Archive for May 13th, 2007
Traditionally doodle sock rods were bamboo or cane and cut from a thicket and allowed to dry. A heavy piece of Dacron was then secured to the length of the rod by employing a series of half-hitch knots culminating in a tie-off on the tip with about two feet of line remaining. A lure was then tied on the terminal end. The outfit was then complete and ready to go.
The technique for using this contraption to catch bass was to sneak up to a likely spot and then doodle the lure back and forth in a figure eight motion on the water’s surface much like scribbling on a piece of paper. The idea was to irritate any resident bass into striking and then sock it to them by quickly raising the rod when the fish inhaled the lure.
This tactic works especially well in small pockets of water surrounded by heavy vegetation or timber: The types of places large bass like to live because traditional fishermen cannot reach them with conventional methods. The idea behind doodle socking is to make noise, and one of the best types of lures to use to accomplish that task is a propeller bait. My favorite doodle sock lure was a wooden Heddon frog pattern with blades on either end. Pulled through the water quickly it would make a double stream of bubbles that drove resident bass wild. Strikes were explosive and at close range. Bass were not so much interested in eating it as they were in killing the intruder.
