Still struggling but starting to make more sense.

[bassbuster]

OK, with some advice from you guys (a lot from LB, thanks btw) on what to pay more attention to we seem to already be starting to do a little better. There are some things that I still don't understand and I also think that us fishing the lake we do is actually making it a little more difficult because of all of the pressure it gets but I would think that in the end it should make us that much better. It's not always a real great confidence booster but at least we seem to be able to find fish even if we have trouble catching our limit sometimes.

Here's another question that got me.................and it's kind of a long one.

Do you guys have "spots" and are those spots what you base your success on most of the time? And what I mean is we obviously see guys/gals that go out to these lakes we fish and the ones that generally do pretty good are the ones that are fishing spots not areas. And I guess what I mean is yes they are fishing an area but there is a spot or two in that area that they are really concentrating on and I'm assuming that is that special feature you guys were telling me to learn to recognize right? We have been spending time learning to use different techniques and for the most part I don't see many of these guys doing things a whole lot different than we do, but they do tend to catch more fish. Now knowing when and how to do them is a different story and I'm assuming a lot of that will come with time on the water. But that leads me into another question.......................

How long do you give a spot before moving on? If you've caught fish there before, you know it can produce fish, you know/think/are pretty sure there are fish there then how much time do you give an area. In other words how do you know when to run-n-gun so to speak and how do you know when to stay there and just pick an area apart? I really try not to overthink too much because it really makes it worse for me sometimes but at the same time I want to learn to recognize things that are important as we fish.

Last night was a little rough, only 2 limits out of 11 boats and we weren't one of them. My partner did manage a 3.21lbs lm and got big bass for it but other than that it was all shorts for us. The 2 limits that were brought in came from 2 boats that generally fish docks too and we fished breaks all night. It started out mostly sunny and about 80 and about an hour into it turned cloudy, windy and dropped to 65-70 so the conditions were a little off but I still  had fun. I've also learned that not getting ticked off plays a pretty big role in how everything turns out.

[zooker]

if the fish are there 10-15 mintues on any hole or 8-10 cast to a rock pile is about it for me..

there are places i fish that are consistant prodoucers through out the year.though the fish size tend to vary a bit..so i do tend to spend more time on this spot..

then i have my temp zone spots..umm at a certain water temp i fish certain places..-water is currantly 86- that i wont fish at a cooler water temp..

if i see bait fish in a spot during the summer or winter i pound it like it owes me money..when the water temp hits 90 here-mid aug- the blue back herring spawn on cement ramps.you can cover a ton of water just by focusing on cement ramps-won alot of money with this pattern..

i do run and gun at times if i have several spots producing fish NOW..-i run back and forth between them-how ever this is fairly rare and mostly a prespawn thing..

i loath prefishing period.. the big money tourny i won this year-$2500-i had not even been on the lake in ten months and still won by 3 pounds...

to be honest i fish year round -no seasons here-i fish 6-7 differant lakes and have -without help- figured out what works,when, and where...time on the water is the ONLY way to figure this out..i average 200 days a year fishing.while working full time and then some...1/2 of them days are tourny fishing...right now due to health reasons i am not tourny fishing but still fishing none the less...

zooker

[thedude]

its hard to apply "pattern" logic to a lot of inland lakes. Michigan has a lot of water, but excluding the handful of big lakes up north and the Great Lakes - we're all used to fishing relatively small bodies of water. For instance, most of my weeknight tournaments are on 500 acre or less bodies of water. In those cases - yes I'm almost always fishing a "spot" rather than an area. If the lake were 5,000 acres - there might be 10 "spots" just like the one i'm fishing and that is a pattern! Well can't much call 1 spot a pattern because its the only thing like it on the lake.

on smaller lakes i've found that keying in on depth and "something different" are usually the best "spots". In that - find something that is different - weed point, cut, rock, isolated cover etc - then work it from a couple different depths angles... try a bottom bait, surface, middle running, slow, fast etc.... key in on where in the water column the strike zone is and then apply that to other spots.

[Lightningboy]

Dude is right, most MI lakes are too small to base a pattern on a "type" of area.  You may find them on the inside turn at the base of points, but only have two real points on the whole lake.

But I do look for patterns in smaller ways to identify where to locate fish.  On any given day, most bass will be doing something similar across the lake.  Now, that may be a few things at the same time, but there will still be similarities.  If you hit some good fish early morning where coontail meets pads, I'm gonna look for more pad/coontail edges if there are any.  But that bite may die early, so I might do better after the first hour cranking sparse weed patches on flats.  I'll know where across the lake I can find several similar areas if it pays off.

