8 Ways to Become a Better Bass Angler

All right, it's a new year, so New Year's resolutions, right? Or if you're watching this video any time the rest of the year, this still applies to you. If your goal is to become a better fisherman, then this video is for you. Okay, I'm going to talk about eight different ways you can become a better fisherman.

I'm going to start with one of the most difficult ones right away, and that is how to pattern the fish. You guys need to understand something. I hear this all the time, "Well, you know, the fish are different in Florida than they are in Maine." No, that's not, right. A bass is a bass is a bass. Okay. They have basic instincts. They have basic things they need to survive. And if you learn how they survive in their environment and how they react to their environment, then you can pretty much catch them anywhere in the U.S. So understand that, first of all. That's a big piece of the puzzle in patterning them.

On a basic level, let's talk about seasonal patterns, right? So summer and winter, they're going to be deeper, and fall and spring, they're going to be shallower, as a general rule, right? So you can break it up that way. Break out a map. Look in your chart and break up your lake into three different depth ranges, shallow, medium, and deep. Now, if they're in fall and in spring, they're going to be shallow, and again, summer and winter, they'll be deep. And then those middle-depth ranges are going to be those transition zones between seasons. So depending on what time of year it is, eliminate all the rest of the water by focusing only on that depth range you need to focus on.

Then, when you get on the water, you want to look for things. You want to look for key areas of structure. So look for the drop-off. Look for flats or a point or a hump or a ridge, whatever it may be for that time of year that the fish may be relating to, and then look for objects that are on those things. So, really, if you guys are really into this, I'm talking structure and then cover, objects being cover. These are things that are attached to or on the bottom or on those contour changes. I'm talking boulders, stumps, laydowns, weeds, docks, right? 

As you're fishing along and you start catching fish, pay closer attention to where they were at. It’s not that, "Oh, gee, the fish are on docks," but no, they're all on docks that are on hard bottom or on soft bottom or on steeper drops or the weeds. What type of weed are they on? Is it a weed edge? Maybe there's a hard bottom along the weed edge, and that's what they're sitting on, right? So pay attention to those type of objects, right?

And then the third piece of it is really fine-tuning it. Let's use the dock as an example. Okay, maybe you start to learn it's only floating docks. Okay, cool. You can start skipping the ones that are on pilings. But even further, is it back in a cove, in a big flat area, or is it in a drop, or is it, again, hard bottom, soft bottom? Is the weeds next to it? And even on the shady side or maybe it's only on floating docks that have wind blowing up against them, the more you can fine-tune it, then the better you're going to be able to just now, okay, are they only on floating docks where the wind is hitting it and they're on the shady side of it, and there has to be lily pads next to them. You can just target those and go down the lake, and that's the only thing you fish. And you're going to catch, say, 50 or 60 fish as opposed to 10 or 12 for the day. So you can really up your game that way by paying close attention to those details.

The next tip is to fish your strengths, particularly if you're in a tournament situation. When you're in a tournament, that is not the time to learn a new lure or technique. I promise you, you're setting yourself up for failure then. You have to get some time on the water, get some practice with a new lure or technique, and get some confidence in it before you start using it in a tournament situation. So focus on your strengths during that time. It took me a long time to learn this. I was a backseater for 12 years in my bass club. I was a professional backseater for, I think, about half of those six years or so. The first six years, I tried to emulate what the guy up front was doing, the same lure, same lure color, same presentation, same place as he was casting at, and I just never did that well. It wasn't until I started getting confidence in my own lures, and I would just forget about what they're doing up front and do my own thing, well, I started catching more fish. Because I had confidence in certain baits, particularly spinnerbaits and Texas rigs, I would fish those a lot and I caught more fish.

So focus on what it is. If you're a power fisherman, focus on that. If you're more of a finesse style, maybe drop shot. I got a friend of mine that that's all he does, particularly in tournaments. It doesn't matter what time of year, he'll pull up to a spot and break out a Senko or break out a drop shot, and then he sits there and works that area painstakingly slow. And actually, he's won a lot of tournaments doing that. He doesn't even break out a fast moving bait. On the other hand, I got to cover water. I got to figure out what they're concentrated on, and then I might slow down. But different approaches. Focus on your strength and you're going to do better.

