conditions.

With the Cane Thumper trailer I am also able to slow my swim jig retrieve down which is key when the bite is tough or I am faced with fishing in tough cold front conditions. This trailer will add to the options in how you can match your swim jig trailer to the water and the bite conditions that you are faced with.

To fish this swim jig presentation I generally use a 7ft medium action baitcaster, teamed with a matching baitcaster reel spooled with 16lb Sunline Sniper fluorocarbon line. If I am fishing my swim jig in heavy cover I may opt use Sunline FX2 braided line.

Football Jig 

When looking for a different way to present a football jig when fishing rocks I have started to use a football jig in a few different ways than the normal slow stop and go drag presentation along the bottom. One of the new ways that I have started to fish my football jig is to use a non-stop drag moving my presentation along the bottom at a steady pace. I cast the football jig out and let it settle to the bottom, once I notice that my jig has hit the bottom I start to drag the jig along the bottom nonstop.

Looking for a few different trailers to put on my football jig I started to use a Cane Thumper. With the movement of the jig along the bottom there is enough movement to keep the Cane Thumper tail moving. I think this presentation looks to the bass like a minnow feeding on the bottom and is an easy meal for the taking.

Spinnerbait Trailer 

Everybody fishes a spinnerbait at one point or another during the fishing season. If you are looking to put a few more odds in your favor what are you tipping your spinnerbait with? In the past years I have used everything from fluke tails to grubs to help add color and vibration attraction to my spinnerbait to help trigger a few extra bites. Once I got the Cane Thumper in my hands I started to tip my spinnerbaits with it for the rest of the season. I can say that the Cane Thumper has fast become my new trailer choice for my spinnerbaits.

This has really show dividends when using the Cane Thumper as a trailer when I am fishing a 1oz spinnerbait in a deepwater presentation. The combination of the blades and Cane Thumper has fast become a combination that the deepwater bass cannot seem to resist. The standard trailer that I used to use for this presentation was a 5” grub trailer. The grub addition was a way to bulk up the bait and added another color dimension to the bait. With the Cane Thumper I still am able to add color to the bait but I am also adding more vibration to my spinnerbait presentation that has helped the bass find my bait.

Jig Head 

Along with the texas rig options rigging the Cane Thumper on a jig head will be one of the most versatile ways that you can rig and fish the Cane Thumper.  If I am fishing the Cane thumper in open water areas I will use a plain jig head but if I am going to be fishing in cover I will use a weedless jig head to allow me to fish the jig in the weeds.

By varying the jig head size I can control the speed and the depth that I can fish the Cane Thumper at. By adjusting my jig head size I can swim the Cane Thumper in a straight retrieve to hopping the jig along the bottom. The best advice I can give you when fishing the Cane Thumper rigged on a jig is to take this rig to the extremes you will find a way to trigger bass with this presentation that you may have not tried before. With this presentation keep your options open.

So if you are looking for a new bait to add to your bass fishing arsenal give the Big Bite Cane Thumper a try. As you can see you can fish the Cane Thumper as your main presentation or used as a trailer on another one of your favorite jigs or spinnerbaits.

Scott Petersen