Structure By Catt

[Paul Roberts]

1 hour ago, Todd2 said:

I was going to put this question in a different thread but this is a good structure "conversation" and it fits right in I think.

 

When focusing on structure, what % of the time are you making contact with it opposed to fishing just above it? I'm not talking about a 18 inch drop shot, for example, to me that is basically bottom fishing especially with the angle when casting. But lets say you have a ditch,  drop off, whatever, thats in 14 FOW, are most of your fish on it or up in the water column above it? I almost always seem to focus on the bottom unless I'm marking something but I wonder if I'm fishing below some fish and should be counting down at different depths swimming a grub or something through.

 

 

Not sure there's a rule there. But bottom contact is often the best, probably 90+% of time: fish are more secure, prey can be easier to catch against bottom, contact triggers. But... not always, depending on what's going on. Fish could be resting or feeding up high. If former they could be suspended, neutrally buoyant, as riverbasser suggests. If latter they could be up and chasing pelagic prey. If there is vertical cover there, they could be doing either as well. Peri-spawn (pre-spawn when spawn is imminent, during spawn, immediately post-spawn) bass may be suspended high in the water column -females esp- at or near the depth they're be spawning at. And...I often check aggressiveness of bass by fishing high to see if they'll move, chase. If not, I'll go down after them.

 

3 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

Paul's "form/fit/function,"

BTW: This is Catt's terminology. I used it to hook back up with the OP.

[WRB]

Regarding fishing too deep on structure is a common mistake IMO. Bass usually don't chase anything down into deep water very far. The reason is they are not physically biult to see underneath them without rolling to one side, they see everything in front or above perfectly! The fact is bass see your lure coming down through the water column or hear/feel it crawling along the structure....they know it's in the neighborhood. Just how deep the bass will go down to get something is up for debate, no question about going forward or up to strike.

This is why knowing the depth zone bass are using is important.

Tom

[Team9nine]

Just now, Paul Roberts said:

Not sure there's a rule there. But bottom contact is often the best, probably 90+% of time: fish are more secure, prey can be easier to catch against bottom, contact triggers. But... not always, depending on what's going on. Fish could be resting or feeding up high. If former they could be suspended, neutrally buoyant, as riverbasser suggests. If latter they could be up and chasing pelagic prey. If there is vertical cover there, they could be doing either as well. Peri-spawn (pre-spawn when spawn is imminent, during spawn, immediately post-spawn) bass may be suspended high in the water column -females esp- at or near the depth they're be spawning at. And...I often check aggressiveness of bass by fishing high to see if they'll move, chase. If not, I'll go down after them.

 

 

No rule, but instead what Buck referred to as a Guideline - he had a bunch of them. The nice thing being you didn't have to care or worry about why a fish did or didn't, would or wouldn't, do something - it really doesn't matter. You follow the guidelines and they'll tip the odds in your favor for catching fish as quickly and simply as possible. It reminds me a lot of Rick Clunn's mentality. I have an article where they were asking him (Clunn) about deep water bass fishing, and how he determined and fished for deep bass. His point was simple - he didn't care why they were there. Thermocline? pH? temperature? Didn't matter - his theory was you only stop and fish if you see fish on the finder, regardless of "why" they might be there.

 

I love, and can appreciate, the science and details as much as anyone. But I've come to the realization that simplicity in approach and reason with fishing has a certain allure to it also 

 

-T9  

[Paul Roberts]

Simplifying is essentially how we predators get anything done amid such complexity. I've been wired a bit differently however (I blame a rock bass that tugged on my line when I was 5 years old). I want to know why. It's what drives my fishing.

 

I was perusing some of Buck's course books last night, and in one he said (paraphrased) that fisherman rarely ask WHY. But, in his writings, he does a great job of what and how, but precious little why. What and how are indispensable. But I'm a why guy. Can't help it. Even if I'm the only one interested.

[riverbasser]

I understand both points y'all are making. Team9 keep it simple and Paul asking why. Both are good points and I don't think team9 is saying don't ever question the details but I wanted to add that asking "why" every time I catch a fish has probably helped me more than anything else when it comes to finding and catching fish. Its how I started to learn how to develop a pattern and in my opinion is KEY to consistently catching fish.

