Is matching the forage/hatch species important?

[Big-Dan]

Hey, After buying a Spro BBZ-1 shad lure and having no success with it, I started doing some research on what exactly a threadfin shad was. Turns out it is only found in the southern US states from west to east, according to a few sites i looked at. So i was like well maybe this is the reason i was not catching anything with this swimbait up here in Quebec Canada. So the big question is does matching the type of forage/hatch increase your chances of success?

The rivers i fish have most all freshwater fish, and the smallest fish that i think would be good for smallies up here are Perch, crappie/sunfish, baby bass and pike.

Oh and i was not sure were to post this so please move it to the appropriate section if wrong.

[mrlitetackle]

two thoughts on this ive heard......

match the hatch or,

throw them something they haven't seen.....

for me, matching the natural forage of a fish is a good idea......

but with that being said, i have caught the majority of my bass over my life time with lures that i know look like nothing they normally eat!!!! (like a bass normally preys on a buzzbait with a chart. skirt, please  ;D ;D)

keep up with it, and once you catch a few fish on it, you'll have your confidence in it.

[Paul Roberts]

First thing to do on this board is search your topic. Use the green Search tab above. Most topics have been hit pretty well. For this topic try "Match the Hatch" for starters.

[Big-Dan]

Oops lol i always forget about that search function and now that i think about it i am positive this topic has been brought up, sorry about that. thanks for the advice Paul and Mrlite

[Mottfia]

Like Paul said, this topic has been beaten in and out. Looking for match the hatch or color topics will give you some good information. Many of us our divided on it which normally means that its your confidence in it.

Mottfia

[Mattlures]

my thought are this. 95% of the time when an angler thinks he is matching the forage hi is not. A bluegill colored spinnerbait looks nothing like a real bluegill. A babay bass colored crankbait looks nothing like a baby bass. A spinnerbait IS NOT a shad and doesnt look like them. and the biggest one. A jig is a jig, IT IS NOT A CRAWFISH. You see anglers think they are matching a baitfish because its a similar color. or a similar shape or a similar size etc but rarley does their offering match size,shape,color, and action. If it does all of them then you are "matching the hatch" or matching the prey. The only baits that realy do this are REAL westcoast swimbaits or live bait. If your forming you opinions based on a shad colored spinnerbait then you dont know if its important to match the hatch or not. If you realy are matching the hatch you will get better results then any other technique. If bass in FL are feeding on big shinners and you throw a big shinner for bait you will get bit. If there eating baby crawfish and you drag a Huddlebug buy them you should get bit etc.

My point is very few guys do match the hatch but they think its not that important because they caught a fish on a chartruse buzzbait. They will never know what its like.

[mrlitetackle]

Posted by: Mattlures      Posted on: Today at 11:17pm

my thought are this. 95% of the time when an angler thinks he is matching the forage hi is not. A bluegill colored spinnerbait looks nothing like a real bluegill. A babay bass colored crankbait looks nothing like a baby bass. A spinnerbait IS NOT a shad and doesnt look like them. and the biggest one. A jig is a jig, IT IS NOT A CRAWFISH. You see anglers think they are matching a baitfish because its a similar color. or a similar shape or a similar size etc but rarley does their offering match size,shape,color, and action. If it does all of them then you are "matching the hatch" or matching the prey. The only baits that realy do this are REAL westcoast swimbaits or live bait. If your forming you opinions based on a shad colored spinnerbait then you dont know if its important to match the hatch or not. If you realy are matching the hatch you will get better results then any other technique. If bass in FL are feeding on big shinners and you throw a big shinner for bait you will get bit. If there eating baby crawfish and you drag a Huddlebug buy them you should get bit etc.

My point is very few guys do match the hatch but they think its not that important because they caught a fish on a chartruse buzzbait. They will never know what its like.

