Here on the Arkansas River, the Pine Bluff Harbor played host to 10 of the final 12 anglers during the 2011 Diamond Drive. The heavy traffic didn’t keep Swindle and his fellow competitors away from the bass-laden areas. “The reason people call them community holes is because they have fish on them,” Swindle said. “I don’t want to outthink myself when approaching areas like that. Don’t let the fact that other people know about it shy you away from fishing there.”
Having success in areas where other anglers are fishing is as much a mental game as anything else. Looking forward to having a spot to yourself is a recipe for disaster, according to Swindle. Better to prepare yourself for the worst. “When I approach tournaments like the one on the Arkansas River, I get mentally prepared for the crowds,” Swindle said. “You can’t get bent out of shape if there are boats around you. Don’t automatically assume that because someone is there, you can’t catch them. You can’t get freaked out.”
Swindle takes a finesse approach to community holes, focusing on two main baits for catching the heavily-pressured bass that reside there: a shaky head and a drop shot. “Some days they want a drop shot more than a shaky head, and there really doesn’t seem to be a reason why,” Swindle said. “On the Arkansas River, I couldn’t catch them on a drop shot. On the Alabama River, I couldn’t get one shaking, but they sure wanted the drop shot. As an angler, my job is to tie up both of those finesse baits and let the fish tell me what they want.”
For both rigs, Gerald Swindle starts with a Quantum 6-foot, 6-inch spinning rod and a Quantum PT30 spinning reel. The rod is one of the most important components, for both detecting strikes and working the bait. “You don’t want to throw a bigger rod because you don’t want to overpower your line,” Swindle said. “Sometimes a 7-foot rod is too big of a rod. I think you lose feel and I’m not as comfortable with that.”
He loads up 10-pound-test Vicious braid and then ties on a 6- or 8-pound test Vicious fluorocarbon leader. With all the angling pressure community holes see on a weekly basis, light line is paramount. “I try not to over line-size those fish; they have seen a lot of baits,” Swindle said. “If you start out with as light a line as you can get away with, you will start catching more fish. A lot of those fish are line shy.”
On the shaky head, 1/8-ounce may be the more popular size, but Swindle favors a slightly heavier look, to help keep in contact with the bottom and feel the structure better. He sticks to a 3/16- or 1/4-ounce head almost every time. “I throw that time and time again, and that’s what I’m comfortable feeling,” Swindle said. “I know exactly what it feels like when it hits a rock and I know how to shake it out of a brushpile. The only way I would change to 1/8-ounce is if the fish are suspended.”
For his drop shot rig, Swindle starts with a 1/0 Trokar straight-shank, light-wire hook. He’ll usually have a 6- or 8-inch leader between his hook and weight. “I usually rig it weedless, like you would a regular Texas rig worm,” Swindle said. “I may go through a brushpile, and that usually keeps it from hanging up so much.”
With a plethora of baits on the market that can be tied onto a drop shot or shaky head, Swindle likes to keep his selection simple. “I think that my most confident bait for the shaky head is the Zoom Trick Worm in watermelon candy,” Swindle said. “I like something that offers a real natural look in the water with a little bit of metal flake. On the drop shot I throw the Zoom Finesse Worm a good bit. I do well on the original green pumpkin.”
The bottom line with either technique is being patient. Both shaky heads and drop shots are finesse presentations that work best when fished slow or with little movement. “When I throw the shaky head, I try to bump the bottom,” Swindle said. “Just barely moving the bait an inch or two at a time with a short movement of the rod tip. On the drop shot, most of the time I just try to leave a lot of slack in the line and shake the slack.”
One of the biggest mistakes an angler can make at a community hole is fishing too fast. If you know the area has fish, spend the time needed to work it thoroughly. “A lot of people make a few casts and then move to another area,” Swindle said. “If you can mark fish on your depthfinder and everything sets up right, you have to give them a chance to bite. At the Alabama River, I would make the same cast over and over and then catch a big one. Repeat the same cast and work slow.”
Being patient can be difficult when bites are hard to come by. Stay with it, Swindle says, and keep changing up until you get locked on to what the fish want. “Usually a community hole will have a sweet spot and 99 percent of anglers will not spend the time to find it,” Swindle said. “I’ve found out time and time again; there is a sweet spot. You just need to keep downsizing until you find it.”
An angler can gain another important advantage over the competition by paying close attention to their electronics. Both fish and structure show up on the new electronics on the market. That can give an angler confidence to keep working the area. “I use the Lowrance HDS 10 and I try to study it to see everything going on under the boat,” Swindle said. “Most of the time I’m looking for a piece of the bottom a little higher than the rest or maybe I am overlooking some rock. It may even be bait that you see under your boat that tells you to back off more.”
In the past year, another hot accessory has come around that has many of the Elite Series anglers talking, Swindle continued. “I’ve noticed that adding the Hydrowave to my boat has helped me; now I’m able to mess with the sound to keep the shad active.” It remains a relatively new technology that most weekend anglers probably don’t have. Adding it to your arsenal might make the difference on a place where many lines have been cast before you.
Swindle has one final piece of advice to anyone who contemplates fishing a community hole: “Slow down,” Swindle said. “Make sure that when you leave there, you have covered everything. Even if you think you are fishing slowly, you need to slow it down even more. A lot of people are fishing too fast. Those fish aren’t accustomed to the bait sitting in front of them longer, and that will allow you to pick up more bites.”
