Number of Casts

[BigMinnow]

How many casts do you guys generally give an area before moving on? Say you bring 3 or 4 rods with you, do you try to use them all before moving on to the next spot? How and when do you decide to try a different lure or a different color?? I’m new to lure fishing and I find myself getting stuck throwing one lure over and over again even if im not getting anything on it. 

[Angry John]

So i will treat your question just like the way i am currently fishing in texas.  This is the first time i have fished here and i have no tired and true lures for this location.  I start with a 4" wacky rigged cane thumper which i have known to catch anything from trout to bass, to include crappie and other species.  I will cast that in a fishy area a dozen or so times before i switch lures to something like a 4" keitech.  I fan cast the area, and if i get nothing or see no fish i move on.  A moving bait and a not moving bait will cover what i need to know.  You can do  this same thing with a worm and chatter bait or a lizard and a spinnerbait.  If the pond is small and there are not a bunch of areas to cover then i may be more apt to throw the box at it before i move but in my current situation i have more water than time.

[soflabasser]

As many cast as I need to throw depending on the conditions. Sometimes I only cast 1-2 times in 1 spot and move on, other times I cast for several hours if I feel I have a good chance at catching a big one.

[WRB]

Knowing when to hold them and when to fold them is the age old question of bass fishing.

There isn't a answer to that question because every lake and circumstance is different.

If you are new to bass fishing start by looking at the water in 3 dimensions; top, mid water column and bottom. Select lures that can be fished effectively in the cover or structure where you are fishing and that can be presented to the bass in all 3 dimensions. 

Have you ever been to a bass fishing store? There are hundreds of lures and colors to choose from because bass can be caught on a wide verity of lures and everyone could work. 

Trail and error is the only advice I can give you.

Location, location, timing then lure selection.

   Tom

[Catt]

Same amount of time it's takes to breakdown all that science!

[Todd2]

8 hours ago, BigMinnow said:

How and when do you decide to try a different lure or a different color?? 

Before I change any lure or color, I change up the retrieve. Just last weekend I was out and started steady slow rolling a Cut-R worm...fished it for a good 30 mins with one hit. Switched up to a stop and go and the bites picked way up and I was able to have a decent day. Did the bite just pick up or was it the change? I guess I could've gone back to steady retrieve to make sure but I was catching some fish (although small) with the stop and go. 

 

I hate the answer "let the fish tell you" that I see on this forum all of the time...but it is true.

[Troy85]

Depends on the spot.  Sometimes I stop to fish a new area, I take 5 casts and pack up and leave, sometimes I'll fish it for 30 minutes or longer.  It kind of depends on how I feel once I start fishing a spot.  If I feel like an area has potential I'll try several different lures before moving on.  When I find an area that has fish, after I've caught a few, I like to switch lures or presentations and see if they will still bite.  If I don't get bit, I'll switch back to the original bait and see if start catching fish again.

[scaleface]

Give us a description of the type of water you are fishing and are you fishing from shore   or boat ?

 

From bank , I dont bog myself down . One rod and  a few lures. I usually  make a couple cast move a couple of steps and repeat.

[A-Jay]

I'm looking for the answers to basically three questions from each location I fish:

What depth are the bass using ?

Are they in an Active, Neutral or Negative mood ?

And how far are they willing to come / move to eat my bait ?

 

The number of casts used to determine each always depends on the answers.

Could be as little as one or it could be and has been in the past, many many, many more. 

 

A-Jay

 

 

[senile1]

You can spray an area with 15 or 20 casts using a moving bait, or even a worm and then move on.  Have you thoroughly fished that water?  It depends.  I fish quite a bit of water with trees and brush clumped together.  I see the occasional angler cover an area with casts and move on without placing a lure directly in the patches of trees and brush, especially in really deep water.  They will fish up next to it, but often not in the middle of it.  At certain times of the year, and under certain conditions that is where the bigger fish will more likely be.  If you don't check those spots, you are missing a lot of fish.  And I find it useful to use enough lures to cover the different water layers as @WRB stated in his post above as well. 

[Choporoz]

I agree with all of the above.  But as @scalefacealluded to above, it also depends on whether I'm fishing from shore, boat or kayak.   From shore, I'll work accessible spots extremely thoroughly.  In a boat, I've been known to spend close to an hour on a single brush pile or big tree.  Mostly, I fish from a kayak, and wind, current, tide all conspire against me, so I typically make far fewer casts to a spot.

[Catt]

9 hours ago, WRB said:

Location, location, timing then lure selection.

   Tom

 

Y'all need to understand that next after location is timing; just because you don't get bite does not mean the bass aren't there or you tied on the wrong lure.

 

As mentioned earlier what's the mood of the bass!

