Great Lakes Bass Fishing Forum

No matter what the conditions are at Beaver Lake, Matt Arey has an uncanny ability to dial up the right baits to match the appetite of the lake's fickle bass.

This year the Quaker State pro relied primarily on two baits for his win. The first was a 5-inch hand-poured swimbait teamed with a 7/0 Gamakatsu EWG Monster Worm Hook tied to 20-pound-test P-Line fluorocarbon. The second was a wacky-rigged Lunkerhunt Lunker Stick impaled on a Gamakatsu 1/0 split-shot/drop-shot hook.

The power/finesse combination provided Arey with a search-and-destroy program. He would use the swimbait as a "search bait" to find fish and then follow up with the finesse of the wacky rig for bedders that would not commit to the swimbait.