Alternating Spots; Avoiding Overfishing

[1984isNOW]

I have one spot near me, maybe 2 (second has yet to be verified by first hand experience), where big fish live. Otherwise I have a 30-60 min drive to try spots I've heard have good fish. One is bank only and the other I can yak all the way around fishing and goofing off in about 3 hours or so (I usually make it about 4 just becuase)

 

The rest of the spots near me are either tiny with commensurate bass growth, or have been over harvested by people filling buckets with no regard for species or size (environmental police have been involved but people just show up next week anyway).

 

How can I maximize my only 1/2 spots without blowing them up? They're both definitely beat to death outside of myself I'm sure. But what can I do to avoid teaching the bass that it's me this time, not the idiot with a bobber and a 3/4 oz jighead with a beaver on it or the guy with live shiners?

 

How do I cycle through locations? Once a week? Every two weeks?

 

Should I only use wone lure in an outing so they don't become privy to my tacklebox?

 

Or do I just go where I know the big fish might be every chance I get and throw the kitchen sink?

[Pat Brown]

I think fish can definitely get conditioned to individual baits and anglers.  Specifically baits that have a mechanical and predictable sound or action / anglers that do the same thing all the time with their baits and always fish the same bait. 

 

Fish baits that are hard to learn and figure out the timing and locations seasonally that put you around fish while they're active and it's very hard to overfish them.

 

I like early in the morning and finesse presentations like a frog or fluke or swim jig when I'm feeling very serious about catching fish that are tough to catch but there.

 

For what it's worth I would avoid cycling locations a lot - learn one location inside and out and catch the biggest fish there and then move on to a different body of water.  

 

I get MUCH better results when I focus on one body of water and grind.

[JHoss]

There was a study done at UF where they took two identical ponds and fished one with only a senko and one with only a trap. Catch rates fell off quickly and significantly in the trap pond, but not the senko pond. The conclusion is that finesse baits like a senko are harder for bass to become conditioned to. 

 

I'd probably avoid fishing really aggressive baits like a trap or plopper that fish could figure out more easily. 

[Swamp Girl]

9 hours ago, 1984isNOW said:

Should I only use wone lure in an outing so they don't become privy to my tacklebox?

 

Like @AlabamaSpothunter, I believe that bass do learn lures. Many of you have told stories of how Whopper Ploppers worked until they didn't. 

 

So, I'd listen to Professor Pat, who is perhaps the most thoughtful BR angler:

 

1 hour ago, Pat Brown said:

 

Fish baits that are hard to learn and figure out the timing

 

A motion of a lure like a fluke is only limited by our creativity. And there are literally hundreds of different flukes, which can be fished weightless and on different jigs that change their motion. 

 

I also intentionally keep shifting my baits so that my local bass won't learn this lure and that. Their brains are small and being so, their memory can only hold so much info. My brain is many times bigger and can only hold so much info! As I struggle to remember the names of the lures, bass would struggle too if presented with many lures.

 

As @JHoss noted, a lure like a Senko can also be fished so many different ways and then there are the hundreds of color options. 

 

I still fish a Whopper Plopper here and there and still score with them, but I think my sustained success is due to my discipline with them, i.e. using them less and less. It also helps, Whopper-wise, that I'm fishing less fished water.

[jbmaine]

If fish are hammered by conventional baits go completely 180 and try a fly rod. Flies can do things no other bait can. 

[Swamp Girl]

1 minute ago, jbmaine said:

If fish are hammered by conventional baits go completely 180 and try a fly rod. Flies can do things no other bait can. 

 

I love this idea!

[1984isNOW]

@Pat Brown @JHoss @Swamp Girl thanks for sharing your thoughts

 

I probably should've added that about 90%of my fishing is at night, not sure if that would change or add to anything you've said, although I feel like it might pertaining to the "don't fish learnable lures" part since that is the big thing at night, those loud and buggersome baits

 

But I'll take what you said to heart @Pat Brown and try to really get familiar with what my bass are doing at night. Like I said it's a very small water in could probably circle without casting in less than an hour. It does have some funky structure and the map I found definitely isn't accurate.

 

I'd like to apply your approach to a couple other places too, one has a great reputation but it's all before the past like 10 years or so. I've confirmed that it has been viscously over harvested, but maybe the chunks still live? Do I waste my season chasing big bass ghosts?

 

There's one more that's farther away and about 8 times the size as the one near me. Again, I've heard good things, but now I'm in utterly unknown territory on a big body of water deeper than I'm used to fishing bigger than I'm used to fishing and is also beat to death by anglers and speedbaoters during the day. I've not heard of monsters, but good average fish.

