Run&Gun or Low&Slow

[Jaderose]

What's your style of fishing?  As I do not tournament fish, I tend towards Low & Slow.  I'll spend a couple of hours working a stump field or frogging a mat.  I want every fish in there.  I watched a guy the other day Runnin & Gunnin faster than I've ever seen.  He had his trolling motor cranked up and he was moving and casting like a mad man.  Funny thing was, he kept back-lashing his reel so he'd dig that out and go back to just letting it fly and reeling like a mad man.  Never seen anything like it and it looked about as fun as getting a root canal.  I've back seated with run & gunners and it taught me to never bother with tournaments. Some would look at me out in my boat and probably wonder what the heck I was doing or if I was still breathing...lol

 

Btw...I saw him catch one fish.  He didn't appear to be a novice either as the lake is FULL of stumps and he was weaving around them like he was in Formula One.

 

Also....this isn't an endorsement for one way or another.  I'm just curious to y'all's style.

[scaleface]

If I think a place is holding fish , its going to get fished . Even when I'm covering water its usually at a slow speed .

[DitchPanda]

I'm a bank guy so that lends itself to a methodical approach. Not saying you can't run and gun from the bank but its more difficult than in a boat. With bank spots being at a premium...at least ones worth a crap...I find myself hunkering down even more than normal. Today for instance I caught my 5 fish from one small stretch about 30yards long. Tried 3 other spots with no bites.

[Jig Man]

It all depends on how I am fishing and where I find fish.  Sometimes it is run and gun.  Sometimes it is slo mo.

[scaleface]

Why was this moved to tournament talk ? Jade says he doesnt fish tourneys .

[r83srock]

It all depends on how I’m fishing. On a lake I don’t know very well, I try to find a productive area or two and pick it apart. On my home lakes, I have way too many spots and there are times I’m cherry picking the best parts of the spots. It’s been both good and bad. I’d honestly rather fish low and slow given the chance. When fishing at a high pace, I tend to rush casts, not being accurate enough or backlashing.

[Jaderose]

33 minutes ago, scaleface said:

Why was this moved to tournament talk ? Jade says he doesnt fish tourneys .

Good question.....This isn't about tourney fishing.  Just a general question of style......The mods seem quick on the draw to move stuff out of Gen Bass Fishing for some reason.  I don't think I've ever even looked in this board before...lol

[Log Catcher]

I prefer the low and slow way of fishing. I would much rather work areas really good. I don't like having to put everything away each time I make a run.

[A-Jay]

My 'style' is neither run & gun or low & slow.

It's more about 'time & place' for me

As a retired man - I am for the most part on 'A-Jay Time'.

So I fish when I want.

And that is routinely at a time & place that offers the best chance at trophy brown bass. 

Usually requires some minor sacrifice like sleep - but when it works out

it's SO worth it.

The particular presentation selected could be almost anything.

Finally, if I'm actually running & gunning - usually means I'm clueless, fishing new water or just 'fun fishing'.

A-Jay

 

[jbsoonerfan]

2 hours ago, scaleface said:

Why was this moved to tournament talk ? Jade says he doesnt fish tourneys .

The latest tackle purchase thread has been moved around twice in the last 24 hours or so LOL

[WRB]

Running and gunning you are not catching you are searching.

Tom

[Shimano_1]

All depends on whats going on at that time and where im at. I have one lake I tournament fish q lot and its usually run and gun til i run into the fish then ill slow way down. Another lake is tough and the places that hold populations of bass are few and far between so its usually a lot more of a slow down and finesse em into biting kinda deal. I'm sure there are times I run when I should stay and vise versa but I do both at times. Never like mentioned above tho I don't get all crazy about it. Presentation is everything and I don't feel like you're presenting anything correctly if you're always ready to move on to the next spot

[TnRiver46]

Slow

[RoLo]

 

Before an outing, I spend a great deal of time studying bathymetric charts & satellite imagery.

When I'm on the water, I treat every trial site as a holding site, and have no interest in scatter-gunning.

This is always the case, even if the lake is 1000 miles away, and I've never fished there before.

 

Roger

[BassNJake]

5 hours ago, WRB said:

Running and gunning you are not catching you are searching.

Tom

Or you're pattern fishing.

There are a lot of times when different patterns are productive.

So you run 1 set of docks and gun your way over to the next set of docks.

Docks can also be points, grass lines, break lines at a specific depth, laydowns, standing timber, stumps etc....

 

Most of my tourney success came when I could run a pattern.

Then you form a milk run of these various spots and you continue to cycle through them

Tournament guys do this all the time

 

[WRB]

2 hours ago, BassNJake said:

Or you're pattern fishing.

There are a lot of times when different patterns are productive.

So you run 1 set of docks and gun your way over to the next set of docks.

Docks can also be points, grass lines, break lines at a specific depth, laydowns, standing timber, stumps etc....

 

Most of my tourney success came when I could run a pattern.

Then you form a milk run of these various spots and you continue to cycle through them

Tournament guys do this all the time

 

Running your not catching. 

Catching means you know bass are there and cathing them.

My typical milk run is about 10-20 spots any given day or night and stop to saturate those areas. My searching is usually by sonar to establish location and depth. Tournaments I was lucky to find a hand full of of areas to fish, everyone knows the pattern.

Never caught a bass running.

Tom

 

[BassNJake]

On 8/9/2020 at 2:06 AM, WRB said:

Running your not catching. 

Catching means you know bass are there and cathing them.

My typical milk run is about 10-20 spots any given day or night and stop to saturate those areas. My searching is usually by sonar to establish location and depth. Tournaments I was lucky to find a hand full of of areas to fish, everyone knows the pattern.

