baits or locations?

[Lvitch]

When you all are out fishing , tourney or fun, when starting out the day looking for fish, do you change baits and stay at your first location, or keep the same baits and change location? Also do you start fishing deep to shallow or shallow to deep? or what is you method ?

[IowaBasser]

I fall victim to a pattern that probably isn't smart, but I think a lot of fisherman do: I head to the last spot I caught fish and tie on the last lure I caught fish with.

OK, it's not quite that simple... but a lot of times it is. Even if a couple of weeks have passed and conditions are different I'm curious to see if the last pattern I established still works. Then I might try a different bait or depth in the same general location. That said, you don't have to hit me over the head with a baseball bat to get me off a particular spot or particular pattern. If the fish aren't there I usually have a back-up plan based on weather, time of year, time of day, etc.

(...and yes, sometimes my back-up plan is as stupid as to head to spot where I caught fish the time-before-the-last-time I caught fish... I hope that makes sense even though it might not be any smarter!)

[coachpurdy]

I will usually start shallow and work deep in early moening. Mostly I prefer to fish shallow.
I don't switch baits very often unless a particular situation presents itself and I will just pick up another rod. (i.e. pitching to a over hanging tree or something). I will also switch if my partner is kicking my butt, which happens on occasion but don't tell him I said that. I would never admit that in the local public.

[cassidyta]

For me there are too many variables to give a quick answer, but I will try to keep it condensed.

Switching Baits: For the purpose of this, I will consider changing my presentation of the same bait to be changing baits. (Going wacky rigged instead of T-rigged, adjusting leader size on a DS, slow-rolling vs burning the spinner bait)

I will usually only switch baits if I have a very good reason to think that the RIGHT fish are there, they are biting, and they just don't like my bait.
(The phrase right fish really applies when I am fishing a tourney. After I have caught 5 clones and am looking to upgrade.)
Things that will make me think that the fish are there include historical data (IE, I caught them there before under these circumstances, or when prefishing for a tourney) I also am trying to trust my electronics in these situations. If I am marking fish, but not getting hit, then I will switch up baits.
Lastly, like Coach, if my partner is slaying them, I am not ashamed to ask "what are you throwing?"

Changing spots:
Disclaimer: I fish rather small lakes, so most of the time, I make one run to a spot and then spend most of the day on the TM.
I will usually change spots if I am confident in my pattern but am not getting hit at my first location. If I am confident that the fish are on a sandy bottom in 15' and don't get hit at the first one, then I will go to my 2nd sandy bottom choice.

[bamabassman]

well i am like coach i guess. except i have several rods already baited with different lures. i start out shallow and work towards the deep end too. BUT, i also have been known to use diferent baits as i do this. with several set ups, one can simply pick up another rod and fish the same spot with a different bait.i do this alot.

[everettvet]

This morning I fished for one hour and threw 7 different set ups. Different crankbaits, texas rigs and carolina rigs. Then the boat had electrical issues and I was done. I had caught 3 fish in that time. Boat is fixed and we will try it again in the morning.

[walkeraviator]

I am a bait changer. I have fished the lakes where i fish enough to know eher to find fish, it is just a matter of finding what lure they want. I typically start out trying to get agressive fish with reaction baits and topwater early in the morning, then start pulling out to deeper water and slowing down.

[carolina-rig-01]

I think that more often than not if your not catching fish it's the location not the bait. Even with the wrong bait or presentation you should get a few bites if you are in the right spot, and then you can change up your baits or presentation to see if you can find what will get you the most bites.

I take a few things into consideration when I first get to the lake to decide where to start and what with. Obviously water temp is probably the first thing to consider, but also time of year, water clarity, lake level, wind conditions, sunny vs. cloudy conditions, current weather fronts as well as weather fronts over the past week. Once I consider all of these things I make my most educated guess as to what the fish are doing and start with that and adjust from there.

Lets say it's the middle of May, the water temp is in the upper 70's and was clear for the past week or so but we got a lot of rain over the last few days which not only raised the lake level but also stained the water. In addition we have clouds and wind.

With these conditions in mind I would make an assumption that the fish are probaby for the most part done spawning and are migrating from spawning areas to their summer haunts. Since the lake is rising and is now stained from the rain I would expect to find them up shallow near cover and the wind should help position them in more predictable places. Under these conditions I would start shallow on the windy points at the mouths of spawning areas and work my way towards the backs being sure to hit every piece of cover I could find because there is a good chance that the fish will be in these locations but if not the should be between my starting spot and the spawning areas so I should eventually intersect them somewhere. I start with a lot of different baits layed out and hope that after I catch a few fish I can narrow down and fine tune my baits. If I don't catch any fish then I move on to another spot that fits what I am looking for and try again. If after a few spots I still don't catch any fish then I try and re-evaluate what they are doing and start over.

Taking all of these things into consideration should help you figure out a starting spot regardless of the time of year. That's not to say it will always put you on fish right off the bat but you should at least be fairly close.

[DaveW731]

I start out with what I think is going to be the most productive bait for the particular situation (insert 3 paragraphs here, describing how that decision is made). If I don't get bit in a reasonable period of time, I toss another pole with a slightly different bait, just to see if I am on the right spot and need to fine tune. I repeat that process at a couple other locations and if still no bites,I switch to two different baits and repeat the process, but also start to look at different situations (deeper, shallower, more/less cover, etc) than I started with and modify baits accordingly, staying with the 'two slightly different' approach.

[Scott the fishman]

i usually change locations before baits. An old man once said to me when he saw me changing bait often "stop changing baits fish will bite it is all on presentations" he told me this 2 years ago still remember it and still use it. Yes i do agree you need to change bait every now and then but i think a lot more people need to learn if you work the bait right the fish will most likely bite. and i fished and entire day on a spinner bait and i caught 10 2+ lb bass.