by Bruce Middleton, November 23, 2005

There is nothing more discouraging than a day on the lake with nothing to show for it except for deeper frown lines. Now is the time to change tactics and work hard to get strikes the others are missing.

1) Always use a scent product on every lure or bait you use. Spray on scents are good but need to be refreshed about every 10 casts or so. A grease based scent like Megastrike™ can last up to 60 casts. I also has the added advantage of being able to be applied to every lure or bait you own, including the line on your reel. A bass’s sense of smell and taste are acute. If a bait smell good to a bass he will often pick it up to taste it. If he doesn’t like the taste he will spit it out within 3 seconds. If however he does like it, he will hold it for up to 30 seconds, which is time enough for you to set the hook. All scents are not created equal and some work better at times than others. The type is a personal choice but it is clear that any kind of scent is better than no scent at all.

2) Fish as quietly as you possibly can. While we know that 99.9% of talking is reflected by the waters surface, 99.9% of all noise made in the boat is transmitted through the hull of your boat. To quiet this noise to a minimum you must move around as little as possible. Adding rugs to the floors of a small aluminum boat is a great tool to reduce boat noise. If you or anyone you know is replacing carpet in their home, grab a large piece or two and carpet the bottom of your boat. I would advice just tacking the corners though as it makes it easier to remove the carpet to dry should the occasion arise. Always wear soft bottom shoes like tennis shoes so they too don’t make noise as you move about the boat. Don’t move objects in the boat once you get to a good fishing spot and have all your rods pre-rigged for fast changing of lures with out digging around in tackle boxes.

3) Always fish as early as possible. This is an easy to explain. If you are the first one on a lake, you can be at the best area(s) first and at the best time of day, first thing in the morning. The best time of day to fish is in the low light levels of dawn. Big bass that never feed during the day are active now, still gorging on crawfish and baitfish. This is the time for top water lures and spinner baits. Noisy buzz baits, top water chugger, poppers and spitters. Zara spooks, Spittin’ Kings and prop baits like the Tiny Torpedo. This is some of the most exciting bass fishing there is. Watching a huge Largemouth Black Bass slam into a top water lure is the stuff dreams are made of and you will right in the thick of it. The down side to this is getting up early and launching in the dark or near dark. But in order to be there first it’s a small price indeed.

4) Use live bait if you can if the bite becomes tough. Live bait has worked since the invention of the fishing line. Worms, crawfish and minnows work better than artificial lures; it’s a simple fact of life. Live worms and night crawlers wiggle on a hook when left on the bottom, which draws more strikes. Live crawfish move realistically because they are real. And minnow swim. The only real problem with live bait is you have to be careful when you case them so the don’t become unhooked by the force of the cast. Real is always better than artificial. Be sure to check regulations regarding use of live bait in your state.

5) Use your electronics to their fullest potential. Don’t just use your depth finder as a tool to know how deep the water is under the boat. Use the depth finder as a real tool. Look for sudden depth changes that mark a channel or deep hole where the bass will congregate. Use your electronics to map out a lake to find humps, rock piles, steep edges, channels and any other structure that will hold bass. If you have a GPS, mark the spots you find so you can come back to them year after year or mark your map.

6) Fish docks smarter to get bass from them. Start by casting to the front of a dock as you are approaching it using a Texas rigged worm or Jig. Then as you get closer cast to the shoreline as close to the end of the dock as you can get. As you come up next to the dock, make several casts parallel down the side of the dock to cover the full length of it. Then skip cast under the dock in several places. As you start to pass the dock, reverse the pattern and make several casts parallel down the dock to cover the length. As you leave the dock, cast back in front of the dock one last time. Then cast to the shoreline by the dock and continue until you come up on the next dock. This gives you the best coverage of a dock and ensures that you cover every angle with your lure.

7) Use your maps to your advantage. After many years of mapping as many lakes as possible and refining those maps every time you revisit a lake you will end up with a set of maps that will be invaluable to you. They will hold information that can be used in all seasons. Where the beds are, where the flats break off into deeper water, which docks seem to produce the best fishing and so on. How much would you pay for information like this on any lake you fish? Plenty, I’m sure, but that’s not the point. The point is, make your own maps and use them. It only takes a few minutes out of you fishing day and the return is priceless.

8) Down size to catch more bass. If fishing is slow, you need to down size in order to catch more bass. Big lures catch big fish, small lures catch smaller fish but they also appeal to larger fish that are in a tough bite situation. If you are using a 4" tube, switch to a 3" tube. If you are using a 6 " worm switch to a 4" worm. If you are using a 3/8’s ounce spinner bait, drop down to a ¼ ounce spinner and so on. The idea is get you bait to appeal to more bass. If you didn’t down size you may have caught two 3 pounder's that day. By down sizing you would have caught 10 bass between 1 and 2 1/2 pounds and the two 3 pounder's. Now I would rather have caught 12 bass on a day when you only caught 2, even though the 2 biggest were the same.

9) Use weightless plastics whenever possible. There are many admires of Texas and Carolina rigged plastics and they do have their place and time in the world of bass fishing. But we need to use weightless more than we do because they catch more bass than we think they do. For one thing, we all know that about 75% of all strikes happen on the fall of a plastic lure. So immediately we can see a benefit of going weightless. A weightless plastic takes longer to fall to the bottom and therefore is in the strike zone longer. This improves your odds of getting a strike on the fall. Once on the bottom both a Texas and Carolina rig are weighted and they sink into the weeds. Yes a Carolina rig has a leader that keeps the plastic out of the weeds but when it comes to moving it, you have to clear the weeds with the lead or tangle the leader in the weeds and pull the plastic down into the very thing your supposed to be floating above. A weightless plastic has no sinker and will light on any weeds strong enough to support it, which isn’t very much. If it does sink, it doesn’t go very far down as the vegetation becomes thicker as you go deeper. Texas rigs are made to be fished in open water and Carolina rigs are made to be fished in low vegetation but a weightless plastic is made to be fished in any type of vegetation from none to thick mats. They are especially good in late fall when the vegetation is dying and a scum is covering the bottom. A weightless plastic just sets on top and doesn’t get covered with that stuff.