Never caught a bass running.

Tom

 

See to me we are talking about 2 different things.

I gave very specific examples of pattern fishing. (docks, outside weed edges, inside channel swings)

That is when you figure out the spot on the spot and you run to similar places on the lake fishing those distinct spots.

The fish are around the deep docks, you determine this by prefishing aka practice days.

During this time you cover water marking areas that you caught fish.

Then you go back to these areas and fish them thoroughly to try and figure more things out.

If you can figure out that the fish are around the docks and you can duplicate this on multiple areas of the lake.

Now you have found a pattern. that is going to be the most efficient in regards to cast to catch ratio.

So now there is no need to waste casts "saturating" an area, because based on prefishing you determined a specific pattern. If I have found that fish are holding under deeper water docks, why waste time casting to every target in the area especially the shallow ones? Also many times there are more than one pattern happening.

Early in the year will find most guys fishing spawning bass while others are fishing for the prespawners in deeper water areas near the spawning flats. Right now at my lake there are multiple patterns, ledges that drop off into deeper water, deep brush piles and the shallow water shade pattern

 

If I have to "saturate" an area, I'm not fishing a pattern- I'm fishing an area.

If I am "saturating" an area I am also making many casts without catching fish.

Most tourney guys are looking for active fish, not ones that are going to eat up their tourney time trying to make them bite

 

When MLF rolled out their tourneys (BPT), you saw a lot more guys fishing an area for every fish

Because they all counted.

Once they changed to a minimum weight limit guys were "running and gunning" to their best spots and not "saturating" an area with casts to catch every one pound fish

 

This has been the tourney conundrum for years, do I stay or do I go?

Sometimes it will have to do with the individual person; a jig fisherman like Hackney is more prone to saturate an area because of how he chooses to fish. Someone else like KVD is going to be more likely to "run and gun" based on his style. So waste time by saturating an area with casts or waste time by running spot to spot?

 

As far as the example @Jaderose gave, he saw a guy doing neither . That guy was just covering water.

He wasnt thoroughly fishing an area and he wasn't running any type of pattern

 

[WRB]

The example of the guy moving fast could have easily been running a pattern looking for specific targets. What you are saying is common knowledge.

Where I fish the lakes are small and availability to make a milk run pattern fishing isn't possible on weekends when both recreational club or money tournaments are being held. Bass anglers today, like you, are more knowledgeable, know how to eliminate water and have good sonar skills.

You use the term active fish, read my Closmic Clock and Calendar 1974 era before activity behavior was unknown.

Saturate isn't fishing unproductively, to me that would blind fishing without knowing what is there. Saturate to me means catching all the bass availble. Since I trophy fish leaving catchable big bass makes no sense to run from them hoping to catch bass at a similar area unless the bite has stopped.

It's very common to watch a tournament run and gun angler rush up, drop the TM and make a dozen casts catch a small bass, pick up and run agian. I just wait for them to leave and continue to catch larger bass on that spot, usually deeper, more precise and slowerthen they fish.

Tom

[Jig Man]

On 8/8/2020 at 5:26 PM, WRB said:

Running and gunning you are not catching you are searching.

Tom

I think we have a definition problem here.  The lakes that I fish have 100s to over 1000 miles of shore line.  If I find fish on a particular type of cover or structure and nothing adjacent to that, I begin my run and gun hitting places similar.  If similar places produce then the run is on.  I have run up to 40 miles one way just to hit a similar spot.

[A-Jay]

7 minutes ago, Jig Man said:

I think we have a definition problem here.  The lakes that I fish have 100s to over 1000 miles of shore line.  If I find fish on a particular type of cover or structure and nothing adjacent to that, I begin my run and gun hitting places similar.  If similar places produce then the run is on.  I have run up to 40 miles one way just to hit a similar spot.

I can get with this except even though I might be 'running', when I get there there's usually very little gunning.

More like the bass angling equivalent to a treasure hunt.

A-Jay 

[Captain Phil]

I no longer fish tournaments.  When I did, I knew exactly where and how I was going to fish. if you are going to win tournaments not just participate,  this is what you must do.  The question is "How do you know where and how to fish?"  The answer is to prefish until you know.  Years ago, I used to fish where I saw other anglers fishing.  I fished the same community holes time after time.  A friend said I should find my own fish.  I decided that I was going to fish the entire lake.  I started at a point in Lake Harris and fished in one direction.  The next day, I started where I quit the previous day and continued.  It took me nearly all summer to fish the entire lake.  Along the way I found fish that no one else knew about.  If you fish the same spots all the time, you will never find anything new.  You will continue to catch the same beat up fish everyone else is catching.

[RoLo]

 

I didn’t elaborate in my post above, because there isn’t enough time nor space

 

Realistically, it doesn’t matter whether you approach your fishing spots at 3 mph with oars,

or at 70 mph with a Yamaha 150. You might spend 2 hours at one spot, but only 10 casts at the next spot,

that's a flexible variable based on current conditions and current events.

In my opinion, the most important variable is HOW you select your fishing sites (i.e. paper route).

 

Roger

[flatcreek]

Run and gun is very productive on blueback herring lakes.pull up on a point, catch a fish or two ,pull the trolling motor up and head down the river looking for sign.the herring are on the run and they are constantly running for different locations.we call em peekaboo lakes. Now you see em now you don’t.

[NHBull]

The slower I fish, the better results I have.  At one point I swear the fish could pick up on my energy   If I am running it is only to scan spots I may want to come back to or conditions dictate ?

[lo n slo]

low and slow ?