Fall 2020
Figure 2
®
Mud lines – very much the same condition, but I prefer when they are tight to the bank. As they wash and spread so do the fish.
PRESENTATION
Finding the “sweet spot” is only part of the equation. Presenting the bait properly is perhaps THE essential variable to make a spot sweet.
The first mistake I see many make is presenting the bait backward – that is, fishing with the wind or current. Bass will orient in an upwind or up-current position. Fishing with the wind, the bait will be coming from behind them giving them less time to identify the bait, position to strike it, and strike it.
One of the greatest examples I can think of is fishing a point early in the morning on a foothill reservoir with any kind of reaction bait – but for sake of the article, lets say … a rip bait.
Coming off a point – you need to put your boat into the wind where you can cast a little beyond where the fish should be concentrated so that your bait is at the right depth/action when coming through the fish.
That point should be somewhere between the break in bottom depth (red) and the current break (blue) (see Figure 2) .
What I see so many guys doing is putting the trolling motor on high and just going down a bank, opposed to exploiting the concentration of fish in the best part of the area.
Going back to the days when Gary Dobyns was a dominant feature on Oroville with the rip bait – we consistently heard about cadence.
Cadence can, and does, make a tremendous difference in generating bites. For other baits – such as cranks, you must be bouncing off of structure – generating erratic action or at a minimum alternating your retrieve. Making sure that your bait is at its greatest action at the peak location.
On your veggie bodies – like Clear Lake or the Delta - over pitch, under flip and that bait will not fall correctly and greatly reduce the number of bites.
Remember – the point of this is to maximize bites. This takes some trial and error and tuning. Especially the Delta – that is the one place where I see minor adjustments make the biggest differences.
This fall and winter – spend a little time considering some of these finer details and think a little about whether it is the sweet spot, and if so, how to best exploit for more bites. •
page 24
Lake Berryessa