DO What The Fish Are Telling You!

Did you know that it's possible to communicate with the fish you catch? It’s actually pretty simple. If you pay close enough attention they’ll actually tell you what lures to throw. Okay okay I’m just kidding, but on a serious note you can learn a lot of valuable information from catching a fish and it's important to pay close attention to how you caught each fish on a particular trip. Each fish that you catch is one piece of the puzzle when it comes to putting a pattern together to have a successful day on the water. 

There are so many days where I try to pre-determine what I’m going to catch fish on. So many times I’ve said to myself: “Man I’m gonna crush them on a spinnerbait today! It’s supposed to be windy, the water has a nice stain to it, they're gonna be biting really good!”. And then I get out there and fish a spinnerbait for 2 hours without getting a bite. Even when we think we understand bass behavior and try to predict patterns for certain water conditions we still guess wrong a lot of the time. It’s unlikely that your first lure choice of the day is going to work perfectly and you never have to pick up another rod all day. Those days are few and far between, it just doesn’t happen that way very often. To have a successful day and put some fish in the boat all you have to do is listen to what the fish are telling you, and sometimes what they’re not telling you.

So what do I mean by listening to what the fish are telling you. Say you’ve been throwing a chatterbait for an hour and a half without a single bite. You’ve fished it a few different ways and in some different areas but no luck. Take that as a message from the fish saying: “Hey were not really in the mood for a chatterbait right now.” It's time to tie on something else and figure out what they do want. Some days it's easier than others and you may not have to change your lure, but you have to change the way you were fishing it. Maybe you were fishing the chatterbait too fast and they wanted a slow and steady retrieve with some pauses mixed in. It's crucial that you pay close attention to how you're working a lure when you do get a fish to bite. If you’re mindlessly casting around and you happen to get a bite, but you can’t recall how you were retrieving the chatterbait then you didn’t really pick up on a clue from that fish catch afterall. You might luck into a few more fish, but you will struggle to put together a winning pattern this way. Next time you're out fishing, really pay attention to how you're fishing and try to key in on what's working and what's not working. Each fish you catch should tell you something and help you get closer to putting the puzzle together. It’s incredibly rewarding when you are finally able to put a pattern together after grinding for a few hours. 

The main thing that I want all of you to get from reading this is don’t be stubborn. Don’t continue to throw a lure all day trying to force feed them something that you want to catch them on. Listen to the fish and give them what they want to eat, and not what you feel like catching them on. Some days you’ll crush 'em on your favorite lure, and some days there's gonna be times when you have to pick up a lure that you don't love to throw, but it happens to be working really well that day so you gotta do what ya gotta do. If that means throwing a Texas rig instead of a chatterbait then do it! You have to be willing to build confidence in a variety of baits so you don’t find yourself constantly throwing the same few baits over and over again trip after trip. If you can find the ability to get good at throwing a bunch of different baits then you won’t mind having to throw a particular one when the right time comes along.

You don’t want to find yourself in a situation where your buddy is kicking your butt on a lure that you don’t like to throw and then you get stubborn and continue to try and fish with something that’s not working at all. Be open minded when you're fishing, don’t limit your lure selection because that's only going to limit your ability to catch fish in a variety of different situations. That means trying techniques that you don’t necessarily like and aren’t very good at yet. The only way to get better at a certain technique is to go out and practice it until you get really good at it. That could mean going out and struggling for a few hours doing something that you suck at, but it's the only way to get better and I promise you will be rewarded for doing this in the long run. Otherwise you’ll be stuck using the same few lures and continue to struggle because you only know how to catch fish with 4 techniques instead of 20.