Tempo & Retrieve Speed

Retrieve Speed and Tempo

It is the time of year that speed to retrieve is the name of the game as reeling up a slow-moving bait or a fish coming at you quickly to set the hook is extremely important. There are many ways to work a bait and certainly many of them require you to work them very quickly to produce the action the bait was designed for; however, working that bait certain times of years require you to slow down, and we are approaching that critical time now as plastics or jigs or burning baits over grass with slack in your line are generally baits of choice during the heat of the summer!

Let me give you an example, many of us are successful at fishing a frog when we burn it across a grass mat. Excellent example of when and how to catch fish; burning it does require you to change speeds and tempo many times to be successful. If you are burning the frog without stopping, slowing, speeding back up, then you could very well have the wrong tempo required to get a bass to bite. When your best buddy tells you to burn it and they will bite does not necessarily mean he never slows down, or stops the bait to change the tempo, this can be a critical piece of retrieve speed.