Mattlures....... im not trying to cause a dispute.... as i said, i do indeed feel that matching the hatch is a good idea!!! All i am simply stating in my original post is that baits that do not resemble the original hatch will work as well, just likely not as good.... i haven't had the means to obtain high quality lures in my life until recently, thats is why the majority of my bass were taken on other baits...... with that being said, my TW purchase is supposed to be here Fri. with 2 of your hardgills (one male BG, and one red ear sunfish)....  there is no doubt in my mind that a chart. buzzbait doesn't look like anything the fish eat, and the point is.... i know that.

and there is no doubt that your hardgills do indeed look like something that the bass normally eat....... thats why im so stoked to be able to fish them......

no hard feelings, i love your products... but i do believe you mistook the original meaning of my post.

[mrlitetackle]

http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1244243266

Mattlures..........the praise that i have recently given to your lures...........

one more link below as well that i found at a later time, so i had to modify this one.

[Mottfia]

well here we go   Mattlures I do have to agree with you that alot of people really aren;t hatching the hatch or prey but I have to disagree with you on saying that only those lures mentioned match the prey.

You are right in the sense that most lures don't look exacly like a baitfish or crawfish but if you work your lure or create a lure that "looks" as though it is that baitfish or crawfish to a bass under the circumstances then wouldn't that be "matching the prey"

P.S. I agree with what Catt said a while back about if we really matched the hatch our lures would be 1/8 in lol,  yea its being nit picky  

Mottfia

[mrlitetackle]

and mattlures..... just one more since i found it on my love of the authenticity of your lures......

this was when i was deciding on what pattern of hardgill to choose..... ends up i got both.

http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1243992870

[Mattlures]

mrlitetackle lol I wouldnt be upset if you disagreed with me haha. I get in a lot of debates and unless its a personal attack It doesnt bother me at all. Besides just because I think I am right doesnt mean I am actualy right.

My point is, it is verry rare that an angler is truley matching the forage or even coming reasonably close.

What I am saying is that if you give a bass what it is feeding on, when its feeding on them you can have epic rsults. This is the basis of my argument. Now I am actualy not disagreeing with you at all. Of course a chartruse buzzbait will work and at times they work realy well. All of the various types of lures work and work extremly well at times. It does bother me when I hear guys say that matching the hatch is not important because they caught a bass on some X lure. this realy says nothing about matching the hatch all it says is that X lure worked. That surely doesnt meant that a different lure wouldnt have also worked or worked better.

Ahh Mottfia you are absolutley correct sir.

There are many lures that can create the illusion of realism. The worse the visability the easier this is. in most cases it requires a fast presentation. A fluke is a good example. You get bass busting on shad and if you work the lure properly you as an angler can create the illusion of a real shad.

There are plenty of baits out there that can accomplish this when the angler does most of the work. I have watched lures underwater and the angler is the key. For instance throw a jig out and work it slow. Crawl it, hop it, but work it slow. If you watch it underwater with good visability you would never be tricked into thinking it was a real crawfish. Now speed it up and give it some iratic jerks and it looks like a fleeing dad. It would most likely fool you. Now bass eat jigs and we as humans do not know if they think they are eating a crafish or if it just looks like food of some sort. I do know from playing with pet bass in an aquarium that they can tell the difference in a jig and a dad.

So I guess I was wrong in my original post. See I can admit it. while I still do belive that REAL swimbaits and live bait are the best at matching the forage you can certainly match the forage with other baits that dont look like the real thing. This requires more skill and is easir to do in low visability situations and while moving the baits faster.

basicaly what I am saying is a 2in crankbait with a bluegill(or any other species) pattern painted on it doesnt match the 4in gills that the bass are eating that day. It doesnt swim like real gills and its overall shap doesnt match , heck it doesnt even have fins. Will it get bit in that situation? it very well could. I am not arguing that. My argument is that in most cases the angler is eith not matching the prey at all or only to a small degree.

[Catt]

Big-Dan, first off just because there are no Threadfin Shad in Canada does not mean the bass will not hit a lure resembling a Threadfin Shad; I doubt very seriously your bass have a list of what they are and are not suppose to eat.

