[Mick Ward]

Tunny and Myfish have touched on this subject in the Ima thread, and I think this what they mean. You turn up at your rock mark, you either know it or dont know it....which lure goes on first? A softy? A deep runner? A surface or shallow? And why do you do it in that order?

Me personally, in an ideal world I start with a shallow lure and change it deeper as the stay at one mark continues. Why, I would rather entice a fish up to my lure than whack a lure into them as they are snoozing. I read this somewhere or even the Saint told me, and it makes sense to me that way. Even better if there are two or three of you to use different lures to see whats cooking that day.

Is there a correct method?

 

[Keith White]

Brilliant post.

Its called 'Pattern Fishing' Mick.

It is a vast topic and one which I recently wrote an article about. That isn't released yet as I wrote it
for someone to look over first.

I don't see why we can't cover it here though.

Seasonal Pattern, local pattern and enclosed patterning all work together.
The faster you work it out, the more fish you can potentially catch.

And I'm not talking about the pattern on your wallpaper.. :lol:

 

[Retired]

I remember that discussion on the dark side. My view was and still is based on the following logic Mick, which was gleaned from French anglers far wiser than me.

Firstly, if bass are mooching around (ie not charging around everywhere at all levels) then no baitfish in its right mind is going to swim directly in front of a bass at its level unless it is suicidal. Likewise no baitfish is going to swim under it. It is more likely to swim high and wide around the danger area if it can. If a lure does do something daft to a bass that isn't in feeding mode then maybe its going to put the bass off more than encourage it.

So I tend to start at the top and work down. If I do need to get down closer to the fish then by that time it may have seen a lure or two go past and got interested.

Foreplay for bass? :muttley:

 

[Andy Mason]

Now you see, thats why I catch less Bass than others. I too start off at the top but usually because I don't know the terrain underwater and I'm more concerned about loosing a lure. I then often drop on a SP and search the bottom for structures (and fish). Rightly or wrongly thats what I do (probably the latter :muttley: )

 

[The Squid]

I usually start at the top and work down depending on the mark I am fishing.

 

[Retired]

Now you see, thats why I catch less Bass than others. I too start off at the top but usually because I don't know the terrain underwater and I'm more concerned about loosing a lure. I then often drop on a SP and search the bottom for structures (and fish). Rightly or wrongly thats what I do (probably the latter :muttley: )

Just lost this post so here goes again.

I know a lot of us reach for SPs to bounce the bottom, but they can be used as a surface/subsurface lure too. It can be quite a subtle approach and I prefer it to using hard lures when fishing skinny water for fish that are likely to be on edge.

A few SPs float in their own right, but if you have handpoured lures with a flat surface (like XLayers) then try rigging them to run with the flat surface downward. Then by twitching and sliding the lure you can run it on or near the surface. You can even take a knife to the nose of the lure to add a slider type angle to the nose or a blunt popper style nose. The latter can always be used/trimmed to match a fish head jighead for deeper work later, so all is not lost by a little cut or two.

There are also options for adding buoyancy to an SP and for hard/SP hybrids but I haven't worked those fully through yet in practice.

 

[Barry Howlin]

Will mostly start with the softies and work my way up, this applys to most of our marks

 

[Mick Ward]

Will mostly start with the softies and work my way up, this applys to most of our marks

Does it work for you Barry? Do you think you may catch more trying it the other way?

 

[Mark C]

Now you see, thats why I catch less Bass than others. I too start off at the top but usually because I don't know the terrain underwater and I'm more concerned about loosing a lure. I then often drop on a SP and search the bottom for structures (and fish). Rightly or wrongly thats what I do (probably the latter :muttley: )

I do the same mainly becasuse if i dont know the area and im a yorkshire man tight as a ducks ass under water :rofl:
On top
then soft
then hard

 

[Keith White]

I mentioned patterning further up in the thread...

one clever pattern is the 'depth pattern'

Will mostly start with the softies and work my way up, this applys to most of our marks

Ok, without getting ahead of myself, here is a simple tip.

actually 2:

First, the stronger the current the deeper the fish. Depth Pattern #1

and, the clearer the water the deeper (generally) the Bass. Depth Pattern #2

To get a good idea of water clarity and associated Bass depth, take a diving plug or a plug and hang
a weight on a treble. Lower it off the boat, crank it down or sink it off deep rocks until you can barely see it.

Double the depth as a starting point and work up. Bass use a cone of vision called 'Snell's' window and are more
likely to hit a bait from underneath UNLESS they are head down rooting for crab's etc.

Hope this helps.

 

[Dave Irving]

I normally start with something shallow, feed or diawa chugger, then as it gets light enough to see the lure landing, I will switch to a surface lure for half an hour or so. Then I will tend to move on to deeper lures such as Sld-F, Saltigas, Flash minnow slim. Using what I learned from the shallow runnner to guide where to fish the deeper lures.
But while I am rotating through thses lures I will be looking for drop off,bait showing, bass showing, any current deflections, and any other holding structure I can find. I will tend to try and hit the most likely to be productive areas first, then rest them while I fish other areas, then come back to them later. On returning the tide will have risen/fallen so I have a chance to fish these areas in a slightly different tidal state. That way I can start to build up a where and when for that mark.

One mark I fished this year looked awesome at low water, but didn't get a sniff. Kept returning at differing times of the tide, until I found that the bass tend to be more active/aggressive at about half way down the falling tide. And the most productive way to get is surface lures, even in the middle of a bright sunny afternoon. The bass lay up behind a series of ledges, and pounce on anything the drops over the ledge. Some marks are easy, first time there your into bass. One local beach fires bang on first light and on high water, rest of the time it is a waste of time. Other marks take time to tune into, I am learning that rather than guess, it pays to put more time in and work the mark over a few tides until you find the bass.

 

[Retired]

I reckon you'd find lots of those falling tide scenarios over here Tunny.

More often than not the "tuning in" as you put it (good description) is my favourite bit.

Cheers

 

[Dave Irving]

St Ouen,
I have seen pics that make me drool of some the shore marks you have over there, although I must admit your tidal range does tend to give me pause for thought. Huge tides even compared with the 5-6.5m tides we get here.

I tend to find that the better bass tend to be found where they can get the most amount of food for the least amount of effort, ledges with the current dropping over them, rips working around rocky points, under tow scours on steeper beaches. All areas where the bass can hang in near slack water, while watching for bait being pushed past. Makes sense really.

 

[Retired]

Around here we also get some amazing rips where bigger bass will feed in open current perhaps because they are one of the few things that can dominate the current and are powerful enough to take refuge in the same area and hunt as prey comes through. These marks can produce specimen fish but the same rule your mention, maximum return on energy expended, must apply there too.

 

[kevin agnew]

Hi mick where i fish first on is the feed shallow if that does not work then it is the tide minnow either one nearly always catches
kevin