 

Maybe I'll start mixing in some subtle baits at night, and maybe some extra commotion beyond my typical lures too and just really mix it up

 

 

 

 

@jbmaine I don't fly fish brother, and probably wouldn't try to learn at night in a kayak haha

 

But I respect the hustle

[WRB]

If you believe you have a secret spot on public water that holds big bass the odds are you are wrong!

Big bass makeup less than 10% of the population. True giants less than 1%. Every bass angler wants to catch those bass! My advice catch them while you can, tomorrow isn’t guaranteed .

Tom

 

[jbmaine]

6 hours ago, 1984isNOW said:

@jbmaine I don't fly fish brother, and probably wouldn't try to learn at night in a kayak haha

 

But I respect the hustle

If you only knew how many stripers I've picked up at night on a fly rod.🙂

[Swamp Girl]

7 hours ago, WRB said:

My advice catch them while you can, tomorrow isn’t guaranteed .

 

Tom sure applied this advice to his life. 

 

2 hours ago, jbmaine said:

If you only knew how many stripers I've picked up at night on a fly rod.🙂

 

That must have been thrilling! Striped bass are beasts.

[softwateronly]

8 hours ago, 1984isNOW said:

 

I probably should've added that about 90%of my fishing is at night, not sure if that would change or add to anything you've said, although I feel like it might pertaining to the "don't fish learnable lures" part since that is the big thing at night, those loud and buggersome baits

 

Maybe I'll start mixing in some subtle baits at night, and maybe some extra commotion beyond my typical lures too and just really mix it up

 

 

 

This was a revelation to me a few years back.  Because of the highly skilled anglers on br; I changed up my approach at night and caught many more and larger bass.  A swim jig/paddle tail, grass jig/beaver,  and large t-rigged worm are my biggest and best players now.  I never gave the bass enough credit to find and eat without or limited vision.

 

scott

[Swamp Girl]

21 minutes ago, softwateronly said:

 

This was a revelation to me a few years back.  Because of the highly skilled anglers on br; I changed up my approach at night and caught many more and larger bass.  A swim jig/paddle tail, grass jig/beaver,  and large t-rigged worm are my biggest and best players now.  I never gave the bass enough credit to find and eat without or limited vision.

 

scott

 

When I launch at four in the morning, it's dark and I hear bass feeding all around me. Big galoomps! It's exciting. One time in the dark in 2024, I caught a 4-pounder, 4.7-pounder, and 4.4-pounder on consecutive casts. I think I could have caught more, but it was foggy in addition to being dark and bass spin my canoe, so I lost all sense of where the school was.

[softwateronly]

7 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

When I launch at four in the morning, it's dark and I hear bass feeding all around me. Big galoomps! It's exciting. One time in the dark in 2024, I caught a 4-pounder, 4.7-pounder, and 4.4-pounder on consecutive casts. I think I could have caught more, but it was foggy in addition to being dark and bass spin my canoe, so I lost all sense of where the school was.

That sounds like a perfect morning!

 

scott

[Swamp Girl]

Just now, softwateronly said:

That sounds like a perfect morning!

 

scott

 

Heck, yeah, it was a blast!

[1984isNOW]

8 hours ago, WRB said:

secret public water

Nope, that's my point, I can only fish barrels that everybody has already been fishing all day. And I only have a few barrels to choose from.

 

8 hours ago, WRB said:

My advice catch them while you can

Meaning I should beat my own spots to death too?

 

2 hours ago, jbmaine said:

🙂

At night? What kind and color of fly?

 

38 minutes ago, softwateronly said:

swim jig/paddle tail, grass jig/beaver,  and large t-rigged worm

I'll be throwing more of these, gonna play both ends of the spectrum. Crazy noise and commotion and more subtle

 

16 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

bass spin my canoe

I hate this

I got dragged/blown to the corner of a dock fighting a 5+# and tried to fight with one arm and paddle to save myself from then being toppled by tree branches stretching out their needy little hands trying to grab my rods.

 

Janked my shoulder up for like 2 weeks

 

But I did catch her

 

 

[Tennessee Boy]

10 minutes ago, 1984isNOW said:

Nope, that's my point, I can only fish barrels that everybody has already been fishing all day. And I only have a few barrels to choose from.

Perfect analogy.   In his book Knowing Bass Dr Keith Jones shares some research he did with fish in a barrel.   If my memory is correct,  his research showed that fish still remembered lures after 3 months.  So if your goal is to give the fish time to forget you will need to wait a long time.  I agree with @WRB,  catch em while you can.  The only way to win on high pressure water is to out fish the competition.

[Swamp Girl]

34 minutes ago, 1984isNOW said:

I got dragged/blown to the corner of a dock fighting a 5+# and tried to fight with one arm and paddle to save myself from then being toppled by tree branches stretching out their needy little hands trying to grab my rods.

