Photo courtesy Rob Matsuura/Major League Fishing
In bass fishing’s electronics era, John Cox stubbornly clings to his old-school ways. You won’t see him far off-shore, with his eyes glued to the screen of a forward-facing sonar unit that shows the real-time movement of bass.
He’s the one in an aluminum boat, traveling far up a creek or a backwater area to find unpressured bass living the good life in thick cover. He knows he is fishing in his comfort zone if he can jab his fishing rod into the water and touch bottom.
“I have a Lowrance Active Target unit sitting in the cab of my truck,” said Cox, who lives in DeBary, Fla. “I look at it constantly and think, “Is today the day? Am I going to use it today? But then I just decide to stay in my comfort zone. If I can’t touch bottom with my fishing rod, I’m too deep.”
Living in Florida, where shallow water is predominant, Cox can justify his style of fishing. While most of the Bassmaster and Major League Fishing anglers are using forward-facing sonar these days, he continues to find success by finding and catching bass the old-fashioned way.
You can too by following some of Cox’s tactics. It starts with the boat: Want to really get back into some shallow, remote areas? Think about fishing out of an aluminum, flat-bottomed boat. Cox uses a Crestliner bass boat that doesn’t take a lot of water to float.
“I’m able move around between docks, through weeds, a lot of tight places because it drafts much less than a fiberglass boat,” he said. “I’m not in this huge barge in the shallows., and I’m spooking less fish because I’m not displacing as much water. A lot of times I can get into places where a fiberglass boat couldn’t go.”
PLACES TO EXPLORE
Creeks off the main lake, sloughs, timber-filled mazes—those are places that Cox likes to fish. Sometimes, it takes time and effort to get away from the crowd. He won the 2016 Forrest Wood Cup by making a 7-mile jaunt up a creek off a river arm on Lake Wheeler in Alabama. He had to idle through brush, logs and timber, and it took him 40 minutes to reach his destination. But it paid off big time when he reached a spot choked with weeds and other cover. The point is, bass don’t always hang out in the easy places.
LURES TO THROW
Ribbit. Does that give you a hint? Cox loves to work hollow-body frogs when he gets back in those shallow, weedy areas. His favorite is the Berkley Swamp Lord, a hollow-body plastic frog that he says has a unique action.
For areas with less weeds to hang up on, Cox prefers another topwater bait, the Berkley Cane Walker, which has a Zara Spook-type body and a cupped lip to provide for a walking type action plus a popping sound.
Cox also finds success flipping and pitching jigs and plastic baits such as the General to woody cover and weed lines. Another shallow-water standby that Cox always has tied on is the Berkley Frittside 5, a crankbait that comes in colors imitating everything from shad to crawdads.
BEST TIMES TO GO
The pre-spawn and spawn phases when the bass move shallow are the best time to hit the pockets and backwater areas. When spring rains raise water levels, Cox often will go as far up creeks as he can go.
In the summer, Cox often concentrates on main-lake shallows and targets visible cover such as stumps, weed edges, laydown, brush and the shade of boat docks. He looks for clumps of weeds or brush piles close to deep water, places where bass can move in to the shallows to feed and can easily slide back to deeper water when they are done.
The fall also can be good as the water cools and the baitfish move into creeks. When the water temperature there gets too cold, Cox will follow them back to the main lake and target shallow banks and points.
COMPETING WITH LIVE SONAR
Cox admits it can be difficult to compete against off-shore fishermen who use live sonar.
“In the spring, I feel some of the bass are being caught out in open water before they get a chance to make it into the shallows,” he said. But there are still enough that make it for Cox to post impressive totals in tournaments. He has 10 top 10 finishes in Bassmaster tournaments in the last five years. He also has done well in Major League Fishing events, including a 13th place finish in the 2024 Redcrest championship event.
“I have to stay with what I love,” Cox said. “I love observing nature, whether it be birds diving down on baitfish or just seeing fish swimming.I am so worried that forward-facing sonar will take that away from me; that I’ll only be watching a screen. “It’s fine for some guys, but not for me.”