[Team9nine]

39 minutes ago, Paul Roberts said:

I was perusing some of Buck's course books last night, and in one he said (paraphrased) that fisherman rarely ask WHY. But, in his writings, he does a great job of what and how, but precious little why. What and how are indispensable. But I'm a why guy. Can't help it. Even if I'm the only one interested.

 

Going OT, but back then, I think "why" in regards to a lot of environmental questions was simply unknown. Not that they didn't want to explain why, but they actually didn't know. That said, Buck did always say that every time you caught a bass, you needed to ask yourself "why" that fish was there (more in relationship to how he got there though). Technology now allows us to dig deeper and get answers to a lot of these questions, but back in the 1950s and 1960s when much of Buck's theories were developed and shared, they didn't have readily available and affordable things like personal underwater cameras, tiny radio transmitters for telemetry tracking, lithium powered micro batteries and transmitters, etc. They barely even had depthfinders - lol. I don't think they could explain a lot. Instead, they used angling as the means to identify "what is," and then fit the explanation to the result. What else could they do? What amazes me is how well some of these theories still hold up 60 years later.

 

I have to admit I get a big kick these days watching all these GoPro anglers, offering a host of explanations for why they're catching fish in their videos - "They're feeding on crawdads in the rocks, and my bait is a perfect match," or "The wind is blowing into this pocket stirring up the invertebrates and piling up plankton, and the shad are following," even, "These rocks are holding heat and making these bass more active," yada, yada, yada. Did you cut that fish open and see what it was feeding on? Do you somehow see these schools of baitfish in the water you say these fish are feeding on? Did you take a temperature gauge and test this rock heating theory out? In a way, things haven't changed 60 years later

 

-T9   

[scaleface]

Theres an old  ,   200 acre reservoir I fish a lot . The last day I fished it last October   I was trolling a 14 foot jon boat across a major creek arm  ,  powered by an electric motor only . Watching my depth finder I saw a lot of fish marks and shad about 15 foot deep on a featureless  bottom .After tossing a marker buoy  I cast a lipless crank , let it set , hopped it back and preceded to catch about 50 bass . Now I wanted to know "why" . After I was finished with the spot I started searching the  bottom for structure    and found a well defined creek channel 15 to 20 yards away . Up shallow the channels are silted in but out deep there it was . Just speculation here but I always try to "connect the dots " .Maybe the bass were relating to the channel but followed shad out on the flat . 

 

 I've been thinking about it ever since and planning how i'm going to dissect that area next  year . i might be wrong but I plan on pulling some real hawgs from  that creek channel .   

[Catt]

Why! I don't need no stinking why!

 

"If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is."

 

When I'm on the water, hunting, or simply outdoors the above is the only rule I apply!

 

"Fish the moment" as defined by Catt

 

Take what little understanding I have about structure, add to that my understanding of how bass relate to structure, then add to that the relationship between predator & prey.

 

Now here's the "fish the moment" part; apply those 3 understandings to today's conditions!

 

Now off the water I'll talk why!

 

@Team9nine we talking fishing so there aint no off topic!

[scaleface]

 Excuse me if I'm not comprehending this correctly  but if you dont try to find out why, how do you plan on repeating your success ?

[J Francho]

An old timer friend of mine (a d**n good fisherman, as well) always says, "Why?  Because."  His point was that the observation, and putting the puzzle together for that trip was more important than figuring out why.  If you get to the "why" part, then great.  Often you do not.

[Catt]

2 hours ago, scaleface said:

 Excuse me if I'm not comprehending this correctly  but if you dont try to find out why, how do you plan on repeating your success ?

 

Why & if are the two biggest words in the dictionary!

 

I don't need to know why they're hitting spinnerbaits instead of crankbaits, I just need to know which they're hitting!

 

I don't need to know why the shallow bite is on & not the deep bite, I just need to know which bite is on!

2 hours ago, scaleface said:

 Excuse me if I'm not comprehending this correctly  but if you dont try to find out why, how do you plan on repeating your success ?

 

Why & if are the two biggest words in the dictionary!

 

I don't need to know why they're hitting spinnerbaits instead of crankbaits, I just need to know which they're hitting!

 

I don't need to know why the shallow bite is on & not the deep bite, I just need to know which bite is on!

What I do need to know is "why" am I double posting?

[scaleface]

8 minutes ago, Catt said:

 

Why & if are the two biggest words in the dictionary!

 

I don't need to know why they're hitting spinnerbaits instead of crankbaits, I just need to know which they're hitting!