 

Ha! ^The story^ of my fishing life. If one's boat is light AND therefore easily bullied by bass and wind AND you can't stand to use your leg muscles too to fight a bass AND there are weeds and wood everywhere, landing a big bass is like tightrope walking across the Grand Canyon in a howling wind while wrestling a bobcat. 

 

Which is why it's SOOOOOOO fun!

[1984isNOW]

24 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

remembered lures after 3 months

So basically I should fish one bait a month, give them time to remember and then time to forget

 

8 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

landing a big bass is like tightrope walking across the Grand Canyon in a howling wind while wrestling a bobcat. 

 

25 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

Perfect analogy.

 

[jbmaine]

51 minutes ago, 1984isNOW said:

At night? What kind and color of fly?

Fresh water bass at night on a flyrod----surface-- Dalhberg Diver-- black or white-- sub surface-- any thing that has bulk-- muddler minnow, wooly bugger, etc. colors never mattered much to me at night.

Stripers in the salt-- my favorite was a Lefty's Deceiver  color White, charthouse or black. 

[jbmaine]

2 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

That must have been thrilling! Striped bass are beasts.

I was lucky enough to start fishing the salt with a fly rod some time before it became so popular and over the years caught hundreds of stripers on the fly. I'd get my salt boat up in great bay in Newington N.H. about three AM, kill the motor and drift. You could hear schoolie stripers ripping in to bait fish on the surface. If you could drift thru them you could catch them almost every cast. 2-5 LB stripers are real fun on a 7 weight fly rod. As soon as the sun came up they would go deep and stop hitting.

  My biggest striper was caught one night fishing from shore about ten PM. I was fishing the junction of Seavey's creek and little harbor in Rye NH with a 9 weight rod. It hit hard and took me some time to get it in. I didn't have a scale but I laid it against my rod and later measurements showed it to be some what north of 40".

[Swamp Girl]

48 minutes ago, jbmaine said:

I was lucky enough to start fishing the salt with a fly rod some time before it became so popular and over the years caught hundreds of stripers on the fly. I'd get my salt boat up in great bay in Newington N.H. about three AM, kill the motor and drift. You could hear schoolie stripers ripping in to bait fish on the surface. If you could drift thru them you could catch them almost every cast. 2-5 LB stripers are real fun on a 7 weight fly rod. As soon as the sun came up they would go deep and stop hitting.

  My biggest striper was caught one night fishing from shore about ten PM. I was fishing the junction of Seavey's creek and little harbor in Rye NH with a 9 weight rod. It hit hard and took me some time to get it in. I didn't have a scale but I laid it against my rod and later measurements showed it to be some what north of 40".

 

I read this twice. It was that exciting. Thanks!

[Tennessee Boy]

2 hours ago, 1984isNOW said:

So basically I should fish one bait a month, give them time to remember and then time to forget

The research did not find that the bass forgot after three months.  It found that they remembered for 3 months.  They didn't test beyond 3 months.  One would assume that it's much harder to remember lures in the wild vs being in a tank.  Bass in the wild see many different lures presented in many different ways and they have to eat to survive where the bass in the tank were given food to survive.  

 

My only point is we can't really answer your question about how long you should let a spot rest or if letting the spot rest even helps.  We do know for certain that you won't catch any fish from the spot while you're letting it rest.  

[WRB]

Right lure Right time Right location. Timing is the key to catching bass anywhere. The bass strike a variety of lures when active and ignore nearly every lure when inactive.

If you know the bass are located at your favorite spot and not striking your lures leave and return in a few hours when the bass are more active.

You sit on the spot quietly waiting for the bass to become active, that what live bait anglers do. I prefer leaving and returning to spots setting up a milk run between spots during the day.

Tom

[gim]

Beat it into a pulp while you're there, then give it a break.  As others have already stated, more subtle, less frequent presentations generally produce better results than the same old aggressive ones that fish tend to avoid quicker.

 

The amount of time when I say "break" is probably a moot point if everyone else knows about it.  So it's probably just getting pounded constantly and the amount of time for the break doesn't matter.

 

Now if it's a spot that may not necessarily be known, then don't burn it out.  And be very careful who you tell, and who can see you there.  In this day and age of instant mass communication, I'd keep a lid on it as long as I possibly could.

[txchaser]

I do think that fish treatment has some impact on how likely they are to remember. Boat flip her and keep her out of the water for a full minute, or in your livewell for a while? Much more negative signal than grabbing lips by the water, unhooking, and letting her swim away. 

 

So when you do catch one, don't give it a reason to remember the event.