A Pros Tips for Summer Bass Fishing

Matt Becker's Summer Bass Fishing Setup

Favorite Hex Series Rod - 7’6” Heavy Rod
Favorite Soleus XCS Reel
Seaguar Tatsu Fluorocarbon 20#
Favorite Big Sexy Series - 7’7” Extra heavy

 

Transcription:

Brad: what is up y'all i just got back from florida i got to do a little offshore fishing i was chasing the red snapper on the last day of the season and we did limit out but today's show is not about that at all today is all about that bass and we were talking with none other than professional lip ripper matt becker matt's a major league fishing pro and he has one circuit win under his belt this guy is good matt's going to tell us about his go-to summer deep water setup how he finds what's driving the bike his favorite baitcaster rod and reel set up his favorite flipping setup we'll talk about his favorite action camera and i'm going to ask him what the one lord of ruled them all is also while i have your attention we have these sweet new fishing shirts and because you guys are such great fans i've got a deal for you you can use code bass b-a-s-s on this item and you'll get not only free shipping you're gonna get 10 off of this shirt this is a very very short term deal it only lasts a week for the launch of this show so go to the links in the show notes you can hit that link and use code bass to save 10 actually as always all of the gear mentioned is in the show notes all the links so everything that matt mentions on the show we've already found it for you and dropped links into the show notes all right let's talk some bass fishing this is gearbox talk with matt becker

Brad: all right professional angler matt becker welcome to gearbox talk man how's it going 

Matt: oh pretty good pretty good you know i'm kind of getting over a little head cold here this week but i’m feeling good now it's been a couple days and we're here talking fishing so i can't complain this morning 

Brad: when do you hit the lake again for your next tournament  

Matt: i got a couple weeks off actually so okay look forward to enjoying some little relaxing time actually that's good you got you guys don't get much you don't get much of that in the summer so it's good yeah i really don't get much time to do that at all all year until the fall so definitely gonna look forward to that and you know get to spend july fourth at home so that'll be nice 

Brad: dude i i so i am i'm kind of a lousy angler but i'm learning a lot from the show and i kind of mentioned you earlier one of my buddies and our partner here at go wild is john hunter so every time i talk to a professional anger i learn so much and i want to start with you here we're in the heat of summer and fishing now is totally different than what you mentioned in the fall or a few months ago in the spring so when you're hitting a lake you know what's your go-to summer deep water setup and tell us a little bit about the points in the lake that you're fishing 

Matt: yeah so in the summer generally the the shallower water will have less oxygen simply because the water temperature rises and the sun takes a lot of the oxygen out of the water so those fish have to head out to a little bit deeper water in order to still have the same oxygen levels in order to survive so they're moving out there and the shad are very similar so they're they're going out deeper as well and those bass are really just following the buffet out there so they're sliding out deeper and they're gonna be eating their shad all summer long i really like to throw a deep diving crank bait in the summer you know once that water temperature warms up those bass really like to chase you know that they're active you know the they're cold-blooded fish so as the water warms up they get more active as the water gets colder they slow down they're a little more lethargic so in the summertime i really like throwing those moving baits like a deep diving crank bait i'll throw it on like a seven foot six heavy crank bait rod and a 12 pound line and i'll use about like a bagley diving b2 it'll get down to that 12 to 15 foot range so you can get out pretty deep and catch those fish that are feeding up on their shed 

Brad: Awesome one one thing that has impressed me so much with with the pro guys is is how much content you guys have to create now because a lot of your business is working with the brands right like i mean that's that's really like what makes the world go round and makes a lot of this feasible for you guys because i was talking to somebody that they they don't realize how expensive it is for you guys to do what you do i mean you're traveling all over the country you're towing boats you've got to stay in hotels you've got all these entry fees like it's an expensive business to be in and and when you're working with the brands you you create a lot of content you're also telling your own story you got your own fan bases you're talking to and and some of these anglers are just it's amazing to have seen over the last i don't know five six seven eight years of how good the content quality has gotten and you're one of those guys that captures a ton of great content so i wanted to ask you you know why do you feel that that's so important to tell your story but also you know what is your setup that you're using to capture that content 

