November on Lake Okeechobee marks the beginning of pre-spawn staging for the Florida largemouth bass. In the coming months bass will be returning to the shallows to spawn but before that time, they stage near the outside edges and in the grass beds to feed up and gain weight for the spawn. During this time you need a bait that produces in all types of conditions and water depths. Gambler’s Big EZ is a soft plastic swim bait than fits the bill nicely.
The Gambler Big EZ has a segmented body and paddle tail that provides a realistic profile in the water while creating a thumping sound the bass can’t resist. The lure can be skimmed across the top as a topwater bait, it can be tossed into the edges of emergent vegetation such as cattails and various grasses, and it can be used as a swimbait low in the water column.
Typically the bait can be hooked onto a jighead, Texas rigged, used in conjunction with a belly weighted hook or weightless hook. For extra durability in thick cover, threading the bait onto a twist lock bait keeper will prevent the slipping and pull downs you normally experience while retrieving through vegetation.
For open water application, the Big EZ has a deep trench down its back to conceal the working end of the hook while keeping the hook’s point unimpaired. For weedless applications, skin hooking the tip of the hook inside the top trench will minimize the pickup of weeds while keeping the point of the hook readily available during the strike.
The Gambler Big EZ comes in a wide selection of colors, but on Lake Okeechobee some of the preferred colors are Florida Five-O, Copperfield, Ghost Shad, New Shad, Watermelon, Lane Toad just to name a few.
The Gambler Big EZ also has a few siblings that can be used as trailers on your favorite spinner or for that giant female you know is just lying there. The TZ is the smallest in the family measuring in at 3-inches, the Little EZ measures 3.75-inches, the EZ Swimmer measure 4.25-inches, the Big EZ measures 5-inches, the GZ 6.5 measures 6.5-inches and the GZ 8 measures in at, you guessed it, 8-inches long for those monster hawgs.
November is the time of year that Florida bass come shallow and become aggressive, so having a flexible bait to cover a wide range of conditions is a must have and Gambler Big EZs are the way to go.