Our hope is that our lures give off very few negative cues and matching the forage is the first step in that direction.

There are times bass simply don't care and will hit lures that do not resemble anything found in nature; so do we fish for those extremes instances or do we fish for what's normal.

[bigtimfish]

The way I look at it is, it can't hurt to try to match. But it also does'nt hurt to give them something they have never seen before. Me personally I go for the different approach more than the matching.

[Paul Roberts]

Mattlures wrote:

my thought are this. 95% of the time when an angler thinks he is matching the forage hi is not.

Well, I'm going to agree with Matt here, whether he does or not LOL.

IMO it's really difficult to imitate living creatures. It takes certain water conditions and circumstances to even get close. When you catch a bass, esp an educated one (fished for), it simply made a mistake. Most bass that see your lure, don't make a mistake.

As to super-realistic lures in proper context, such as Matt's 'Gills in a spawning bed, I think you have a better shot at mimicry.

I've been a long time fly-fisher and fly designer. What we think looks like food may not to a fish. The important attributes are size, color scheme, motion (often very subtle), water conditions (appropriate visibility), and then proper context. I've fished LIVE nymphs to trout and screwed up the presentation (getting subtle drag) and suddenly that nymph is "NOT FOOD" to the trout. To a fly designer, that's scary news! Presentation is number one. After you get this in good control, specific fly designs CAN make a difference.

Matt also once wrote in a similar thread about NOT trying to get specific with details -that a somewhat amorphous bait can be best. I've thought this too. Often, esp under bright conditions, this is a good way to go as its tough to get the subtle details of color shape and shading down. An amorphous bait potentially makes mimicry that much easier, esp with something large like a bass lure fished in still water.

Bottom line: If you have a hungry bass that is hunting for food and you can offer something that looks like food, esp food she knows to look for, GREAT! But it's not easy to do.

[bass wrangler569]

I usually don't recognize what my cafeteria serves me as something I've eaten before, but it looks close enough to food so I eat it anyway. It's the same with bass, if it looks like something that they can eat they'll eat it.

[J Francho]

Just because you don't have threadfin shad doesn't mean that you don't have similar forage.  Take a look at pictures of alewife, gizzard, and American shad.  Surely you have one or all of those in your waters.

As far as "matching the forage" goes, I'll do some research to find the primary and secondary forage in the lake, but I'm not married to a crayfish imitator on a cray fish lake, or just blue baits on alewife water.  Its just a start, and from there, depending on the forage base, you can determine predator location by adding that info to what you know about current, structure, and cover.

In summary, its just another piece of the puzzle, not the big picture.

[roadwarrior]

Perhaps this observation is too simple to be useful, but I find

the most important question is whether the fish are "looking up"

and chasing baitfish or "looking down" and picking things off the

bottom.

My main pond has recently experienced a major algae bloom,

specifically spirogyra (snot-grass). The water is a very cloudy

green, the bottom is covered green and everything else appears

green. Well, guess what? The bass are NOT looking for contrast,

but seem to be most vulnerable to an "anything green" presentation.

Right now the #1 bait is the GYCB Senko, Watermelon with Black

Flakes.

What does a Senko represent? Go figure.

8-)

[senile1]

In the book, Knowing Bass, the author states that we don't actually know with certainty what triggers a bass to want to bite our lures.  There are logical things we can try such as trying to match the action or the appearance of forage but these are just educated guesses.  According to this author, there could be a specific factor, completely unrelated to the type of forage, that actually triggers a bass to bite.  If that particular factor (or factors) could be determined and then implemented in exaggerated fashion in a lure it might be possible to create a lure that is more appealing than actual forage.  I don't have any opinion regarding this assertion.  I just thought it was an interesting idea to explore.

[Raul]

Is matching the forage/hatch species important?

No.

What you have to do is to make your baits look like if were alive, edible and an easy prey.

