BassAddict said:
nice catching derek, could you please explaine how you go about figureing out patterns.
although what jake said has alot of truth 8) its actually a bit more than that.
btw this is how i did it, and it works for me, and it might not work againt tommorrow. :wink:
first off a bit of research on reported water temps and (alot of ) time previously spent on the lake helped me eliminate a whole ton of water right off the bat. (deep water creek channels, offshore humps, deep water suspended fish)
weather conditions also helped alot, as the wind direction and intensity gave me an indication as to where to start. (lee side of windblown points working from the deeper end to shallower, lee side of shallower humps and depressions, coves that had wind blowing into them). the reason i looked for these is that due to the lack of weedbeds atm in the nock, the bass in prespawn and staging for spawn need ambush points. as the wind is blowing, there is a bit of current generated, as well as alot of debris which accumulates and provides both forage for baitfish and cover for bass.) also, since there was a heavy rain that previous evening, i wanted to hit the coves where the creeks enter, creating a nice place for bass to sit and wait for dinner to come flowing to them, or to dine on the baitfish that would be feeding there. i figured the optimal place to fish would be coves with creeks that flow into them that also had wind blowing into them, and the points that are usually present at the entrance to these coves. in the end, that is exactly where i found the fish.
the second part of the pattern was simply a process of elimination using different types of lures (first searchbaits like spinnerbaits, crankbaits, and jerkbaits to pick off active fish and eliminate the different areas of the water column, then tubes, and tubes is as far as i got as thats what they wanted) and techniques to determine what exactly the fish were in the mood for (after we figured they werent too active, we used the tubes to slow (way slow) down our presentations and pick apart likely areas with varying retrieves and colors until we found the ones they were looking for). the likely areas were areas with bottom composition changes (ie mud to rock, small rock to boulders, depressions in banks, sudden depth changes, ledges, isolated structure and emerging weed growth, and any combination of the above where there was a transition or multiple transitions from one type to the other)
thats just my thought process for that day, and it worked out. im trying a more technical approach this year than i have in the past, and so far it really seems to be working.
edit: plus i have kept a fishing log for the past two years that ive fished the nock, and referred to that as well to help determine where the fish were or werent.