 

Also as mentioned earlier repeated casts to specific targets maybe needed to produce a bite. When possible these repeated cast should be from different angles.

[TOXIC]

Just watch the post tournament interviews and smile.  One angler will say "the key to my success is to powerfish and put the trolling motor on high and cover as much water as possible" while the next guy will say "I really had to slow down and make multiple casts to the same target to get them to bite".    That tells me it has a lot to do with style.  I know my tournament partner and I would go out and he would powerfish from the front of the boat and I would watch where he cast and what he used and I would normally do something completely different.  Once we got consistent bites on a style or technique, we would both switch over to that method.  I am primarily a finesse guy so I naturally fish slower but that doesn't mean I can't burn a trap or spinnerbait if that's the presentation they want.  

[WRB]

Good point Catt; Angles are so important it could be another topic. Up hill, down hill, parallel, up and over, lure presented in front or from behind, straight down, up wind, down wind, etc., then add cadence and you start to understand the difficulty of answering this simple question of how many casts!

Tom

 

[Catt]

Watched a Gary Klein video where he states the two biggest mistakes most anglers make is poor boat positioning & not making follow-up to the exact same spot after catching one!

[brotekind269]

If I know (without doubt) there are fish in the spot I will stay there until..... I am constantly switching techniques and cadences as i'm finding fish until I get bit. Once bit then I'll make the subtle changes to get better and bigger bites. I'm a finesse fisherman at heart so I love completely dissecting a piece of cover, but I also hate wasting time if there aren't fish there. I only fish pressured waters, so dragging a senko or slow fishing a jerkbait is my power fishing and dissecting an area with a finesse jig is my slow.   

[BigMinnow]

3 hours ago, scaleface said:

Give us a description of the type of water you are fishing and are you fishing from shore or boat ?

I’m fishing a local pond so the fish are pretty pressured. Here in Northeast Ohio it’s still snowing but the pond I fish is about half thawed. So I fish from the bank, make a cast to the middle of the pond onto the ice, then reel my lure in until it drops off the ice into the water. I let it sink all the way down and then bring it back with a slow retrieve. I figure since the pond is still half frozen all the bass are on or near the bottom, but it seems all my lure choices aren’t working or the bass just aren’t eating. I don’t know if I should bother moving/casting to a shallower area or bother switching lures. Everything I’ve read says cast to the deepest point and go SLOW. 

[WRB]

Let the pond thaw completely, the bass don't need to be targeted as they are in survival mode. What happens if you manage to hook a bass, pull it over the ice?

Tom

[J Francho]

3 minutes ago, WRB said:

Let the pond thaw completely, the bass don't need to be targeted as they are in survival mode. What happens if you manage to hook a bass, pull it over the ice?

Tom

Bodies of water thaw starting from the shore.

[BigMinnow]

6 minutes ago, J Francho said:

10 minutes ago, WRB said:

Let the pond thaw completely, the bass don't need to be targeted as they are in survival mode. What happens if you manage to hook a bass, pull it over the ice?

Tom

Bodies of water thaw starting from the shore.

Lol yea, catch and release isn’t a problem. But I need to catch them first before I can release them 

[WRB]

Where I grew up the lake opened in the deep water in the middle where the springs were located and the wind blows. Every year someone drawns walking out to the open water on thin ice. If the lake was raising the shore ice thawed first. My point is why bass fish until the ice is out, there are other fish species to catch.

The OP could try a float n fly if he is bent on fishing for bass.

Tom

[J Francho]

1 minute ago, WRB said:

Where I grew up the lake opened in the deep water in the middle where the springs were located and the wind blows. Every year someone drawns walking out to the open water on thin ice. If the lake was raising the shore ice thawed first. My point is why bass fish until the ice is out, there are other fish species to catch.

The OP could try a float n fly if he is bent on fishing for bass.

Tom

This is a very unusual lake.  In fact on the NYS official guide exam for fishing and small boat handling, there is a question about this.  I know this because I got it wrong  

 

It's a safety issue.  If he's fishing the thawed side, while the lake is thawing, then there isn't ice on the shoreline.  Why fish at ice out? Because.  Why ice fish for them?  We do that too.  Because.  Float 'n Fly will catch anything if it's there and hungry - even big trout up here.

[WRB]

Big Bear lake in SoCal is the lake I grew up fishing on and yes it's unusual for SoCal to have a lake that can freeze over and has both Smallmouth and largemouth bass population, it's known for it's trout fishing. The wind protected bays are the last areas to thaw out.

We are now discussing a pond with a shore angler and that changes this informative thread to few options.

Tom

[the reel ess]

There are tons of variables. But if you think or know there are fish there, throw the kitchen sink at them.