Whats the Pattern?

[Chris]

I will post the conditions you guess the pattern that would win.

Its early spring water temp is in the 50's you are fishing a cove that has weeds rocks laydowns standing timber and a creek that comes into it. The standing timber sits in the middle of the back of the cove. Where the cove forms a fork on the left fork runs the creek channel. As you look down the cove on the left side is the deeper where the channel runs and dumps off into the main lake. On the right side or shallow side of the cove there are several small finger coves. The left side in the channel is about 12 ft deep center of the cove is 20ft deep the shallow side is about 5 to 7ft deep. You crank the channel and catch a fish pushing 5lbs. You fish the laydowns and small coves on the shallow side and catch keepers. You fish the rock on the mouth of the cove and catch keepers. You fish the standing timber and catch keepers there also. Now you want to narrow down your pattern which one would win?

A) Stick with the channel because if there is one big fish there might be more and you might have stumbled onto a wintering hole.

Fish the shallow side where the laydowns are because you know the bass should be moving up into staging areas and those shallow coves might be where they will spawn.

C) Fish the rock in the mouth of the cove because the rock will hold heat and the fish might be more active.

D) Fish the standing timber because the bass will be able to move up and down the timber as the water temp rises.

Now remember you caught fish in all four places there isn't a right or wrong answer but I will tell you where I fished and what won.

[playmaker47]

Id go with B. my confidence techniqe is pitching and that would be the target for pitching.

[roadwarrior]

Why would you stop fishing the channel to fish the other spots in the first place? I would have switched to soft plastics and fished the channel exclusively.

My answer is A.

[gamblerOH]

unless the water is way up in the 50's I would'nt think shallow would be the way to go. You may catch fish there but most likely not enough to win. I have to go with roadwarrior and go with A. The channel has everything the fish needs, good water,baitfish and some changing water levels. If you won on any other than A  I would guess E. by the way why isnt there a D ???

[KU_Bassmaster.]

To me it sounds like the males are starting to roam the shallows looking for places to bed.  The females are still in between the winter and prespwn staging periods.  Sounds like you should be able to get a pretty quick limit doing B through E (what happened to D ;D), then I would hunt for the big mommas the rest of the day in the channel (A).  And also work the parts of the channel the come closest to spawning areas very heavily.

[Chris]

oops :-X

[Curado]

I agree with roadwarrior I would have switched to soft plastics and fished the channel better to find out if it was a wintering hole.

[5bass]

Well,since I've caught keepers everywhere in this cove and in all situations,I would circle the whole cove as many times as I could before the weigh in. If theyre biting like that-WHO NEEDS A PATTERN!

Otherwise,  A with a Carolina Rig would be my first choice if the water is low 50's.....high 50's would be B with a spinnerbait.The exact temp makes a big difference I think.

[Will]

Well, if you are not fishing Florida, Texas, or California where you need 20 pounds to win I would first go shallow and try to finish off a limit before returning to the channel where the bigger fish mainly females would be. +1 KU Bassmaster.

[Tenka]

Judgeing buy what he said, he already had limits, he was asking our opinion about what he did to cull some bass and win a tourney.  

Just from my reading on here for the last 2 weeks, i would pick A...

Try to find that big girl waiting for the guys to get their games right

[Chris]

Ok here is the deal. In this case the deep channel fish never bit. That one fish was the only bass I caught out there. It was a  key fish but no friends. The standing timber I caught fish on a crankbait and a spinnerbait the fish where suspended but hard to catch. The shallow side of the cove held fish and I did catch a limit off that side but just keepers. What I did was I made the adjustment and changed gears and fished rock. Rock in early spring holds heat and around the rock the water temp will be warmer this draws bait and bass. I culled my smaller limit by tageting the rocky areas. Now this year we fished the same lake and I never caught a fish in and around that cove. I ended up switching coves and targeting beaver huts and docks. I came in fourth place and the winning pattern was flipping beaver huts with a black and blue jigs. Big fish was over 6lbs. Same time of the year and about the same water temp. So keep an open mind because what they should be doing may not be what they are doing. Thats why I said there is no real right answer. ;D