This time I’m going to cover a couple of things I do when I’m fishing that have helped me catch more bass. But before I get into them let’s go over the obvious.
Every day on the water is different, but before I start fishing I take a moment to think about what season it is and what the weather has been like for the past week or so. Basically, I pay attention to nature. That gives me a place to start, and that place is almost always as shallow as possible.
Shallow bass are easier to find and mostly they’re more active. That makes them easier to catch. If that doesn’t work, I move into deeper and deeper water. I do that slowly, however, just a few feet at a time. Radical moves are not my thing.
Sometimes that isn’t successful, however. I just can’t find them, and so I have developed a game plan that’s in two parts. The first is to start over. What I mean by that is that I turn my boat around and head straight back to the dock where I launched that morning. When I get there I change everything on the deck of my boat. Everything means all my lures and mostly all my rods and reels.
I fish from that point on as if the earlier part of the day never happen except that I make sure I fish spots and areas that I passed over earlier in the day. At the same time I make sure I fish them with a totally different set of lures.
Bass are creatures that respond to their environment. We only understand a little bit about that. It may be that despite all of our knowledge and experience the bass see things differently and aren’t doing what we think they should be doing. You can’t force them to do things your way. It’s their way or nothing. That’s why starting over with a fresh approach is so important.
A second thing I do that’s really helped my catch is to never launch from the same dock unless I’m in a tournament and forced to start from the tournament site. This works especially well whenever I’m on one of my home lakes, one I’m familiar with and know a lot about.
You’d be surprised at how different things look from a different direction. That point that you think has fish spelled all over it might look pretty ordinary from another direction. The same thing is true about cuts, creek mouths, bluff walls, rock piles or laydowns. Things you’ve fished for years will look like you’re seeing them for the first time.
I do both of the things I’ve mentioned all the time in practice, or even when I’m just out fun fishing. And, I’ve actually done it a couple of times in competition when I was struggling. It works.
If you have to launch from the same dock, you can do basically the same thing I’m talking about by just running up or down the lake as far as you can and then turning around and look at things from the opposite direction.
If — when — you’re struggling, try looking at things from a different perspective. It’s helped me. I’m sure it’ll help you.
Don’t blend.