 

I don't need to know why the shallow bite is on & not the deep bite, I just need to know which bite is on!

 

Why & if are the two biggest words in the dictionary!

 

I don't need to know why they're hitting spinnerbaits instead of crankbaits, I just need to know which they're hitting!

 

I don't need to know why the shallow bite is on & not the deep bite, I just need to know which bite is on!

What I do need to know is "why" am I double posting?

I see .  I was focusing on structure and why the bass are where they are found .

 

Of course we all have days that are baffling   . i have plenty of those .

[Team9nine]

2 hours ago, scaleface said:

 Excuse me if I'm not comprehending this correctly  but if you dont try to find out why, how do you plan on repeating your success ?

 

I think you're close, but see if this explains where we're coming from. From a Spoonplugging perspective, Buck wrote that it is likely no two fishing trips are ever likely the same - there are simply too many variables; time, temp, weather, water clarity, oxygen, cloud cover, fishing pressure, and on and on. If that is the case, then how could you ever rely on any of those things to help you catch fish consistently each time you hit the water? In your example, what if the next time you hit that spot there are no shad up shallow, or even anywhere around? Or it's a different time of year? You still think you can repeat your catch in the same manner? 

 

Instead, what rarely changes are the structure, breaks and breaklines in the area that the fish likely are using. As such, you approach each day assuming you'll have to relocate those fish in the area. Today they may be shallow, deep, or somewhere in-between ? And you won't necessarily catch them at the same depth or speed/presentation. In that regard, you were speculating that your bass might have followed the shad up onto the flat, but even you don't know if that's the real "why" they were there - and the point being does it matter? Because if they're not there, you'll adjust your looking shallower or deeper, and when you find them and catch 'em, you'll have a new theory as to why - but so what...you'll still catch them ?

 

-T9

Edit - just saw Catt replied while I was typing with a simpler explanation ?

[scaleface]

3 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

 

I think you're close, but see if this explains where we're coming from. From a Spoonplugging perspective, Buck wrote that it is likely no two fishing trips are ever likely the same - there are simply too many variables; time, temp, weather, water clarity, oxygen, cloud cover, fishing pressure, and on and on. If that is the case, then how could you ever rely on any of those things to help you catch fish consistently each time you hit the water? In your example, what if the next time you hit that spot there are no shad up shallow, or even anywhere around? Or it's a different time of year? You still think you can repeat your catch in the same manner? 

 

Instead, what rarely changes are the structure, breaks and breaklines in the area that the fish likely are using. As such, you approach each day assuming you'll have to relocate those fish in the area. Today they may be shallow, deep, or somewhere in-between ? And you won't necessarily catch them at the same depth or speed/presentation. In that regard, you were speculating that your bass might have followed the shad up onto the flat, but even you don't know if that's the real "why" they were there - and the point being does it matter? Because if they're not there, you'll adjust your looking shallower or deeper, and when you find them and catch 'em, you'll have a new theory as to why - but so what...you'll still catch them ?

 

-T9

Edit - just saw Catt replied while I was typing with a simpler explanation ?

I see . You're correct I dont  expect to catch bass on the deep flat at the same place again but I do expect them to be relating to the nearby channel .

[Team9nine]

12 minutes ago, scaleface said:

I see . You're correct I dont  expect to catch bass on the deep flat at the same place again but I do expect them to be relating to the nearby channel .

 

? yep - if you catch adult fish on specific structure, breaks, breaklines, then that becomes a known productive structure situation, and as such you always keep it "in your back pocket" for future trips...

 

-T9

[A-Jay]

3 hours ago, scaleface said:

 Excuse me if I'm not comprehending this correctly  but if you dont try to find out why, how do you plan on repeating your success ?

 

I can understand this mindset and it's been a challenge for me to understand or decide if why is something I should be giving more attention to.

In the past, I spent quite a bit of time & effort trying to figure out why a bite was good or bad or why a bait produced one time & not another.  I expended even more energy on the why's & why not's of spots, lakes & locations: keeping this response along the lines of the OP about structure.   When it was all said & done - instead of as asking why and expecting to be able to answer it definitively, I ask maybe and hope for perhaps a few pieces of the puzzle with results being the final answer.   

 

Reading @Team9nine response above, I happen to agree with the mantra that because virtually none of the success in bass fishing is 100 % repeatable 100% of the time, "answers" are like unicorns . . . . . .

