Matching the hatch

[CT Sam]

I've been trying to get out on the water at least once a week this season and I've been really trying to broaden my skills. Up until last year most of my fishing was done with either Texas rigged paddle tail flukes, worms etc. and topwater frogs. So I've been trying to work on finesse techniques along with some other things including swimbaits. I figured one thing I should try to do is pick a spot and try to master it, so I've been spending a lot of my time at Miller's Pond in Durham, CT. It has some weed edges, steep drop offs, rock bottom, grass bottom, and ranges in depth from about 3 feet to 20 feet. Most of what i catch there is around 1-2lbs but I have heard of fish as big as 7lbs caught out of there. The place is stocked with trout yearly and I know there are yellow perch in there along with various sunfish. Saturday morning the bass were busting baitfish at the surface in about 12ft of water and I was throwing a 3 inch white 360gt swimbait and a golden shiner baby bucca at them. I could feel my bait bouncing off of them and all I got for my half hour of effort was one small half pound bass. I'm thinking I should get some trout and/or perch imitators. I know bass will eat both but I'm wondering if they'll go after either over other baitfish when available. And before anyone asks, I'm pretty sure they were bass busting the surface, there are no carp in that pond. 

[Manifestgtr]

There’s more to be said for “matching the hatch” than I originally thought. I came to terms with that this year

 

My go-to bait is the super fluke. I’ll almost always start out with that and work from there. 
 

Sungill is my color...it perfectly, perfectly matches the forage in my area...dark colored sunfish of various species. Last year, I picked up some Houdinis because I could get them in person. My local bps had them and I figured, hey...they’re basically the “same thing”, a few shades lighter with some different flakes. Bass are dopey, right? Not only that but they vaguely resemble some of the perch in my area. 
 

I mainly fish 3 bodies of water and I just CANT get them to hit Houdini. While we’re at it, I can get them to hit green pumpkin here and there but both of these combined will not take half the fish that sungill does. It’s a more “convincing” color, period.

 

So now, I’m down to two “fluke” baits that consistently produce. Zoom sungill and strike king caffeine ghost. If strike king ever came out with a “sungill” color, I would be parading down the street, waving a baton up and down in time to the marching band behind me 

[CT Sam]

Those super flukes just get it done. I've done best with bluegill flash and white ice but ill have to try sungill. I'd assume that the forage in MA is similar to CT. I had a similar experience with Keitech easy shiners. Bought them thinking they're basically the same. Bass would hit the super flukes but not the Keitechs. My brother will go with me most times and pretty much ties one on and replaces when needed. Occasionally he'll throw a topwater frog if I'm getting hit on one. I need to justify the money I've spent on the rest of my stuff though ?. 

[looking45]

If there's trout in the lake, get a couple of 6"-8" trout swim baits. The bigger fish are used to eating trout. 

[plawren53202]

1 hour ago, CT Sam said:

Those super flukes just get it done. I've done best with bluegill flash and white ice but ill have to try sungill. 

Bluegill flash is my most effective color by far in my local pond. I have to order it online and can't find it in store anywhere around me. Interestingly, the other day I was in an Academy and they of course did not have bluegill flash, but they did have the baby bass color (can't remember if Zoom calls it baby bass or something else). I thought, since the bass just wrapped up spawning, and lots of little fry swimming around now, maybe that's worth a try. The only time out with it so far, I caught three quick ones before weather forced me off the pond. So just throwing that out there in case baby bass might work for you as well, and I think it fits the topic in matching the hatch with the newborn bass fry.

[CT Sam]

Thanks for the advice guys. I kind of assumed that the bigger ones would be eating the trout but I had nothing with me at the time that resembled a trout. 

plawrence53202 

[soflabasser]

You do not always have to ''match the hatch'' when bass fishing. A lot of the lures I fish look nothing like a fish. For example a spinnerbait does not look like a fish yet it is one of the best lures for bass.

[CT Sam]

Yeah I understand that but a spinnerbait is designed to look like a small school of baitfish. Typically you would try to match the color of the spinnerbait to whatever forage there is in the water and you would choose the weight based on where you want to be in the water column based off of where the bass would be chasing the baitfish. A jig doesn't look like a baitfish to us but we choose colors like "bluegill" to match a bluegill and the skirt puffs up like a threatened bluegill. 

[Eric Matechak]

if trout are there, fish with trout patterns for big bass

[Hammer 4]

Long time ago, I use to be one of those, always try to match the hatch guys. Then I figured out that matching the hatch doesn't garontee you'll catch fish. IMHO there's more important things to consider.

 

I use to fish a public park lake, was pretty good sized, in fact there were  3 lakes in the park which was huge. Anyway, one day in a part of the lake that not only had tons of pressure, it had real muddy water to boot. On a whim, I picked up my swimbait rig, and began tossing a 8 Hudd trout pattern..This lake had No trout, and was never stocked. After about 15 cast's no bites or followers, I then switched to a 6" Hudd in trout.

 

Made a nice long cast, and about 30 feet from me I saw a nice 5-6 lb bass following it, stopped reeling and gave it a twitch..The fish turned and swam off..Next cast, after about 8 turns of the reel, Wham..a nice 5 1/2 lb bass. Caught 3 more, all over 4 lbs, biggest was a tad over 6 lbs. And that pretty much shot down the match the hatch thingy for me.

