by Bruce Middleton, April 26, 2011

Know your adversary and you can catch him…

The successful fisherman is the one who familiarizes himself with the ways of fish. He who studies out and observes the peculiar traits, habits and haunts of the fish he sets out to catch. Who acquaints himself with facts as to their sense of sight, smell and hearing, their mode of existence, foods likes, seasonal movements, etc. Thus qualifying himself to better understand them, so as to take advantage of their weaknesses, avoid their ready perceptions of things and fool their cunning.

Thus enabling him to take better seek or locate them, then to temp or deceive to that point where they will strike at an offering or attractive bait. Very few who set out fishing have any such conception or proper idea concerning these points and yet nothing is more conducive as success and he who is more prepared will enjoy the most success at the end of the day.

He should become familiar with the fishes natural foods, their methods and time of procuring it, the places they frequent, those they avoid and why they avoid them.

The complete fisherman and angler manual
By Francis H. Buzzacott
Pub 1903

These words of wisdom are the foreword in Buzzacott’s Book of Fishing. Although printed in 1903 it still is relevant today. You have to know everything there is to know about a bass in order to be the best bass fisherman you can. Without this knowledge your just another weekender out on the water flogging a lure in hopes a bass will commit suicide and bite your lure or bait. This tires the arm and wears thin your patience and soon you try another fish or a new sport.

Now although we spend a great deal of time on the top of the water we fish, underneath the surface is a whole different word. Fish are the birds of this watery world. They have the ability to fly and suspend over the bottom instead of walking on it. This makes the bass an allusive predator with the ability to hide at any level of the water column. They also can be found in just about any part of a lake or other body of water. However, an understanding of the seasonal movements of the bass can aid us in locating the likeliest places and depths that bass may be found at any given time of the year. Of course this does change from year to year as the water may be 64 degrees on May 1st one year and 70 degrees on another year of the same date. This changes the timing of the seasonal movements and you as a fisherman must be aware of these facts.

Time on the water has no substitute. The more you fish the more you are likely to learn. I say likely because you need to recognize the changing factors of the water and the bass in order to fish effectively and once noted you need to apply that knowledge to your benefit. Being observant, knowing what conditions move bass round and what lures and baits are most likely to be struck by the a bass will give you intuition as what to use and when to use them as far as lure selections goes. Without this knowledge you are unlikely to be successful at catching any bass.

One really excellent way to improve your knowledge of bass fishing is to keep a logbook of all the bass you have caught and even those ones you lost. By keeping track of the time of year, the temperature of the water and air, the color of the water and sky, the lure you used and the color, along with any other information you can think of. Things like was the bass in sun or shade, what did the bottom contour look like, how deep was he, what kind of cover was he in, what was the date, was he hooked deep or just barely hooked. Writing all this down and then referring back to it you can build up a view of what works and doesn’t work in a given situation or time. You begin you see patterns that you may have overlooked before and you add to the overall knowledge of bass fishing and your presentation. A logbook is more than just a scorecard of how many bass you’ve caught. It is a look into how bass live and how to best catch them. It is also just about the easiest thing you can do for yourself. All you need is a notepad and a pen or pencil. Believe me when I say this one item can change how you fish faster than any one other thing you can do. And it really works.

One other thing that is vital in finding and catching bass is to use you depth finder to the utmost. Finding points and other structure with steep drop offs or any rise of fall in the bottom contours of anything over a foot or more is where a lot of bass congregate. This allows you to catch numbers of bass in a short time and a short space of water. A depth finder is a tool you have to use all the time to your benefit. Following a contour depth line is another great way to use your depth finder. All this assumes you are using a map of the lake whether that map is home made or a real contour elevation map on your depth finder or on paper. With the depth finder you need to get the big picture of what the bottom looks like and not just the area immediately below the boat. This requires that you make many passes in and around the lake so you can see all the points, holes and other features. This is what a map does for you and a depth finder is the only way you will collect the information necessary to make that map as accurate as possible. On big lakes that have been mapped the whole lake is laid out for you as you go along. A GPS unit in the depth finder shows you where you are on the lake and the other side shows you the bottom. Remember that you get what you pay for so always try to buy the very best no matter if that is an expensive depth finder of a spinner bait.

One thing you need to know right from the start is that the largest and the most bass are not found under or near docks. A resent study from the University of Florida has shown that approximately 5.2% of all the bass in a given lake or other body of water are found under docks and in water less than five feet deep. 80% of bass are found in such places as weed beds and under lily pad fields. So right from the get-go you need to stop dumping the boat in the water and circling the lake 30 feet from the shore and casting to every dock that you come across. Yes, there are bass to be found here at times and yes a few of them are larger than average. But the majority of bass, approximately 80% or more, never set under a dock. They are hiding in thick brush piles, among the ropey vines of Cow and Lily pads or buried in the aquatic weeds. This is because it offers protection from above, concealment, shade and a good place to hunt in. Under docks are wide open and there just isn’t much food to be found under or near them unless there is something special about its location.