Now, this next tip may seem a little bit weird, but it's about visualizing success. This is when you're off the water. Okay. Now, hold with me here. This is not being Zen or Kumbaya or whatever. It's not psychiatry. Think about it. Professional athletes, basketball, tennis players, football players, baseball, whatever it is, when they're not on the field or when they're practicing, they're thinking about it. They're thinking about what they need to do to improve and focus on those. What are those little things they need to do to get better at? And they visualize getting better at it. What's it going to feel like? What do they need to do? What changes do they need to make in whatever they're doing to improve themselves? And this is what I'm talking about. You're not on the water all the time, but you're thinking about fishing a lot.

Well, think a little bit deeper and a little bit more. Like, for example, your next trip, think about where you're going to go, what's the first lure you're going to throw, where you're going to throw it out, what your retrieve is going to be, what color you're going to pick. And what if things don't go that way? Like, it rarely works in our fantasy, how things, in reality, it doesn't come to fruition. So, what changes are you going to make? If they're not going to do this, then what else am I going to throw? Am I going to move somewhere? If I'm going to try a different bait or a different presentation, what are my options? And think about that all the way through. And you'll become a better angler because you're better, mentally prepared. You can make faster and easier decisions on the water than be caught off guard and like, "Oh, now what do I do?" Just think about those different outcomes, and you'll be more productive that day on the water.

The next tip kind of goes along with the previous one. That's being prepared. It's more than being mentally prepared. But first of all, off the water, make sure your equipment's in good shape. Spend some time in the off-season to make sure your reels have all been serviced and that you put new line on if you only do it once a year, but make sure you got new line on your rods and reels, check your hooks, make sure they're all sharpened, that kind of stuff. And if you got a boat, get all your maintenance done during the off-season. Make sure it's in good working order so you don't have any mechanical issues while you're on the water.

And then, on the water, be prepared for things when they go wrong, okay? Just make sure you...most boaters, they've got a good toolbox on hand, and they've got duct tape and maybe a little bit of spare fuses or they might have some oil handy, whatever it may be. If something goes wrong, they're ready to make some basic repairs on the water, at least to get them back to the ramp if nothing else. I was in a tournament once, and I was in a very thick, weedy area. And I pulled up on my trolling motor, and the head of my trolling motor exploded. Just the weight of the weeds as I pulled it up, it just, boom, just busted, right? Now, fortunately, nothing fell on the water.

So I was able to grab all the gears and kind of put them all back in place and get it to work, but the head of it was broken. The bolts, the screws had actually ripped right out, stripped right out, and it busted. So I went in, I had some duct tape on the boat, I just MacGyvered that thing back in place, and I fished the rest of the tournament, no problem. The arrow was off. It wasn't pointing in the right direction, but so what? I was able to keep fishing, and I did pretty well in that tournament. You know, I replaced the trolling motor later. Just being prepared for those type of things, really, it's actually, like, peace of mind too. You're ready in case something happens, no problem, take care of it, keep fishing.

The next one is practicing your hook set. Now, I'll be the first to tell you there's not one type of hook set that should apply for every type of fishing. You know I have a bunch of videos out on the different type of hook sets, depending on the bait you're using or the technique you're using. Go check those out. But practice those. The key thing about any hook set is two things. Actually, there's two things. One, square up. Get your shoulders and your body facing the rod. You don't want to be casting over here and be like this and then a fish bites. You can't set very good sideways like that. So turn your body, square up on it, practice doing that. Some of us have to think about that. You get a bite, bite, and you go, oh, set the hook. First of all, get your body turned to it so you don't have to do that, but even if you bite, bite, and you realize your body isn't in the right position, turn, then set the hook.

