i bet matt, chris, jay and some others on here have more "finishing moves" than the WWE or a mortal kombat game so they would probably be better qualified than me to answer, but here goes anyway.
i divide successful bed fishing into 2 parts. part 1 is getting the fish interested. part 2 is getting the fish to commit (bite) once it is interested. this "triggering move" falls into the part 2 category.
there is nothing more frustrating than working a fish up and almost ready to bite, but then not being able to close the deal. sometimes they will repeatedly go nose down on your bait and stare at it for what seems like an eternity, only to lose interest and back off. to me, when a fish rolls on your bait or goes down, these are signs that the fish is almost "over the edge" and ready to bite. do the right things at this point and you will soon be holding a fish. do the wrong things and you can turn a fish off and sometimes even have to start all over and work the fish up again, costing you valuable fishin' time.
yesterday i got both these fish to show definite signs of aggression toward the bait, both even went nose down on it several times but eventually turned away when i kept doing the things i did to get them interested. sometimes what you have to do with the bait to get them to bite is totally different than what you had to do to get them interested.
what i did to get them interested was a shaking presentation ("shaking" the rod to make the bait just barely quiver). but once they got interested they would not bite the shaking presentation - they'd just look at it a few seconds and swim away. so what i did was once they got "nose down" on the bait i gave it a HUGE POP with the rod tip making it jerk violently. this was the "triggering move" that sent both of these fish over the edge making them bite. but the huge pop was done with the rod tip DOWN which caused the bait to violently scoot across the nest and dig into the edge of it. if i had done it with the rod tip up, i would have just jumped the bait out of the nest and out of harm's way.
in trying to figure out why this worked, my theory is that once a bed fish is eyeballing your bait and you give it that huge "POP!" with the rod, it can trigger a "reaction strike" the same way a crankbait or spinnerbait bouncing off a log does with a non-spawning fish. that's just my theory anyway. who knows? i do firmly believe that each individual fish is different. next time it could be just the opposite - the POP! could get their attention but the "shaking" could be the strike trigger. the important point to remember is this: IT OFTEN TAKES A DIFFERENT PRESENTATION TO GET THE FISH TO BITE THAN THE ONE THAT GOT IT INTERESTED. i think a lot of guys get frustrated because they keep doing the same thing with the bait in the nest over and over again and cannot close the deal.
i love bed fishing for this reason. it's the ultimate mental chess game with a fish. fishing the nest at the right angle, finding the sweet spot, finding the right bait, learning to read the fish's body language, working them up, triggering them, using the male to get the female interested, bait and switch tactics, and when to set the hook. all those little but critical do's and don'ts will make you or break you with sight fishing.
i know this will sound like a big fat DUH! to those who have been bed fishin' for a while, but maybe to those who are learning (like me) it will be helpful. good luck and please release 'em.
dude you are my mentor. no kidding. at the beginning of the school year we had to write a role model essay, i wrote about you ,
you should also become a bass resource writer, you'd be good at it.