They also congregate along any point where there is a drop off into deep water. Close contour lines on a map mean a steep drop and bass use this area to stage in. This deep water is also where the bass fly over if they are scared off the point. They don’t dive down to the bottom they just suspend out in open water next to it. These drop offs can be as few as 3 feet in height difference, but the bass love these places and generally speaking the greater the slope the more bass are likely to be found there.

The question then becomes how are you going to locate and then attract a bass into striking a given lure. If you have read all my articles you are acquainted with the use of every lure and bait out on the market today. But knowing how each lure and bait works and to how best to utilize those lures and baits does not necessarily help you choose which one to use and when to use it. Everything and I do mean everything depends on the mood of the bass and where they are to be found. You can have the perfect lure with the perfect presentation but if no bass are around to see or hear it, it does you no good at all. You can have the perfect lure in the perfect place but if the bass has seen hundreds of them go by he will probably ignore it. Just as a reminder, you favorite lure(s) sometimes get used too much. Therefore you need as many different lured as you can stuff into a tackle box so you have a wide selection of lures and baits to use or change to.

The real key to bass fishing is knowing absolutely where the bass are, in what kind of mood they are in and what lure or bait will be the most effective in taking them. All this comes from experience, knowledge of the bass itself, the seasonal movements and what is on the bass’s menu. Now there are two types of knowledge, textbook knowledge and time on the water under actual conditions. Textbook knowledge is everything from reading articles like this to viewing and understanding all the lures and baits found in your favorite fishing gear catalog. Time on the water gives you intuition because you have tried different lures and baits under different sky and water conditions and have learned through trial and error, which lures work under different conditions and times of the year. You need a balance of these two approaches to fishing knowledge. Then and only then can you effectively judge which lures to use, when to use them, places to use them and how to present them in order to take bass on a regular basis.

Now I am sure that these facts are nothing new to you or as far as than goes, any other bass angler. But the fact remains that taking the guess work out of all the choices you have available to you as far as lure selection goes, is the number one priority of any bass fisherman. With this said, it now becomes your job to learn as much as you can about your opponent, the bass.

Now at a glace you can see that my own book knowledge goes back as far as 1903 and continues up to the present. I also subscribe to just about all the bass fishing magazines and do a great deal of research while making my articles as accurate as possible. Now some may say that this is an extreme but I differ and see it as just a part of my own research in order to take bass. Your own textbook learning may not be this extensive but still covers all the details needed to help you fish effectively for bass. Every bass angler has his or her own level of this type of information and each has his or her own level of time on the water and the education that this imparts to the individual angler.

Time on the water has no substitute as I often quote. And in fact this is born out in the form of facts and individual success. Since no two anglers have the same amounts of these two types of education, they all bring to the table different approaches to any given set of circumstances, to any given set of conditions, on any given lake at that time of year. This accounts for different fishermen having different amounts of success and it makes for different winners of any given bass fishing tournament.

Time on the water also includes the education you receive from different people you fish with. Whether they are mentors or learners they both add to the whole of the education you have about bass fishing. Mentors are those individuals that help explain how they fish for bass, what lures and baits they use and why they use them under different circumstances. Learners reinforce what you have learned and as you explain the whys and wherefores to a beginner you reinforce those ideas you have been taught which make up your personal fishing intuition. Questions by the beginning angler also make you search for the most correct way to explain a given question and what best fits the answer you give.

And finally is the knowledge you yourself stumble upon as you fish alone. Trial and error is a great teacher of bassing skills. It widens you experiences and adds to the intuition you use from that point on. It may something quite simple like the color change of a given lure or it may be one of those “eureka” moments when you accidentally or intentionally try something completely different from your normal choices and suddenly have a huge successful day of fishing that you wouldn’t have otherwise had if you hadn’t tried that new technique or lure. As a note it is important to remember that you chose the lure and made the presentation and not the lure. So don’t think this is a magic lure identity, all lures catch bass at one time or another, no one is better than another. Never give a lure credit for what you did, take credit for finding and using the lure and you will do a lot better than spreading a false story about a magic lure.

Now up to now this all may seem like pretty dry reading with no advice or secrets being handed to you. Yet it is the basis for all the fishing you do now and in the future. You have to have a balance of learning and experiences in order to give you the ability to judge what will or will not work under a given set of circumstances on any lake or river you choose to fish. Without one or the other you are just flogging the water with a lure on a futile endeavor. And most importantly you need to remember all the basics all the time. This is because bass fishing changes hour-to-hour and day-to-day. You have to be flexible in your approach and the lures you need or think will work best.

So what are the seasonal movements of the bass? Well, starting from winter the bass are out in deep water suspended off the bottom during the coldest part of the year. The water temperature is usually 40 degrees or lower at this time. As spring rolls around the water slowly begins to warm and the bass migrate to shallower water. The reason they migrate there is because that is where their food source is. As new spring growth starts up, the baitfish move to this greenery where there is food and more oxygen. The water temperature will rise up to around 50 to 55 degrees at this time. As the warming continues and the water temperature rises to between 55 and 60 degrees the bass move still shallower and start to make beds for the spawn. After the spawn the bass will backtrack their movements and move from water that is anywhere from 1 to 8 feet of water back out to the 12 to 25 foot depths. Here they recover from the spawn and begin to locate their summer homes.