Second is your rod. Make sure your rod is in the hook set position. If you got your rod up here like this and you're fishing and then a fish hits it, you don't have really any room to set the hook. What happens is you set the hook and now your rod's back here wavering all around, and you have no control over the fish. You bring your rod down, reel up on the line, but now you got slack in the line, the fish throws the lure, and he's gone. So get that rod down lower and ready to set the hook. Get your body squared up. I have a good buddy of mine used to tell me, "Don't cast until you're ready to set the hook." And that really resonated with me, and I learned a lot, and it changed the way I fish. It's like, "Don't cast until you can set that hook."

And sometimes that means don't cast over the dock because now you got your line draped over the dock, you set the hook, now you got a fish on the other side of the dock, and you're dealing with that obstacle on the way. Or you throw over weeds or bushes, you don't have a clear path to get that fish out. Wait until you're in position so you have a good path to get a good hook set and get that fish out. Sometimes I do that. I'll pause for a second. I don't make that cast right away. I'm like, "Am I in a good position to set the hook? Well, not yet." I'll move the boat a little bit or, if I'm on the bank, change position a little bit. Then I make that cast. That really does greatly improve your chances of hooking and catching a fish.

Another tip is to don't overthink everything. Us, bass anglers, we have a tendency to really overthink things, particularly color. So, "Oh, it has to have blue fleck in it," or it has to have gold sparkle, or it has to have red fleck, or the fish won't bite, otherwise. We get super hung up on color, and a lot of times, the color doesn't matter. It's more about your presentation than anything else. A lot of times, don't get me wrong, fish, particularly smallmouth, can get keyed on a particular color, but a lot of times, we put too much emphasis on all the nuances of a color.

I had a friend of mine who was arguably the best plastic worm fisherman that I ever knew, and I fished with him a lot, and he caught a ton of fish on plastic worms. I remember, one day, we were fishing along, and I didn't know what color he was using. And I asked him, "What color are you using?" And he said, "Dark." I went, "What?" He goes, "Yeah, dark." I said, "No, really," I thought he was joking, "What color are you using?" He said, "I don't know." And he pulled it out of the water and he dangled it in my face, "What color is that?" I think it was a real dark brown color. I said, "Yeah, it's a dark brown." He goes, "Oh, okay." And I asked him about that, "What do you mean?" He goes, "There's only two colors, dark and light. That's how I segment my colors."

It's dark, your Junebugs, your Tequila Sunrises, your black, your dark browns. Those are dark. And then your light colors are more like a translucent Watermelon Seed, your clear with pepper flake in it, any kind of translucent colors like Electric Blue, what have you. But those are the lighter colors. And that's all he did. As a matter of fact, there was one time we were fishing, we caught a bunch of fish, and I was trying to emulate the colors he was using, and he caught five fish in a row. And he pulled off a dark-colored Texas worm and pulled on a light color. I said, "Well, what are you doing? We're catching a bunch of fish on this dark color. Like, why are you changing now?" And he said, "I want to see if it's the color." It might not be the color that's triggering the bite. Or maybe there's another color that's going to get more bites.

So don't get hung up on having the color or the exact bait. You look at any tournament results, and the top five, rarely are they using the exact same bait unless it's a forward-facing sonar tournament, but rarely are they using the same bait. Look at the top 10, you'll even see more discrepancies. If the fish are biting a certain way, there's a variety of different baits that will catch them, and not one of them is the absolute one or the best one to use. It just depends on their activity level as to what type of bait to use. Stick on that family of baits and you'll be fine. So don't overthink it, guys.

All right, another useful tip, and this might be one of the best ones of the whole video, but that is to actually use a fishing log. A fishing log has an entry for every catch you have, and it talks about what depth they were at, what kind of cover they were in, what was the sunlight, or was it cloudy, was it windy, what's the water temperature, what's the current conditions, what objects, what kind of cover they were in, what kind of structure they were on, so on, and so forth. There's a lot of these details in a fishing log. I started using a fishing log, a paper fishing log, back in the '80s, and I printed it off on a dot matrix computer, right? I made one for myself, and I used that a lot. And that helped me in two ways.