Matt: Definitely yeah you know it's it's very important in in the fishing industry right now to uh have a content you know just continuous content pushed out it helps grow your brand so more people know who you are and in turn you know the sponsors are going to recognize that and they're going to want to partner with you and and uh you know in turn that's all good stuff for for you as a fishing brand so i really didn't have a single clue when i was getting into the fishing world on on content i i mean i didn't have the slightest knowledge of of how to create a video so i'm pretty well self-taught just went on youtube and and watched videos and next thing you know i'm downloading adobe premiere pro which is pretty pretty strong program and yeah dive into that and got a little a little overwhelmed with that pretty quickly but but i just kind of simplified things and i really spent a lot of time doing it and and now i feel like i'm at least proficient in it i wouldn't say i'm a great editor or video creator or anything but but i'm definitely proficient in it and i can get the job done and create what i need to create but yeah i kind of run a little unique setup on my boat for when i'm you know trying to catch fishing content and i use these right here is it's called tacticam so i actually run two of these on the boat i'll run this one right here this has the the fish eye lens on it so i put this one on my windshield of the boat so it's a little bit more forward in the boat and uh it it's really just focused on me so it catches me all my movements you know i can show off my baits to that camera because it it kind of widens the angle a little bit so it catches the whole front of the boat at a little bit closer view being on the windshield and now i run another one without the fisheye lens with just the regular lens on the back of my boat with a yellow stick which is a a mount that plugs into your light post in the back of your boat so it has constant charge and run it off there it's a little different angle and it kind of gets the whole picture you know you can see where i'm casting so it's a couple different angles and you can edit back and forth between those two now the tacticam does have a great looping mode on it but i'm a little uh slow with that so i like to just run it on continuous record 

Brad: Explain the looping mode for somebody that's not familiar with that 

Matt: Yeah so the looping mode it'll record you know five ten fifteen minute loops and then stop erase it and start over that way you don't have a bunch of content to go through later but the issue with that is when you catch a fish and you want to save a piece of content you have to hit the button you have to hit the stop button in order to save that piece and then start a new clip so what i found was i want to get back out and get back to fishing then i'll completely forget to hit that button and then you go to edit your footage and you're like well crap i forgot this fish i forgot this thing so i found you know it's a little bit more time consuming because you have to go back through and edit through all the footage and review all that but i found you know that guarantees that you have all the footage from the day you just let them run continuously you know that's one of my biggest things that i'm happy with about my tacticams is this thing right here you plug it in hit this record button and it will run all day without a single hiccup i mean it just runs it's a workhorse you know other cameras i've used in the past will glitch out yeah you know heat and the snow and the cold whatever they'll kind of glitch out and you have to mess with them all day but but these cameras right here will just straight up run for you know 12 to 16 hours straight no problem 

Brad: That simplification is really important for for an amateur trying to get into this you know you got so many barriers with with gear and we went through that here setting up our studio you know trying to find the cameras that will run continuously try to find the ones that are in the right format that you want to use are the are the tacticams using like an sd card or like what kind of memory do you need for for a full day of fishing yes 

Matt: They they use an sd card right here in the back so i actually have the the back off I keep the little mount on the boat so i just twist it off and i can take the camera inside but there's a sd card in here right here i can't get it out but i like to use the 256 gigabyte card yeah okay that way that gives me about 17 hours of continuous footage on one card 

Brad: that's crazy yeah like so you could be out sun up to sundown in the longest days of the year and you're going to catch every single minute of it so that's awesome man

Matt: You don't you certainly don't need a card that big you know you i believe they they come with a 32 gigabyte card which should still capture you know plenty of fish and time 

Brad: And cards are so cheap now just buy the big ones like they they used to be super expensive but awesome we're going to drop a link to those tact cams in the show notes if you're really interested in one of those. I'm going to move us on to the next question though that was an awesome overview of how you're capturing all that real-time content i think it's so important too because people you know i did this with my hunting  i always forget to take pictures because i don't have something rolling if you have it there and it's already got it you don't have to worry about that you know i want to talk to you know going back to fishing what are some of the things you look for to determine what the fish are going to be after what are they biting you know how are you deciding what to throw you kind of mentioned crankbaits earlier but i mean like when you hit a new lake what are you looking for to determine that first floor you're going to toss 

