Giant Bronzebacks On Muck
“Uncut Angling” Host/Guide Aaron Wiebe Talks Profile, Color and Scent For Big Smallies
By Jim Edlund

25-year-old Aaron Wiebe is a self-described “professional fishing addict” who’d rather sleep in his truck than miss out on the morning bite—or sleep in his boat with a line in the water, for that matter, with a chance at a moonlit feeding window.

“I’m always going, going, going. I live on the water,” says Wiebe.

Although Wiebe’s been a fishing guide since age 16, these days his bag is chasing big fish on camera. His cyber show, “Uncut Angling,” has become an overnight success due to the sheer number of big fish he catches on cue and the wildfire of social media burning through his clips.

And while the notches in his cane include several muskies in the 50-plus-inch class, dozens of “over 30” walleyes, leviathan lakers and sturgeon, Wiebe is quick to point out that he loves nothing better than a good smallie outing. “It sounds cliché, but it’s true,” says Wiebe. “Pound-for-pound, smallmouth bass are really hard to beat for a good knock-down-drag-out fight.”

And more often than not, Wiebe’s left hook is involves soft plastics. “From pre-spawn all the way through ice-up, smallies will eat grubs, craws, minnows, you-name-it, and nothing gets the job done more effectively than properly selected softbait,” says Wiebe.

From day to day, that could mean anything from pitching Trigger-X Tubes to Flappin’ Bugs, Swimming Grubs, Flappin’ Craws or Minnows—all the way to bulkier profiles like the Trigger X 4-inch Hodad or 5-inch Little Moe.

“There are days when you’ve got to size up for bigger smallies,” says Wiebe. “The same big bait, big fish principles utilized for many trophy fish in the toothy variety absolutely apply for smallmouths. You’ve got to make sure what you knock them on the head it packs a serious caloric punch. There are times when I’ll Carolina-rig or football head jig deeper structure and they’ll kill a Little Moe—same goes for the Hodad around wood and weed cover, or even 5-inch saltwater Trigger X Minnows in Herring, which has uncanny resemblance to a smelt at first glance and a bit of openwater probing will provide a heavy tournament bag of supporting bronze evidence,” says Wiebe.

The alien-esque Trigger X Hodad gets the call from smallmouth undertaker
Aaron Wiebe when probing around heavy weeds and wood. Photo courtesy of Trigger X

As a fisherman who spends the lion’s share of his time in clear water smallmouth fisheries, Wiebe is a big proponent of matching lure color to forage.

“Color is my final consideration when combing a new or familiar body of water – all too often it can be the most important factor in the equation,” says Wiebe. “A lot of times the age-old fly fishing adage of 'matching the hatch' can make the difference between a one or one-hundred fish day. As a rule of thumb, my fishing partner and I will throw contrasting color patterns to isolate the hottest pattern. One color has to 'night-and-day' outperform all others before we would ever consider throwing identical baits. All too often anglers quickly switch to what appears to be working based off of a bite or two, giving the fish only one option for the rest of the day.

“My cameraman Jay Siemens often juggles his camera duties with a sneaky line out the back of the boat that always has another color option. Regardless of all color theories, the fish will tell you what they want—day in and day out—and duplicating their forage in color, profile, and smell is often the win.”

Smallmouth bass forage sources range from minnows and baitfish, to crawfish, gobies, and dragonflies—which just scratches the surface of a long list of land and water dwelling creatures they’ll eat—so Wiebe wants his bait color and profile to match as many different forage patterns as possible.

New Trigger X colors do just that, plus offer the addition of specially formulated Ultrabite Aggression Pheromones that mimic the chemical signals given off by both predator and prey. From a fish's perspective, there are plenty of offensive smells from the out-of-water world, with something as simple as oils off an angler's hands perhaps taking top honors. With this in mind, Wiebe makes scent management a top priority in the boat.

"I've never used a slime towel in my entire life…wipe those fishy hands on your clothes or through your hair and get back to fishing. I'll often rinse my hands with a couple sprays from a bottle of Trigger X rejuvenator throughout the day to keep my scents masked…when a picky five pound smallmouth inspects a worm rigged weightless on 6 pound fluorocarbon, I'm winning with Trigger X as cologne."

Wiebe also knows that choosing the right stick and line is critical to success. "Completing your soft plastic attack with a proper outfit is something that you will appreciate immediately in comfort and shortly after in success," says Wiebe.

The young gun uses only St. Croix tournament "blues,” but says comparable rods in the extremely affordable Mojo series are a very near substitute. He picks rods like the 7' 1" medium-power "plastics" model and the 6' 8" medium-light "finesse" model for incredible versatility in a huge range of soft-plastics rigging when coupled with 10 pound and 6 pound Sufix 832, respectively, for normal and lighter applications.

"Sufix 832 braid in the Neon Lime color is my favorite for its incredible handling and high visibility," Wiebe relates, "so much of bass fishing is a visual game and being able to see your line above and below the water gives an observant angler many advantages with sensing bottom contact and strikes.

“Sufix 832 can also be marked with a permanent marker, which helps for several depth management tricks. An 18-inch section of 6- to 10 pound Sufix Invisiline Fluorocarbon rounds out every one of my smallmouth outfits for stealth and standing up to the abuse of abrasive underwater structure, including that found on the jawline of a bass.

“I’m a big fan of the new Trigger X colors,“ says Wiebe. “They’re exactly what a lot of us have been waiting for, stuff like the new pumpkin variations that do well to match different crayfish color phases and Bluegill, which also serves as a killer goby imitation."

When asked to pick his one desert-island smallie color, Wiebe paused for a second, “Muck. I think they really hit it with this color. It represents multiple forage options. I know, it sounds strange, but we catch a lot of bronzebacks on Muck!”

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

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A terrorist to bronzebacks, ace angler Aaron Wiebe fishes Trigger X soft plastics in ways that underscore his creativity as well as the versatility of the baits. Photo courtesy of St. Croix Rods

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The alien-esque Trigger X Hodad gets the call from smallmouth undertaker Aaron Wiebe when probing around heavy weeds and wood. Photo courtesy of Trigger X

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Aaron Wiebe raises his “blue sticks” – St. Croix Tournament Legend Bass – and conducts a mean smallmouth bass orchestra with Trigger X baits in place of the brass section. Photo courtesy of St. Croix Rods.