Hey folks, Glenn May here at BassResource.com. And one of the questions I see a lot on our forums is, "How long should I fish a bait? How long should I stick with a technique or fishing area before I pack it up and try something else?" Well, to answer that question let me give you something you can associate with.
You know how long it's gonna take for you to drive to work or to drive to your friend's house, or to the mall or someplace like that. And you know the route you gonna take. You have a pretty good idea. You've done it enough times. And if you've done it quite a bit, you've encountered situations where the traffic has been really poor. And you've tried alternative routes and you've learned different routes to go.
When you come across that situation, say you're trying to get to work and traffic's really bad, it's all backed up, there comes a point where you realize, "You know what, if I take one of those alternate routes, I can get to work faster." There's this inflection point where you realize most of the time that alternate route it isn't very fast. It's not the way to go but today it is, right?
It's a decision that happens and is based upon your expectations from previous experience. When it's not matching that expectation, that's when the decision process begins. That's when you start to look at alternates, right? So, how does that apply to bass fishing?
Again when you ask, I go out with pros. I've been out fishing with pros. I've been out fishing...you know I talk to them a lot. I see them several times a year, the Classic and ICAST and I’ve talked to them on the phone. And occasionally this question comes up. This topic comes up.
When I ask them about that, "How long do you fish in a certain area? How long do you fish or lure technique?" And they always say, "Well, it's usually two answers. One is either when I no longer have confidence in it or when I don't feel I'm gonna...when I don't feel I'm gonna get a bite."
So what that means is if they're fishing in a certain lure, say for example a certain lure technique based upon past experience, I have an idea of how well that's gonna produce given the current conditions. How many fish they should probably get in an hour, say for example. And how far apart those bites would be. Say for example the summer you gonna get a lot of bites. You should catch a lot of fish when the fish are active. If it's in the winter time, so you're drop shoting maybe you're only catch, one or two fish for the whole day, right? But they know what it is based expectations.
And it's when those expectations aren't met during the current conditions where they're fishing, that's again, that's when that inflection point happens.
If they realize, "Hey, this isn't working," they're going on a stretch, say 300 yard stretch. You look at it and say, "Hey look, I can probably pluck five or six fish off this." You get two thirds, three quarters away down and you haven't caught a single fish, that's when it's not meeting those expectations based upon past experiences, that's when you make a change. When again what they say is, "Well, I don't feel I'm gonna get a bite."
What makes the difference between pros and the weekend angler, is the pros they always feel they're gonna get a bite at every single cast. They are on point. They know when as soon as they make that cast, there's a possibility they're gonna get bit.
They're watching the line. They're feeling the rod. They're feeling the lure go through the water column. They know exactly what it's doing and the rods and the strike you know they're ready to set the hook. They're primed. They're ready to go. It's when those expectations aren't met, again when I don't feel I'm gonna get a bite, that's when they change up.
So that's your answer. How long do you fish a certain lure technique or a certain area? When you don't have confidence anymore. When you don't feel you're gonna get a bite in that technique based upon your past experiences.
I hope that helps. For more tips and tricks like this visit BassResource.com.
