None of my lures attract fish, Bass in particular, what am I doing wrong?

[SpokaneDude]

Hi... each morning this week, I have gone to my local lake (Long Lake), tossed my fish finder (Venterior Wireless) and watch the fish on the bottom cross the  sonar so, I know there are fish there;
The problem is, I toss one of almost everything I have: (tubes, weedless football jigs, chatterbaits, buzzbaits, Wacky rigs, small GitZit baits, etc). I'm ignored!  and when I cast my spinning rod, the bait goes off to the right side (no wind).
I'm sure there are several things I'm doing wrong.... can someone enlighten me?  A book or link to an excellent article would probably help, I just can't find what I need.  Thanks in advance!
SpokaneDude

I forgot to mention, I'm fishing from a fairly high bank...and the fry are chasing my lures when I retrieve them for re-casting.

 

[roadwarrior]

 

[MediumMouthBass]

This forum has tons of very good information but the Bass Resource youtube channel has alot of good videos too.

But are you sure the fish finder is actually showing fish? Idk what that fish finder you have is but i went on a 6 hour + trip a month or 2 ago and we thought we had hundreds of fish under us the whole day, but only caught a few.

Learned a few weeks later that arches dont always mean fish, could be air bubbles among other things in the water, picked up a new garmin after that with the 2d on one side and the clearvu on the other and this shows how inaccurate arches we think are fish, well arent fish.

[desmobob]

Some lakes have large populations of fish like Blueback Herring (Blueback Shad), which are schooling fish and plankton eaters.  They grow to 16" long, so a large school of them will look tempting on the sonar, but they're not interested in anything in your tackle box or bait bucket and you can waste a lot of time fishing for all those fish the sonar shows to be under the boat.  

 

[Since they aren't typically caught by fishermen, lots of folks don't know they exist.  Lake Champlain had a massive die-off of these fish a few years ago (it seems to happen about once a decade or so), and the locals called the news media because nobody seemed to know what they were or where they came from!  ?]

[Darth-Baiter]

took me a bit to realize all fish look the same on a fish finder for the most part.

 

 

[fin]

2 hours ago, SpokaneDude said:

when I cast my spinning rod, the bait goes off to the right side (no wind).

 

The only thing I can imagine is you're casting side-arm and your timing is off. Maybe your rod is heavy and your lures are too light? Or vice versa.  If you're casting overhand, then I have no idea.

 

2 hours ago, SpokaneDude said:

I forgot to mention, I'm fishing from a fairly high bank...

 

If you catch a fish from up there you're liable to break your rod trying to land the fish. Or kill the fish dragging it up the bank.

 

I second the recommendation of watching a lot of videos.

[Koz]

Fishing from the bank I would ignore your fish finder to find fish. But use it to see the depth and find ledges or dropoffs and maybe some structure.

 

Fishing for bass from the bank I would look for the following:

 

1. Cover

2. Structure

3. Drop offs and creek channels

4. Bait balls and schooling bait fish

[WRB]

Not familiar with your portable fish finder with cast-able transducer. It maybe you are looking a factory demo display showing fish icons that don’t exist. Any unit that displays icons for target in lieu actual returns is fraught with errors.

Anything in the water like air bubbles, debris, any type of fish with a airbladder shows up as a fish icon.

Try using live large Canadian night crawler worm weightless nose hooked with a size 1 drop shot style hook. If a bass is nearby it will eat the worm. Second choice is a 5” Senko #301 wacky rigged weightless, like the night crawler bass eat Senko’s. Just cast out by your transducer and watch line for movement that indicates a bass has your lure.

Tom

[SpokaneDude]

Tom Young:  That's another question I have:  
I have rigged about a dozen "sticks" with the hook in the center using Finesse Wacky Saddles... my question is:  do I cast it as far as I can and then let it lie flat on the bottom where it landed, or is there something I need to do to keep it off the bottom?  or?
In all my readings online, there is no mention about that... 

 

Thanks for the response,  SpokaneDude

[WRB]

Strikes happen 90% of the time on the initial sink wacky rigged. I would lift up the Senko and let it sink again, only once then retrieve it and make another cast.

Tom

[Bazoo]

Persistence is key. If the place you're fishing is heavily pressured, it's likely you won't have much luck with all the normal stuff too.

 

I've found that the worst thing you can do is give up. If you're out on the water, have your line in... its the only way you'll catch fish.

 

When I go fishing with my wife... she'll not catch anything for a while and then she'll stop fishing. I keep fishing as long as I'm there, and I often catch something after she's given up.

 

The other day we was fishing a high pressure spot, and she was saying she wanted to leave and go to another spot down bank... I continued working my Lizard... then I caught a 1.5 pound bass.

 

A while back we fished a couple hours, and she was ready to change spots... I said we couldn't, that the way it works is you fish a couple hours with one bait, then change baits and only after you've tried every bait you have, are you clear to say "the fish ain't biting" and move spots. The look on her face was priceless.

[Captain Phil]

Hard to diagnose from a distance.  However, here are a few tips that may help.  First, what line are you using?  It may be too heavy.  Are you using a snap or a leader?  If so, tie the line directly to your lure.  If the lake you are fishing is highly pressured, you may need to drop down to finesse tactics.  The smaller the bait, the harder it is for bass to reject.  Make your lure look as natural as possible.   Try 6-8 pound mono and a 4" Zoom finesse worm.  Tiny cranks, jigs and spinnerbaits may work also.   One of the deadliest small bass baits is a 3"-4" Rapala minnow.   This will build confidence which is the key to catching more fish.