Most bass are territorial and return to the same place every year to live out the summer and fall. Most are found in weedy cover, brush piles and other cover that offers them shade, ambush points and a variety of foods to feed on.

In fall the water begins to cool down and the greenery has started to die. The bass move out and suspend in open water at the level they will hunt in when daylight and what green plants are left can produce enough oxygen for them to move back into the flats and shallows to support their hunting activities, and then returning to suspend as night falls. The water temperature now is 55 and falling fast. Once below 40 the bass will again move to deep water and suspend along with the baitfish for the rest of the winter.

This is a basic look at the seasonal movements of the bass. From these simple facts you can see where the bass are likely to be at any given time of year or more importantly, at any given water temperature. This is the number one set of facts that need to be understood to their fullest for without this knowledge you will never be able to locate the bass in the first place. Knowing where the bass are at in the water column is the most important thing to understand about bass fishing. This holds true throughout the year. For where ever a bass is caught, you need to continue to fish that depth in order to catch more bass. Now the depth may vary by a foot or two but not much more.

Next comes what is on the bass’s menu as far as the lake or body of water you are fishing on. Now no two lakes have the same mixture of baitfish, crawfish, minnows, frogs and other items that the bass eats. So choosing the one lure or bait that represents the majority of the foodstuff the bass eats from day to day is the best lure or bait to use. However, different foods are located at different levels of the water column at different times of the year and the day. Frogs, worms and the like are often found on the surface of the water in the early morning. Baitfish are found at different water depths at dawn and dusk and crawfish are found on the bottom all day long although they mostly come out at night. So right from the start you have to decide at what depth you are going to fish and with what lure or bait.

Now you can see already the very best times to fish are at dawn and dusk. That is when most bass are actively hunting and when the most food is available at different depths. After this narrow amount of time has passed then you must decide again at what level of the water column and how deep to fish would make the most sense to fish at.
Sky and water conditions will help decide which lures and baits to use after the water is in full daylight. Whether that is a cloudy day or sunny makes all the difference in the world as far as lure selection goes. The clarity of the water also is a major factor besides just its temperature.

So now you have determined what time of year it is, what the water temperature is and the depth and likely places that the bass are to be found. You know what is on the menu and you have considered the sky and water conditions. Once these are in place you can then ask yourself what would be the logical bait or lure to use and where to use it.

Since all factors have variables, most bass anglers start out by using what are called search lures or what some people call junk fishing. This class of lure covers a large amount of water in a short time. Most are flashy and have a lot of action, reflectivity and make a lot of noise, generally. That is because if you can find active feeders and can draw strikes from them, you are told the depth the bass are in and what type of cover they are holding to. This sets the stage for where you will fish the rest of the day and helps reduce the lure selection down to just a few choices. These choices are determined by the color of the search lure, the habitat the bass are found in and the clarity of the water as well as the sky conditions.

As stated earlier, far too many bass anglers dump their boats into the water and circle a given lake some set distance from the shoreline and fish the lake until they have made a complete circle and then go home. But if you have done things right you will be concentrating your time and efforts in a few given areas, like weed beds, points and lily pads and fish them with a variety of lures until all avenues of lure selection are exhausted. By this I mean you will start out with search lures and then switch to slower moving baits and dissected those productive areas of the lake that hold the best promise of having the quality and quantities of bass in them that will reap you the most strikes and caught bass. Just circling the lake at a given distance is unlikely to teach you where the best bass fishing is. Rather it is better to follow a given depth line using a depth finder so as to actively cast your lures and baits into certain depths of water indicated by strikes you have received and by the use of your map which shows you the bottom contours. This is the only way to have repeatability in catching bass.

Lastly what is of great importance to a bass fisherman is a map of the lakes he fishes. This can take the form of elevation style maps found on the Internet or ones that are homemade or even on you depth finder itself. A map can help you pinpoint various structures and other elements of a lake’s contours and vegetation patterns to help you better understand where the bass may likely be found at any time of the year. This can even include where certain bass are to found every year since they are territorial and often are found in the same place year after year. Maps can show you the high and low spots of a lake and places where specific habitats are located. Such maps are invaluable to fishermen.

Finally are all the other stories that I have written on the subject of bass fishing. They cover the gambit from individual lures and how they work to how to fish different types of cover and structure. Reading these will help give you all the other information you need to be a successful bass angler. There are over 50 stories here at this site for you reading pleasure not including the other featured writers and the contributions they have made to help you catch more fish. These articles will finish off and polish your understanding of how to go about bass fishing and the tools we use to catch them. With all these read and understood all that remains is time on the water putting that information to use. This is a vast repository of information and you need it. But more importantly is your ability to judge what information is relevant to the circumstances you are in when fishing. The sky water and cyclic nature of bass together with lure and bait knowledge will allow you to make the best possible choices for those conditions you are in at that time. Learn to read those conditions and know what lures and baits to use and you will find you have the intuition to make the correct choices more and more often. This means more excitement in the form of catching bass on a regular basis, which translates to a more enjoyable pastime or hobby. Enjoy!


Bruce Middleton
bpmiddleton@peoplepc.com