 

Each angler's approach to bass fishing is different and mine starts with structure and movement.  It offers a starting point to maybe find the bass and perhaps have some understanding of where they are heading.  Right here is where I used to ask Why.  Almost every time I expected the answer to revolve around food, but as mentioned above, the variables are many; weather, cheaper rent, the price of gas, who knows. . .I'm good with finding them wherever they may be and hopefully getting a few of the fatter ones to eat.

 

A-Jay

 

 

 

 

[scaleface]

8 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

 

   When it was all said & done - instead of as asking why and expecting to be able to answer it definitively, I ask maybe and hope for perhaps a few pieces of the puzzle with results being the final answer.   

 

 

 

A-Jay

 

 

 

 

Thats why I used the term " connecting the dots "   . Sometimes I do get it right . LOL

[J Francho]

I think sometimes you can try to make assumptions on the why part.  One situation comes to mind.  Fishing a a large, deep ADK lake (Upper Saranac), we ran into a nasty cold front, and everyone was saying the bite was off.  My feeling is that fish that prefer deep water are less affected by weather at the surface - cooling temps, barometric pressure, wind, etc.  We froze our butts off in the middle of summer, but had a banner day fishing deep points and boulder fields.  By deep, I mean 15-25', with even deeper water nearby.  We even had a passenger boat his PB smallmouth.  It wasn't huge by Erie standards, but at 3+ lbs., a trophy for the north country, where the growing season is around 3 months.

 

In that sense, I've learned to make an assumption about "why" - the weather affects the shallow bass, and shuts them down, while deeper bass are still active - though, we still focused on structure, and how we found the fish were relating to it.  The rules, or guidelines, didn't change.  Wind swept points and islands, with deep water access, and deep flats with boulders, again near deep water produced.  Maybe my "why" answer is wrong, but that assumption has paid off more than once.

[Catt]

In my example of KVD the "why" was as follows.

 

Shallow water feeding flat; why because it was pre-spawn

 

The "ditch"; why, basss must have a visible path of breaks and break lines on a structure from deep water all the way to the shallows; which is where the bulk of food is available to bass.

[scaleface]

So dont let the small details get in the way of the overall picture , because there is a good chance the assumption is wrong .

[Catt]

2 minutes ago, scaleface said:

So dont let the small details get in the way of the overall picture , because there is a good chance the assumption is wrong .

 

KVD with the basics which was structure, breaks/breaklines, & cover.

 

With his lures selection of a spinnerbait, a square bill 1.5, & a red eye shad he made adjustments to current details. He switched to 20# fluorocarbon to his lures higher in the water column & dropped down to a 5.4:1 gear ratio.

[MFBAB]

50 minutes ago, Catt said:

 

KVD with the basics which was structure, breaks/breaklines, & cover.

 

With his lures selection of a spinnerbait, a square bill 1.5, & a red eye shad he made adjustments to current details. He switched to 20# fluorocarbon to his lures higher in the water column & dropped down to a 5.4:1 gear ratio.

Sounds like he was fine-tuning depth and speed

 

Y'all are cracking me up with all of this 'Why" talk.  I don't think "Why" means the same thing to all of you guys in this conversation  

One mans why is structure, anothers is wheres the bait, anothers is some other variable in the equation. 

The structure is why they are there from a big picture standpoint,

the water color(light penetration)/weather(cold front, stable, etc.)/current seasonal pattern and temp will have an effect on what depth and what type of structure they are relating to currently, so there's another why,

Then the location of the food source will pinpoint their location further still-are there weeds? Current? There's another why.

What baits would they react to? Why one retrieve or color and not another on this day?

You can drown in the details sometimes, but the one thing that always seems to remain constant is the structure(the foundation), they'll be relating to it and moving on it along those predictable routes more often than not, so you've narrowed the search down considerably once you begin to embrace that concept. 

You can come up with whatever story you want to for why they were on that specific spot at that specific time eating that specific bait on that specific day, but you either

a ) stumbled onto them completely by accident, or

b ) you were eliminating water on a given piece of structure where you expected to find them at some point shallow-deep-or in between :):)

 

The big thing is, getting it in your head right and understanding it. Dated or not, there's no more thorough explanation of the concept than BP's.  If you read and understand that book, and I mean really pay attention to the details, it all starts to click better.  On the other hand, you can get lost pretty badly if you try to pick and choose which parts of the concept are important!

