Bass Fishing From Shore Is It Better To Keep Moving Around The Lake Or Stationary?
Been Bass fishing recently with lures with no luck. I assume I am doing something wrong. Live in Northern New Jersey and have tried some different techniques, but to move or not move is my question.
Dum dum had some great advice.
In fact (in my opinion) everyones answer’s were accurate.
Here’s my 2 cent’s:
From what I’ve learned of NJ water’s they (NJ Bass) can be VERY “finicky” due to heavy fishing pressure.
Here are some techniques to combat “used water”.
#1. Line size- When fishing “stressed” fish of ANY kind using lower diameter line will only benefit you. I suggest you try some Berkley “Fireline” in 4/10 (Smoke color) or a decent Flurocarbon line (or leader).
#2. Lure Size- “Downsizing” your lures to 1/8-1/16 OZ can only UP your catch ratio. It’s still “Spring” in NJ waters, (Esp this year!), and your average baitfish/forage will only be in the 2-4″ range.
#3. Use fish attractant- It can’t hurt and will add an extra “dimension” to your lures. TASTE & smell!
#4. Cast where other’s won’t OR can’t- On my first trip to MN all the tackle shop people I talked with told me there was NO WAY I could catch anything in certain lakes due to access or fishing pressure.
To “heck” with them! I waded! (Without wader’s, just old tennis shoes & shorts) I caught all the Bass I wanted to catch! I found a pattern a boater could not achieve. I flipped & “skipped” a Texas-rigged (no-weight) Berkley Powerbait Worm under half-beached pontoons and almost dry docks. Boater’s had no “access” to this pattern because the water was extremely shallow and they couldn’t “sneak up on them” like I could!
In other words- When it comes to shorefishing you must “think out of the box” if you intend on catching a mess of fish!
NJ has no “creatures” (other than the rogue leech) in it’s water’s, (unlike the southern US, where “wading” can be VERY dangerous).
And to answer your Q: Give your lure “time” to work. Make each cast “count”. 15-20 minutes fan casting an area is sufficient. Try 3 different “type” of lure before moving away.
In heavy pressure area’s- Try a small 1/8-1/16 OZ Spinnerbait or Beetle-Spin.
Then a 3-4″ Floating Rapala. Slow rolled
or “stop & go retrieve”.
And if that doesn’t work go to the 1/8 OZ Jig/Curly-tailed grub.
Hope this helps ya? Good luck!
Loose change is completely wrong. The key to catching bass is covering ground. Use a plastic worm (Watermelon/black flake is a good color). This is a baby bass replica(yes, they eat their young). Senko’s are the best worm there is “you don’t work them, they work for you”. But just so you know, they are expensive. They are 95% salt(which bass think is blood). The high concetration of salt makes it heavy , so you don’t need a weight. Just throw it out , wait for it to sink and slowly retrieve, giving it small jerks every once in a while. Once you have caught a fish, take a mental note of everything that happend; were you in a cove, on a point? Were you fishing some type of structure? Time of day, weather, wind, water clarity, etc. These are all clues to predict where & when to fish. If you caught the fish on a point, they are probobly foraging, so you want to find a similar area(structure) to fish. Depending on time of year, you might find them in a shallow cove spawning. In this case, Use a white Senko. They will protect their nest by attacking your worm. But Patience is what will get you more fish. Making sure you give the worm enough time to sink will keep you in the strike zone. Now go rip some lip!!!!! Oh, remember ‘catch and release’. Bass taste like **** anyway! hahaha
Every one has their own opinion and here is mine. If you are cat fishing you can stay in one spot and catch all you want sometimes. But if you are bass fishing and if you haven’t had any strikes in the last 15 minutes or so , there are two possibilities- they are not biting or they are not there. It’s time to move and try to locate some. The only time that it is in your best interest to stay in one spot when bass fishing, is when you locate a school of bass. You will know it quickly when you do - they will hit your lure until the paint starts coming off it sometimes- This does not happen very often. You normally have to hunt the bass down- one or two at a time-bass like the edges of things - the edge of a shoreline, the sides of standing timber in the water, the edge of a log laying in the water, the edge of a stump in the water , the edge of a weed line in the water, the edge of an under water drop-off etc. The more targets you have in the water, the better your odds at catching a bass. Here’s my philosophy on moving or stationary for bass- if I haven’t caught a bass in 5 minutes, the bass are not biting there or there is no bass there. Either way you need to move on and try a new spot. It’s a great sport and I’ll admit that I’m a fanatic about it. Good luck and good fishing!
Sorry John Rod but if the fish are not there then how in the heck are they going to bite your bait no matter how you work it? If you dont get a bight try a different color or presentation, but dont spend to much time in one spot, unless you just have this hunch that there are fish there then you fish different baits, colors and presentations till you find what they whant.
Remember “Fish are like woma …..You never know what they are going to do” Just because they are in a certain spot today dosent mean they will be there tmmro and just because the hit a certain bait today dosent mean they will hit it tmmro.
Stay put. Let them come to you. My experiences with bass fishing, standing atop a high point where I could actually see the bass in the water, has shown that bass have to be attracted to the lure, they find you. It’s all in the wrist. If they don’t care about the lure, it doesn’t matter if you find them.
if you have been fishing in the same spot for quite some time, don’t move, you just have to present the bait good, and eventually they will bite, good luck and tell me if it works.
If a spot looks fishy I will spend 20 min’s using at least 3 different baits at the location working a grid like pattern over the area before moving on.