Changing Baits

[Sam]

Dave,

Fishing is hunting.  

Yes, but not with a gun. With your mind and tackle.

You have to know the habits of fish under specific circumstances. That is why we have the various lure and technique variations during different seasons.

You are the hunter.  You have to find your prey.  That is Rule Number One.

You have to know your prey's habits and thinking and food preference.

You have to search for them based on a number of factors that you have to compute in your mind, use your logic and make some choices.

If you cannot find the bass shallow, then go deep.

If you cannot get a hit on a crankbait then go with a plastic.

If no plastic hits, try a jig and pig.

If no jig and pig bite, go with a Chatterbait and then a Rat-L-Trap and then a topwater and then a grub and then a tube, etc., etc. etc.

If you cannot get a hit on a specific color than change colors.

If you cannot get a hit with one presentation then change presentations.

It is your responsibility to locate the fish.  The fish will be in different places each hour of the day. Some roam around the shoreline. Some have their "milk run" and move from favorite spot to favorite spot. Some just stay put in a specific area. Others follow their migration routes and go from deep to shallow to deep to shallow to deep, etc. Others follow the baitfish like bream, bluegills and minnows.

So you have to be a hunter.  A smart hunter.  A hunter who knows the bass' habits and favorite food and what time of day they are the most active and what is the structure in your pond and is there any cover that the bass can and will enjoy during the day and what is the weather and water clarity and where is the oxygen, etc.

Each day is a new adventure.  You know that what worked last year, last month, last week or yesterday may not work today.  So it is your task to do all you can to find the fish.

Once you find them, write it down when you get home.  All the details you can so next year on the same day you can see what you did a year earlier. And add to your diary each year and you will have a volumn of wonderful data to use in the future on you favorite pond.

Now go out and do some hunting.

You know they are there and they know you are there so which one of you is going to win?  The big human with a large brain and the option to use reason, logic and memory or the bass with a brain the size of a marble and the option of instinct?

Sorry, but I'll put my money on the bass!!!  ;D

Have fun and always outfish your dad.

[.dsaavedra.]

sam that is a great post. that helps a bunch.

i understand what you're saying about when a crank doesnt work go to a plastic, etc.

but what does it take to know that a simply will not produce?

that is my problem, i can be fishing a crank and think it will work but i could go all day still thinkin it will work but it doesnt work.

when is it time to call it quits on a bait and switch to another?

i am pretty good at outfishing my dad though . sometimes i feel kinda bad about it ;D.

[Paul Roberts]

you are in a small lake, you are throwing a crank. you spend 10 min in this one cove, nothing. so you move to the next cove, nothing. you continue this until you cover the entire lake with no bites at all. well the fish have to be in there somewhere, so it is inevitable that you have "found fish" you just dont know where. how will you know what the fish want if you have no feed back from them?

Often anglers slightly under-confident in what they are specifically doing will fail to hit fish on the first good point and then it's downhill from there.

This is a time to change. Not necessarily away from the crank though. I'm willing to bet (because I've done it too and see it often) that if you don't hit fish soon you begin doubting. Which leads to a lack of concentration. Which often results in your fishing too fast. It's easy to fish a crank too fast. It's the main reason people fail with crankbaits I think. "crankbait" just calls for speed right? Wrong -much of the time. Sometime speed is great, when you have active aggressive fish willing to chase. But this is probably accounts for about 20% of the time. The rest of the time fish it like a jig, interspersed with accelerations, deflections, and rips.

I'd suggest that you could continue with that crank around the lake making sure you are fishing it accurately (banging stuff, ripping walls) and slow crawling in between. If no go then I would assume the bass are not at the depth you are fishing and switch cranks to a medium to check higher in the water column.

I'd then try a shallow crank over the cover.

You can check a lot of water with a few cranks. But you really have to be deliberate.

A tell tale sign that you are either too fast, (absent-mindedly) or putting fish down (is it sunny with clear water?), is that you don't even catch any small fish.

If still no go then change locations entirely -go to real shallow overhead cover and check things out with...what the water calls for. Or try deep. In general, in most waters, fish are shalllow ot higher in th ewater column early in teh year and deeper later.

Lastly go back to your starting point and fish something entirely different from the crank.

If still no go, you are probably out of time and must simply suck it up. There's always tomorrow.

[gravyfor3]

i like to try several baits to find the best one so i change pretty frequently

[fishfordollars]

many of you have said "find the fish and the fish will tell you what they want".

i have a problem with this.

if do not hook any bass, you have no success to build off of, so you cant find what is working.

take this example.

you are in a small lake, you are throwing a crank. you spend 10 min in this one cove, nothing. so you move to the next cove, nothing. you continue this until you cover the entire lake with no bites at all. well the fish have to be in there somewhere, so it is inevitable that you have "found fish" you just dont know where. how will you know what the fish want if you have no feed back from them?

hope my little example wasnt too confusing. ;D

Maybe the fish are telling you that they are not in the coves. If you fish each cove all you have done is reinforced the theory that  that is not where they are that day. Maybe you should have started fishing the points instead or move out on the creek or river channels. Keep moving and trying different locations to pinpoint the location. When you do get bit try to imagine all of the other locations just like that and duplicate them. It makes no sense to keep fishing each cove with a crankbait all day if you have not been bit there.