Westernbass Magazine - FREE Bass Fishing Tips And Techniques - Fall 2015, Page 51

Westernbass Magazine - FREE Bass Fishing Tips And Techniques - Fall 2015, Page 51

and find the most obvious spot to catch fish and go there first,” he said. “You can’t start putting the puzzle together until you start getting bites. Then, after catching a few fish, you can figure out the pattern and refining it.”

With that in mind, I went to the most “obvious” feature , a bridge over the secondary creek that had rip rap and chunk rock corners and steel pilings driven into the channel. I picked up a 3/16-ounce Davis Baits Shaky Head and Gene Larew Tattletail Worm on a Lew’s spinning rod and reel and before long, I had missed three or four fish, broken another off and landed four. Not an earth shattering day by any means, but at least I had starting figuring out the pieces of the puzzle and felt like I had accomplished something.

I think that our zeal as tournament anglers has gotten us so consumed with finding “the biggest five” all the time that we overlook things that can help us begin to put the pattern together. Every time we head out on the water and commit to chucking a

big swimbait or running a reaction bite pattern at a time when it’s truly forcing the issue. We struggle and have to say that at least we “eliminated some water today.”

I’m beginning to see that sometimes it’s more important to just “get a bite,” than I had ever imagined. If we are spending days upon days on a body of water and are in tune with exactly what the fish are doing, then we can start with a little bit more of a gamble and swing for the fences, because we’ve begun to figure out the pattern within the pattern.

But, for those of us who fish on weekends, or farther in between, getting a few bites can help clue us in to what the fish are doing. Then we can start trying to figure out what the bigger fish are doing. If we try to start there, most of us will fall on our faces. There are exceptions to the rule of course, but we’ll have more fun, catch a lot more fish overall, and maybe even figure out how to be more competitive along the way.

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FALL 2015

51

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