I have a quick question. Is anyone there? Is anyone reading these posts and if so have any of my tips or stories helped or amused you? Is so please add a comment or email me and let me know. I really enjoy talking about fishing and its nice to know that people are at least reading it.
With that said, lets get back to fishing. The title also is a question we all ask ourselves when we are fishing, or at least I know I have from time to time.
At times while fishing we will make one or two casts to what we think is a prime spot only to get discouraged and figure nobody’s there and we move on. I say, if you believed that the spot was a prime spot in the first place based on the conditions and your knowledge of basic bass 101, you may have been right and missed out on some great fishing if you would have slowed down or fished the spot more thoroughly or even just changed your offering.
I think back to the days before I got my first bass boat and was forced to either fish from the shore or a float tube. Think about it for a minute. Shore fishing, you pull up to the lake, unpack your gear, haul it down to the water and proceed to fish, you walk slowly along the bank fishing as you go, making quite a few casts to the same spot. Maybe change out your lures, but you take the time to pick apart the water. You make a long cast, dragging your worm along and feel some kind of under water structure, “That’s a rock pile, I know there has to be a bass on that rock pile” so you force yourself to slow down because its not like being in a high powered bass boat where all you have to do is strap the rods down and off you go. You have to haul everything back up to the truck, load it up and drive around to find another spot.
How many times have you been fishing and the fish just don’t want to cooperate with you and someone will come along, ask you how your doing, to which you answer “Not real good”. They walk down the bank 10 yards to a spot that you just fished and then they proceed to whack them? Someone was there.
The same thing applies to float tubing. You paddle along, maybe flip a jig into the same tree 4 times from the same spot and then you start moving to the next stick up but look back and try one more time in that same bush from a slightly different angle and WHAM! Or you toss that 6 inch worm into a tree a couple times, then switch to an 8 inch worm and get bit. Pay attention to these things. The slightly different presentation or size is what triggered the fish to bite. Either that or Mr. Bass got in a bad mood seeing that jig in the same spot and when it came back in a different spot he just reacted. Either way, if you put the pieces of the “puzzle” together it can help you figure out a pattern, or how the fish are reacting at that present time. Look for similar structure and conditions because chances are you will catch more bass doing the same thing. I remember quite a few times catching bass just because I was stubborn and had to make one more cast.
The next time your fishing, either from shore, in a float tube or even in a boat and the bass just don’t want to seem to play, try slowing down, changing your offering to something slightly bigger or smaller or cast at that piece of structure from a slightly different angle, who knows, someone might be there.
Until next time, Good Luck And Tight Lines To Ya!