They might bite better later on the deep weedline too, but I'll pay attention to what depth, and what type of weedline I catch them on.  Sparse edge that tapers off, or weed wall?  Coontail, or cabbage?  Straight run, or wandering edge with lots of nooks & crannies.  Find those similar areas.

I'll also pay attention to how I catch those bass, and try to repeat the situation when it happens again.  Once you've taken something apart on your boat several times, you know what tools you'll need to do that job again.  Same with lure choice.  If I'm on a weedy natural lake in summer, with windy and cloudy conditions, I'm throwing a crank across scattered weed flats.  I'll know which of my cranks has the right depth, body size, and wobble; I'll try several that slightly differ, one will be the winner that day.  I then work that sucker on lake areas that are similar.  It's a general pattern, but one that works well. 

Patterns are recognizing similar conditions & how bass react to them.  It's taking into account time of season, weather, available food, and the type of cover/depth the bass look for that food in during those conditions.  Lure choice is a matter of picking the right tool to fit those conditions.

Then move and repeat at the pace of your choice.   

Knowing when to stay/go is a whole other subject, one that I regularly crash & burn on.

[Dougdad]

hey lightningboy, you don't have a manoply on the crash and burn, stay or go part, believe me,  I do real well at that part too !!!  LOL

[Lightningboy]

I thought on this for a while after my last post,  (I know, workin' without tools again) and I'd like to add/reinforce something I mentioned.

Give tungsten sinker & jigs a good workout.  Many times a "spot" in smaller waters is just a matter of it being "different" than everything around it.  Often thats a change in bottom hardness.  Tungsten combined with fluoro gives an incredible amount of feel for the texture of the bottom.  I've discovered little spots of rock or gravel on areas I thought I knew well.  And fish seem to key on those spots.  It's making me revamp how I thought about what kind of cover edges attract bass.  I'm sure it's based on forage available in those harder bottom areas; but for whatever reason I'm just glad I'm making the connection.

This is one of the prime reasons I'm exited about side imaging.  I think it's going to change the way I approach my ideas of a "spot".  With the combination of the picture like view along with what I can learn from dragging a high feel bait across bottom, I should be able to learn a lot more about how fish relate to it all.

[bassbuster]

Well Sunday it took us almost half the day but we did manage to put some kind of a pattern together and ended up with just short of 11lbs. Pretty good for us but not good enough for the tourney. We finished like 6th or 7th I think out of only 12 boats. We may have had a little better day but we missed more than a few hookups and we had a couple on for only a few seconds and then lost 'em. I guess that's something else I'll need to work on. My partner bought some of those superline gamaktsu hooks for our t rig and I just couldn't get it to stick so I switched back to the regular one and had way less trouble. I must not set the hook hard enough or something because I lost waaaaaay more fish than I should have in the first couple of hours. It really sucks when a bite is already hard to get and then you can't keep it on the rod.

[fiker]

This is one of the prime reasons I'm exited about side imaging.  I think it's going to change the way I approach my ideas of a "spot".  With the combination of the picture like view along with what I can learn from dragging a high feel bait across bottom, I should be able to learn a lot more about how fish relate to it all.

Bender put SI on his boat this year.  Wow!  I'm absolutely positive that we've caught more fish this season because of it. I've never been real good with reading sonar like I should be.  But with Chris' SI even I can tell what is going on.  The learning curve on the unit, is relatively short, as is how long it takes to scout a lake.

Someday I'll have a nicer boat, and when I do, I'll be putting the SI on it.  I like it so much, that if I had to pick between a larger engine, and the SI, I'd get the SI. 

[TritonTR20]

New side imaging from Lowrance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlO6naQL0m0&feature=player_embedded

This is one of the prime reasons I'm exited about side imaging.  I think it's going to change the way I approach my ideas of a "spot".  With the combination of the picture like view along with what I can learn from dragging a high feel bait across bottom, I should be able to learn a lot more about how fish relate to it all.

Bender put SI on his boat this year.  Wow!  I'm absolutely positive that we've caught more fish this season because of it. I've never been real good with reading sonar like I should be.  But with Chris' SI even I can tell what is going on.  The learning curve on the unit, is relatively short, as is how long it takes to scout a lake.

Someday I'll have a nicer boat, and when I do, I'll be putting the SI on it.  I like it so much, that if I had to pick between a larger engine, and the SI, I'd get the SI. 

[Lightningboy]

Uhh, exactly where's your priorities?

Always the bigger engine!   

I just got new HDS units front & back, and the new SI add on will be onboard before the year is out.  The down scan looks outrageous.  I like how you can split with down scan & regular sonar.  I have a feeling this is gonna take my sonar reading to a new level.