patterns change - pays to discover which are current

[senkosam]

My son and I fished a local lake and caught over 80 fish recently that included bass, pickerel, yellow and white perch, crappie and sunfish in many sizes. Last week I did well fishing shallow flats with emerging pads. 48 fish for the day, which included a 2.5lb bass and 14" pickerel.

A few days ago the pattern changed, meaning more fish were caught in other areas of the lake though still shallow. Patterns include location #1 and also what to cast and how to retrieve them. School fish - one after another - are fun as H!, but not the norm. Many times an area will hold 5 fish and then I move on. When it comes to location, sonar is a must!! It tells me bait fish locations, depths fish are caught in and structure types fishing are on.

As I was getting ready to leave, while going back to the launch, I noticed a large school in 5.5'. I caught one fish from it and then left the lake. All my fish were caught in 3' - 3.5' in a pre-spawn pattern.

One interesting thing happened: we were both getting little pecks on our lures and wanted to see what was biting. So, I went down to a micro lure: I cut down a 2" soft plastic grub to1 1/4" and when to a lighter 1/32 oz jig from 1/16oz. (Note: a heavier jig does not allow mid-depth slower fishing as does 1/32 oz.) Fish up to 3" were caught. I went to a micro marabou spinnerbait and the fish slammed it! I went to a small pill-shaped soft plastic - same thing!!

So, part of the pattern change was the lures used matched to areas and fish committed to the strike. Now, if I wanted to target bass and pickerel, different larger lures would have done well, but fewer fish would have been caught. I'm addicted to the strike - ANY STRIKE - and the more the merrier. A light strike could easily have come from a large fish.