One, you get a collection on seasonal patterns for all the different lakes and rivers in your area. You begin to see these patterns based upon the months. As the years go by, you can collect them and organize them by months and understand what the fish are doing on any given water in your area. That really accelerates your learning path, and you start to see these trends. Second of all, it helps you think about, why did that fish bite, and why was he there? Going back to the very beginning, putting together the pattern, these are the details that make or break a really good pattern. It's paying attention to all of these things, and it's hard to remember them all unless you're keeping a log because you have to enter every fish you caught, what time of day it was, so on, even moon phases. I can go on and on.

I remember these all because I entered them all in this document. And the more you enter in the document, the more you remember, "Oh, I got to have that. I got to remember this piece and that little nuance and that detail." And you start to memorize all these things. And every time you catch a fish, your brain goes, boom, okay, he was on the north side of a dock, a little light breeze, there was some milfoil here, and there's a transition area with some lily pads, and it was about six feet of water. It's like your brain just does that without any thinking. The more you practice that and using those logs to teach you that, you become a much better angler.

Now, I took that paper log, and I turned it into a PDF file, and it's a downloadable, free downloadable document that I have on my website. I still use that today. I know there's a bunch you can get. There's apps for your phone, and you can get programs for your computer. I've used some of those, but inevitably, they stop making them. They're short-lived. I guess they just...I don't know, there's not money in them. I don't know what. But typically, they, at some point, go out of business. And now, all of your documents, your files that you saved in this program don't work anymore. The program goes out of date, and it doesn't work with your new phone or with your new computer, and you've lost all of that. So I keep old-school paper. You can't lose that. And I use my phone now, I catch a fish, and I'll talk into the phone. I'll dictate, not a voicemail, but actually, just recording, voice recording, and I'll record all that information, and then I'll go back to fishing. And then, later on, I can play it back and fill out those logs. That's a huge game-changer, guys, that will really, really help you catch a lot more fish.

And then the final tip I can give you is knowing when to move and when to stay, and that is a very difficult piece in bass fishing. We can rely too much on memory to fish an area. "Hey, this place is really hot a month ago," or, "This place was great last year." And you can stick to an area and fish it really hard and not catch any fish, believing that "I know this place is good. It's going to happen. I'm going to catch a fish," right? And you can end up not having a good day.

Conversely, sometimes the bass are there, but you just don't have the right technique, or maybe you're not fishing exactly right. I know of an area. I had a tournament. I was with a buddy of mine. We were fishing the late part of the spawn. There were still some bass up on beds. We went up into a little cove, and we were catching some fish on beds, but not very many, and they were males and they weren't very big. We knew that wasn't going to win a tournament. And while my buddy was working on a bed fish, I took a tube and I just dropped it down in the weeds below me. I was standing about 10 feet of water. He had the nose of the boat facing the shoreline. And out came these fish, I don't know where, and they followed it down. And then, dink, dink, felt a tug, boom, set the hook, caught a fish. I did that a few times when we realized, you know what, the bulk of the fish and the bigger ones, these are the females, were underneath the boat. They were in about 8 to 12 feet of water in those weeds. We pulled back out, we fished those weeds, and we ended up winning the tournament.

So it could be that you're fishing the wrong bait, or maybe they shifted position a little bit in that area, and it's a really good area, so it's worth exploring. But don't die on a hill when the fish aren't there. Sometimes they're just not there and you need to move. So if it's not happening for whatever reason, don't try to force it. If you believe that you've tried a variety of different types of structure, cover, depths, and presentations and you're not getting bit, it's time to go, Jack. Just get out of there. Conversely, don't leave fish to find fish. If you're catching them in a certain area, stay with it, buddy. I mean, if you're fishing a crankbait and the bite dies off, switch over to a 5-inch grub and keep fishing. You'll be surprised how many more fish you'll catch.

So with those tips in mind, I hope that helps. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.