Don’t Open until Post-Spawn
Story by Russ Bassdozer
Rolling a Pop-R around with PAA Pro Brandon Coulter
Brandon Coulter of Knoxville, Tennessee fishes the FLW Tour. 2013 marked his first year back fishing the PAA Tournament Series for about 3-4 years. “It was nice to be back fishing the PAA again,” said Coulter. He had a great season and finished 5th in the PAA Angler of the Year (AOY) race.
Coulter’s one of a resourceful handful of East Tennessee aces that flip a Rebel P70 Pop-R into heavy cover as if flipping a jig. He’s made two top tens on the FLW Tour flippin’ a Pop-R, and he had one prized Pop-R that netted him a cool $70,000 until the plastic around the back hook hanger split.
Another FLW Tour veteran, Craig Powers of Rockwood, TN is credited with inventing this technique. Ott DeFoe of Knoxville, TN also flips the Pop-R a lot, and when DeFoe fished the FLW Tour, he roomed with Coulter.
“I knew those guys were catching fish on the Pop-R,” said Coulter. “As I learned a little bit about it, I began throwing the Pop-R on my own and started to figure it out.”
Now that Coulter has learned what makes the Pop-R work so well, he uses it all he can. One thing the Pop-R has going for it is its large size. “As a pro, you learn what your advantages are over the rest of the field, and if I can catch them flipping the Pop-R, it is usually a little better quality fish than you’ll get with a trick worm or something else. So I’ve learned that it’s to my advantage if I can catch them on the Pop-R, they’ll be a little bit better fish,” Coulter revealed.
“Plus if you say you caught them on a Pop-R, everybody just goes out and throws a little Pop-R off the end of a point. Most guys aren’t flipping it right into the bushes and in the shade where bass are holed up,” smiled Coulter.