[RoLo]

Is matching the forage/hatch species important?

I don't think of bass as selectivists, but as aggressive opportunists with a short memory.

Roger

[tyrius.]

So the big question is does matching the type of forage/hatch increase your chances of success?

In my opinion, matching the forage will increase your chance of success, but the forage for a given location, time, weather pattern, etc may be different and determining the specific forage is difficult. As an example, one day the bass could be feeding on small gills on a certain piece of cover/structure. A month later those gills have grown and now the bass are keying on larger gills. What if they're looking for crawdads, are they looking for big ones, small ones, ones missing a claw, etc? Are the crawdads molting? What color are they currently? What types of shad are in your waters, what is the size of shad in the school that the bass are currently chasing? The questions keep going and going.

Most of the time it's very difficult to determine exactly what the bass are feeding on at a given location and a specific time. Also, as Matt said the typical lure does not mimic actual forage. A crankbait isn't going to mimic a swimming fish or a crawdad, neither will a swim jig or a spinnerbait. I don't see many green pumpkin 10" worms swimming around the bottom of a pond either. Nothing in nature "matches" a senko, but that lure is almost fool proof.

Bass are opportunistic, aggresive feeders and will strike many lures that look nothing like anything actually living on planet Earth. So, I don't spend a ton of time trying to match the forage. First I try and determine where the fish are (if you can't find the fish you aren't going to catch anything). Then once you find them try and determine what type of lure is working best, crankbait, soft plastics, jigs, jerkbaits, spinnerbaits, topwater, what size lure, etc. And what retrieve is best; fast, slow, deadsticking, sweep the crank, pause it, dig it into the ground/cover, etc. And also color. When everything is dialed in perfectly you may have an epic day.

Many anglers seem to worry more about what their throwing rather than where they are throwing it. The latter is the most important.

[RoLo]

Until an actual hatch is observed, I'll usually stick with a "wet Light Cahill" or a "dry Royal Coachman".

But every now and then we get this big hatch of creatures in our lake!

You know what I'm talking about, they're about 5" long with trailing tentacles like a squid,

and they have a couple of whirlygigs that spin around on top. They come in all different colors

but the most common on my lake is "watermelon candy with red & black spots"

Sorry about that, just couldn't resist

Roger

[WRB]

Big Dan, you are fishing in waters that have some big predator game fish like pike and musky, both will strike the BBZ1 shad and will smallies and largemouth. The lure swims like a bait fish, has the right profile of a white fish for example. A perch color would be more like the prey fish those fish are more used to eating and you could easily put a few gold/brown/green vertical stripes on the silver background with a Sharpie pen.

What do you think a Suick looks like; 10" broom stick with a flat metal tail crudely painted? I have caught several big smallies on a black suick fishing for muskies.

Don't give up on the BBZ1, learn to fish it correctly, slow retrieve with occasional speed or jerk and slack line, then continue. This lure is design to turn around when jerked and stopped, then turn back around and swim like a real fish.

WRB

[Big-Dan]

WOW man im amazed at the opinions here! i totally agree with alot of you lol my favorite go to bait is a 3" white curly tail on a jig head lol never seen that in my river ((doesnt that anwser my own question lol )). anyways i will not give up on the most expensive lure i bought, bass season is just starting here so i got all summer to learn it. now if it was available in a perch color then it would be nice. i will deffinatly use what i learned here next time on i go fish.

thanks for all the opinions and feed back from all of you. now i know why i love this community.

[wagn]

I've had more luck matching the conditions then trying to match the hatch.

What I mean by this is I'm matching my baits to the water conditions- clear, muddy, greenish water, or brown?

Also the weather condition, is it cloudy? are there waves?

All of this comes before I worry about matching the hatch.

Although I was on a lake just last week where perch were schooling at the top, and I only started catching bass once I tied on a Perch colored jerk bait and started to rip it through the school. So maybe trying to match the hatch does is right.

Man, now I've confused myself