Letting the fish tell ya what they want...

[Deacon]

My take on it is this... I head to the lake with certain expectations. I know where they should be according to conditions and/ or where they have been many times before. I know / or think I know what they should be chewing. I know/ think I know the best presentation to get em. A lot of times I'm close but not quite there. When you think you should go home and sell ur gear you decide to cast out that jig and reach for a sandwich. After a few chomps you pick up the rod and unhook ur line that the wind has blown into the trolling motor and THUMP... fish on. Clue number one. This is when often times you ignore or fail to realize that you were given a clue. They are telling you what they want. On a different day it may the 50th time you get hung up and now you are p-oed. You throw a fit like your 2 year old and shake the crap outta your rod to free it... THUMP... another clue. Will we listen... hopefully. Sometimes it can be as subtle as a gear malfunction or a terrible backlash on your 15 lb test. you are forced to retire that setup and use a different rod (this one with 10). You tie on the same bait, cast, and THUMP. Was it as simple as line size... maybe, or was it the fact that while you were tying on the wind blew you out over deeper water or in tighter to the bank. Maybe it was just the action of that rod and this kept the bait from lifting up off the bottom as fast. They are talkn. Are we listening?

When I hear someone telling me “let the fish tell you what they want” is just telling me that person does not know! Some place an angler asked a top name Pro a question and the Pro did not know the answer and came up with this saying! Not trying to be cynical but I when years trying to figure out what these fish were saying!

Let me illustrate it this way! During a tournament you have the Top 10 that are catching fish and maybe three of them are using the same pattern and if they are using the same pattern they have a different bait or color. The winner won on a darter head with a grub and second place did it by drop shot with some unknown worm and color (or they did not want to say). One is catching 30 feet of water while the other is in 10 feet. Each one of these top 10 used their own pattern, on their own location, and landed their fish at different times along with different depths. What were all these fish telling the top 10 – nothing.

Bass are opportunist and creatures of habit that are predators and their behavior is governed by its instincts to survive. Security, food, and procreation are the drivers of a Basses life. Of those three food is the most important and “its behavior is affected by its relationship with its prey and has the most direct bearing on its hour to hour, day to day, and month to month activities”. “The Bass doesn’t choose one habitat or prey over another. It merely repeats behavior that has fulfilled its needs in the past while avoiding situations that have been stressful or have resulted in unsuccessful feeding attempts”.

Learn the habits of the bass and their prey and adjust your pattern to fit those habits!!!

"To understand the owl, study the mouse." Rick Clunn