Bass Fishing - Catching bass under adverse conditions

All these rules I am giving to you are general guidelines, not hard and fast rules. Always remember rules are made to be broken. These guidelines work for me most of the time, but there is only one thing that works all the time, your confidence in yourself! How do you get confidence? By fishing as much as you can, in all seasons, in all weather, no matter what species you are after the more time you spend fishing, the better you will become!

Some days no matter what you do the fish just will not play the game fair. They just will not eat. And if they don't bite you will not catch any. Instead of blowing the day off as a total loss, remember fish have to eat to live, there are "ALMOST ALWAYS" some fish eating somewhere in the lake or river you are fishing in. One big lesson I learned in my tournament fishing days, no matter how bad the fishing was, even when most of the fishermen skunked, or caught only a few bass, there was always a few anglers who brought limits to the weigh in.

Bad days are a good time to try methods you do not usually use at this time of the year. If its winter time, don't worry, the water is cold and the fish don't feed every day. If its the time of year when fish usually bite for you, take a time out, eat lunch, and think about your situation, in the past where have you done well at this time of year? What methods did you employ? How deep did you fish? Look for other boats on the lake, what types of areas are they fishing in? Deep or shallow? I carry binoculars in my boat to check out other boats to see what methods, depth ranges, lures and presentations they are using.

At times all the other boats seem to be in the middle of the lake, when you are fishing shallow, this probably means the shad are schooling in the midlake regions and the bass have left the shorelines to feast on the midlake bounty.

THE FISH ARE ALWAYS SOMEWHERE, they can't take a bus to the next lake. The more you know about the fish you are after, the easier it is to catch a few even on the worst of days. And when you catch even one fish, it starts unlocking the secrets of where its friends are hiding. You have a depth range to start looking in, start trying different baits and methods until you have caught another, now you are starting to zero in on them. See, you learned something new today!!

You learn more from catching one bass when fishing is tough, then by catching twenty when its easy!! Use tough days to learn more about your quarry.