Matt: yeah you know i like to do a lot of research on the body water i'm going to so it's a lot of it's going to depend on that you know for instance if we were headed to somewhere in the great lakes system that has a lot of gobies in it so that would determine that i would want to use something that looks like a goby or if we're going to head to the potomac river like our last tournament there's a lot of crawfish there so you're going to want to use something that looks like a crawfish or if you're heading to the tennessee river there's a lot of shad gizzard so you're going to want to use something that looks like the shad so i use a lot of research prior to even getting to the body of water to determine what the primary forage is going to be and then i base my presentation and bait off of that 

Brad: right that's consistent advice against uh all the other anglers i've had on here they all talk about so much of the prep work you know i once talked to somebody about fly fishing and and uh mark van patten uh super well-known fly angler like literally wrote the book on fly fishing and he talked about how you'll see amateurs get there to the river and they they bound into the water and just start fishing and you'll see the old guy on the side who just sits and watches for 30 minutes and then he goes back he goes through gets his gear ready and he comes out and it's an hour later after the other guy gets there and the old guy's the one that starts catching the first fish that's that's a live story for mark and i think it probably uh is very true hey let's talk about your your favorite baitcasting rod and reel set up what are you working with 

Matt: yeah so i actually have it right here almost as if it was planned i'm not sure if you'll be able to see this or not but i like i you know i use favorite rods so this is the favorite hex series rod right here this is a seven foot six heavy rod so it you know it it's very versatile you can do a lot of different things with it i have a favorite soleus xts reel on there with a 20 pound seaguar tatsu fluorocarbon and now that rod and reel right there is just my workhorse if i if i need any kind of bottom bait it's extremely sensitive rod you can feel every little pebble down there and you know really know when a bass picked it up or if you're on the bottom or in the grass or whatever so i use a lot of a lot of jigs a lot of texas rigs a lot of stuff like that on this rod and it's probably my my favorite all-around if i had to pick one rod i'd be picking this one right here 

Brad: what's your favorite flipping setup 

Matt: favorite flipping setup i i like what's called the favorite big sexy series it's a seven foot seven extra heavy so it's a little bit more powerful rod you can use some bigger weights you know i'll put up to a two ounce weight on that that rod same real favorite solely as xcs but i'll use a seaguar smackdown braid on there so that way you know you got a little bit heavier line you can flip into that heavier cover and and not have to worry about anything 

Brad: so awesome and if you're trying to take notes on on all the things that matt's talking about don't worry we've already done that for you that's in the show notes so so if you're if you're trying to find any of this stuff he's talking about just just open up the notes on the youtube video or if you're on go wild you can find it there all right man you've really separated yourself from the i mean you got four years pro just won your your first big circuit this year you got a host of other wins at like the coasters and whatnot how are what are you doing to become such i mean so many people want to do this so many people strive yeah even in retirement from or from out of college like it's a wide range of people that want to do what you're doing what's what's been the key and i know you probably can't pick like one thing i know a lot of it's work ethic and stuff like that but like what's the thing that you really think has kind of pushed you to to get to the level you're at today so quick in your career well 

Matt: yeah i mean we kind of just talked about it i mean it's all about the prep work it really is behind the scenes work that nobody sees you know that that is what makes everything happen on the water you know nobody will see you rig and tackle till midnight on friday night or you know studying maps or doing research on bodies of water but in reality that is what makes you successful on the water yeah it's a mix between that and spending time on the water and physically learning it you know you can research it all you want on the computer get out on the water experience it firsthand and then that knowledge is now etched into your brain and you can use that piece of knowledge later down the road so you do that over and over and over and over again the next thing you know you got quite the the bank of memory there that you know different situations different baits so then you can use all those when the tournament situation arises andit really helps you succeed so that's my route about it you know i i've i've really spent a lot of time behind the scenes over the last probably 15 years and it's really just finally showing itself in the last couple years so you know it i think a lot of people get discouraged and don't have the uh the drive to continue to do it yeah that what what it really takes to keep putting in the time even when you're not getting the results immediately but you got to have that bigger picture in mind and just keep at it and know that you will succeed eventually y