I didn't mean for any of that to sound like a rant, I just honestly believe that the structure concept is a great way to actually simplify the process, even though it takes an investment of time on the front end to learn it and change gears so to speak.

And no, it's not 100% perfect, but it's answered more "why's" for me than any other book or article I've ever read, or any fishing experience I've ever had, and combined they are many  

 

[Paul Roberts]

Great conversation; It’s such a pleasure. I "liked" pretty much everything. Started to multi-quote and gave it up there are so many great comments. I agree with all of it, which tells me we're all pretty much on the same page, give or take. If I could make a summary comment it would be in the recognition of the myriad variables we all know -or eventually discover- summed up in A-Jay's "chasing unicorns".

 

And, Brian, I've also gone GoPro. Yeah, and I'm hoping to explain a few things along the way. As I write (about... nature stuff) I am constantly aware of the variables and how difficult it is to make "statements". But I've grown used to it, having had enough experiences in the sciences to fathom the fact that such inquiries are surrounded by error bars, and that knowledge (despite touted as the key to successful fishing) is mostly incomplete. 

 

I sum up my fishing this way: Although fishing may require a lot of knowledge, planning, observation, and execution, on the water we're flying by the seat of our pants. And I joke that I start re-writing history as soon as I leave the water. All I can hope for is that I've done enough homework on the variables that I can at least consider them in my final narrative -what my 40years of journaling has been all about.

 

Along the lines of John's post above, I recently shot a video journal called Bluebird Blue, in which I fish a small "Swimming Pool" of a pond under post-frontal blue. There were other anglers on that pond while I was there, and they all blanked. The most outwardly capable of them (by speak, tackle quality, and enthusiasm) told me he'd been crushing them over the last week with "horizontal baits", it being "fall". I smiled and thought to myself, "Oooh boy, today you are headed for a "fall" alright." An hour or so later he was packing out, fishless, and said he was going to other ponds "to find some biters".

 

I shot my video with the pond to myself that included underwater video of bass happily hunting in 2fow under those bluebird skies and clear water. I caught bass (by finesse) and finished with my "Blue-pers" for the day -me spooking bass after bass, showing why those fish were so darn hard to catch. It wasn't because those bass had lock-jaw, went deep, hid in inside turns, crawled into crevices, etc.... . Instead, it was MOST simply because they were so ready to turn inside out at anything out of place. I emphasize "MOST" because it's not the whole story, of course, as there were other variables at play. But the bass's shift from aggressive hunting to vigilance was the first, and largest, hurdle.

 

Knowing the variables well enough to consider which of them are likely (error bars again) most significant in the moment is how I play the game; How I think we all play the game, as best we can. After all we're all merely mortal, unlike the likes of Buck Perry. Or so it would seem. 

[riverbasser]

8 minutes ago, Paul Roberts said:

After all we're all merely mortal, unlike the likes of Buck Perry, or so it would seem. 

Good summary,  and yes it seems I must read his book to see what all the fuss is about. Hard to make time since I'm currently on a theology kick but maybe once its on the coffee table ill find time to read through.

 

If this threads wrapping up I guess ill get to reading the some others, last few days I got on here just to check this one out.    

 

Thanks for starting this Catt, and all the others who participated. It was a great discussion!

[MFBAB]

34 minutes ago, Paul Roberts said:

After all we're all merely mortal, unlike the likes of Buck Perry. Or so it would seem. 

I don't think BP would have thought of himself as anything resembling immortal.  I just think that he decided to focus his energies on finding out where bass went when they were hard to catch (Summer/Winter/Fronts, etc...), and being a genius (Physics Prof), he just started applying logic and scientific method to his theories. 

The good part about the scientific method is that it is basically an effort to refute or disprove your own ideas by testing them, so the ones that survive the vetting process are at least somewhat unassailable. 

I think BP goes WAY overboard on how deep the fish go after say a front, or during winter, and I think he exaggerates how often they may migrate from shallow to deep, I think maybe he does some of this on purpose to drive his points home harder, but it's anyone's guess. 

On the other hand, he managed to figure out some of the most basic, yet most repeatable and reliable tendencies of these pea-brained little green jokers, things that as simple as they are, mystify us because they all occur in an underwater world that we can't actually see. 

IMO, like I said earlier, I think that underwater world is laid out as clearly to the fish as a football field is to us, but BP was the one who really figured that out and explained it so clearly to us