 

Find the fish, offer the right presentation at the depth where they are to me is much more important.

[WRB]

Understanding bass behavior will help you understand what preferred prey the bass are targeting means to the bass.

For example a school of Threadfin Shad being attacked by a school bass, what should you use? When bass are breaking up and eating small bait fish like Shad there is a lot of wounded and dieing Shad falling to the bottom. Crawdads eat dead Shad and feast of them. A jig can be better choice then lures matching the Shad.

While the smaller school bass are near the surface beating up

the shad the bigger bass are deeper picking off the injured and targeting higher protein crawdads. 

Tom

[RoLo]

 

All predatory animals are opportunistic binge feeders, it's a necessary survival tactic.

Nevertheless, opportunistic feeding is typically brief, and is always subject to instant change

without notice. This is graphically illustrated by finding 4 different forms of prey

in the stomach of one fish (Very common). Match any one of the 4 prey items,

and the next bait will likely be something entirely different. 

You know, like a spinnerbait, wacky-rigged Senko or Ecogear Shrimp Blade 

 .

 

 

 

Roger

[Dens228]

The best color/pattern in my favorite fishing spot is a shad color.  There are no shad in that body of water.  There are a ton of bluegill and crappie though. 

[DitchPanda]

I'm a believer in general color patterns instead of true match the hatch. My local lake has tons of bait species...small carp, bullheads, crawfish, bluegills, green sunfish, perch, crappie, chubs, baby bass and shad. A lot of different color patterns there but I throw green pumpkin or brown for bottom baits and I throw bluegill with a heavy green pumpkin base, a shad imitator mostly white and black for moving baits. I think I get better results if I generally appeal to color preference and rely on reaction strikes instead of really finessing them slowly with exact color replicas.

[CT Sam]

20 hours ago, WRB said:

Crawdads eat dead Shad and feast of them. A jig can be better choice then lures matching the Shad.

While the smaller school bass are near the surface beating up

the shad the bigger bass are deeper picking off the injured and targeting higher protein crawdads. 

Tom

Very good point and something I didn't really take into consideration. Thanks Tom

[Teal]

Something else to think about is lure size and length when matching the hatch.  

[detroit1]

Rolo that is a sweet bladebait that I have never seen. Thanks for the pic.

I think MOST times color doesn't matter to actively feeding fish. For me, color becomes a little more important when they remove the feed bag.

[RoLo]

21 minutes ago, detroit1 said:

Rolo that is a sweet bladebait that I have never seen. Thanks for the pic.  

 

Those babies are all over the lake right after our Spinnerbait hatch,

which is followed by a major hatch of Helicopter Lures     

 

Roger

[detroit1]

[king fisher]

There is no need to match the hatch if there is no hatch.  When there is an abundance of one type of prey, then it may be necessary to match the hatch.

     Bass are hunters, and like all hunters, will use all of their senses, and skill to catch their prey.  If a hunter walks in to a field determined to get something for dinner with no idea what is abundant in the field, he will likely shoot the first edible thing he sees.  Could be a rabbit duck, or pheasant, doesn't really make any difference.

      If the same hunter walks in to a field with thousands of rabbits everywhere but finds they are hard to shoot because they are very fast, and don't run in a straight line he may start to concentrate on rabbits.  He may discover if he sees a white patch on a rabbit giving its location away before it starts to run, he can get a quick easy shot.  While concentrating on the ground looking for white patches, a duck could fly over and he most likely wont even notice.  Not because he prefers rabbit over duck, but because he is concentrating on finding and shooting rabbits that happen to be very abundant at the time.

     The same thing happens when a bass is hunting.  If there is no hatch he looks everywhere for anything and doesn't concentrate on one, color, action, sound, or other factor and will most likely hit a variety of lures, fished in a variety of ways. When there is a large amount of one type of prey ( hatch) he may start to concentrate on one or more aspects of that particular prey, in order to make it easier to catch.  During the hatch the bass become selective not because they prefer one type of prey over another, but because by concentrating one or more factors they become more successful at locating and catching the prey while it is abundant.  The angler does not know exactly what the main thing the bass is looking for so it can be wise to try and match the size, speed, action, color, sound, smell, and any other aspect of that particular prey.  An anger does not have to get an exact match, maybe only need to fish the lure, fast, instead of slow, with pauses instead of straight retrieve, a dark over light color, quiet instead of noisy, and scent likely wont matter at all.  One time size and speed may be all you have to match.  Other times the bass may only be looking for a flash of red, or silver, and size doesn't make a difference.  Changing retrieve is the first and easiest thing to try to match the hatch.  Size and color require changing lures.  You never know until you experiment.  Though many times it is not required,  I don't think it ever hurts to try and match what the fish are feeding on.  

[CrankFate]

I have never done well matching the hatch. Try different things. It could also be that I have little luck matching the hatch, because the hatch is really something I don’t know. Which leads me back to try different things.

[Black Hawk Basser]

I place depth control, speed, and other presentation traits way over color.  Now, if I find that a certain bait is working well, but I can refine the color choice to something that's more appropriate for the body of water and time of year, then I may switch colors on the same bait.  But, it's hard to switch anything if what you're using is working well.