Brad: Yeah i mean you get good from the failures you know you're learning a lot along the way i mean it's always funny to me you know you talk to somebody about nascar drivers and they think they're out there like that if you're outside of that sport you're like oh these guys probably just like sit around drink beer and then go drive cars because they have no concept of what it's like to go 200 miles per hour and like the physical conditioning those guys have to go through and all the prep work and uh how meticulous everything has to be and i've talked to my buddy john about like i feel like it's kind of similar for pro anglers like people think that you guys are like floating around casually drinking beer from watching john i'm like man you're kind of an athlete in a lot of ways like like he has to be i mean he talks about how like when he's out there i'm like do you eat he's like man not really like you're kind of like just so in the zone and then he talks about you know getting rod and reels set up the night before he's got 20 of them set there on on the boat and you know fixing all the tackle i mean when he goes into the tournament when he starts practice phones off i don't hear from him for like eight days and it's just amazing to me the focus you guys do have and i i think that's a huge differentiator i think it's huge to for what it does to separate somebody at that that elite level and that's i mean that's i can think of anything that's boxers it's marathon runners there's a level of prep that goes into it and you know the guy that won the boston a few years ago on the marathon side when it was so freaking hot he started hydrating two weeks before just funneling fluids into his body thinking like and and everybody else was gassed at the end and you know he came through and just uh a couple minutes behind the record uh on such a hot day because he had done the prep right like it really i think i think that's such a good answer and people just think that like oh you just know fishing you guys can hit any lake and and do like win a tournament and while yes you're gonna do better than most people as you just said like you're doing a ton of homework even as a pro you're not just kind of showing up and hoping for the best you know 

Matt: yeah my theory on it it was like i don't ever want to get beat because somebody did something that i could have done and didn't do so like i would always just drive myself like if if i'm not doing it somebody else is and they're going to beat me so i don't want to be that guy like i want to be the guy that beat somebody else because they didn't do it you know yeah so that's what drives me is is i was like i don't ever want to be that person that got beat because i didn't didn't do the prep work and somebody else did so but you just have to control everything that you can control 

Brad: yeah i love that answer. all right man we we always try to wind down a gearbox talk with a fun question that's that's super ridiculous here of like the best gear so if it was early summer time you're fishing a tournament and and you've only got one lure to use from sun up to weigh in you know around four o'clock i think it's when you guys weigh in and you know what's that lure, you're rod and reel combo like what are you going with to be all in on for the whole day 

Matt: so we're gonna go with my favorite setup that we just went over there that favorite hex 76 heavy 20 pound line but then i'm gonna go with a jig just your standard jig half ounce this one's a green pumpkin blue color that would depend on uh the lake or the water clarity it would either be this green pumpkin blue color or a black and blue color if the water was dirty so i i would choose between one of those two and and really it's hard to beat a jig because you can do just about anything you want with this bait you know you could flip it into trees you could drag it on deep ledges you could swim it through grass if you have to so you could take this one bait and fish all different levels of the water column and catch bass that are feeding on shad on crawfish on bluegill you can catch fish that are targeting so many different forages so the jig is just so versatile so i would choose that and just rock with that all day awesome dude it's been so good to talk to you good to know you a little bit on here i appreciate your time give people uh where they let them know where they can see all this awesome content you're creating yeah i absolutely appreciate the the opportunity i have a youtube channel as well that's matt becker fishing instagram facebook is matt becker fishing as well so appreciate you guys watching this and i enjoy talking with you as well yep and we'll get links to that in there with the gear all that's gonna be in the show notes check it out if you wanna follow matt matt thanks again man sounds good we'll see you guys

 

Brad: thank you matt and always thank you all for watching thanks for listening and remember you can grab one of these sweet fishing shirts that i have on right now and you can get 10 off with code bass you're gonna get free shipping 10 off we'll get that shipped right to you we're fast on that too so go ahead and get on that because that offer does expire within a week of the launch of the show all the other gear mentioned is in the show notes make sure you go through you can click on that stuff if you buy anything there's a good chance we make money if you buy it from another store we still might make money if you buy it directly from us obviously we make money go wild donates one percent of its proceeds to a camp called raise them outdoors raising them outdoors is a camp that teaches kids to hunt fish shoot all the things that you love to do but these kids might not have the opportunity to do that maybe they don't have a parent in their life who can teach them so this camp focuses on teaching the kid and the parent it makes it something that's fun it's memorable they have that and they can take that experience and grow into a hunter and angler we're gonna put some links up to other bass fishing shows make sure you check those out especially right now we've got a bunch of content out that will help you get better these are pros these are tournament anglers that are are hardcore and you can learn from them all in a quick you know 10 15 20 minute show and it helps you catch more fish all right that's it for me today i'm out