Changes from the Golden Days of Bass Fishing

As we have all seen the days of fishing any of our high pressure lakes has changed drastically over the past few years; going to a top rated reservoir has frustrated many of the best of fisherman. The change has come over time but the days of finding really aggressive bass are depleting and if you抮e going to be successful you must change with it.

The reason is simple the enormous pressure on today抯 lakes especially the top rated ones is extremely obvious to anyone that fishes them. My inner thoughts some days when I pull up to a spot on a Monday and it抯 covered up with fisherman is doesn抰 anyone work anymore! Well the answer of course is they do but as the population of our country grows and as more folks have disposable income the numbers of folks fishing just keeps growing.

The change however has severely taken out the aggressive bite from most lakes, those days of getting smacked so hard that your line jumps out of your hand are few for sure.

The key is understanding that your technique must change with the times, that aggressive bite in most cases is just not there and adapting your style is most important to getting a bite. Subtle in most cases is the new aggressive bite; you must be patient and feel the subtle bite and fish techniques that employ it. One of the things I continually find is that regardless of bait letting that bait lay dead still for some reasonable period of time, maybe as much as 15 to 20 seconds is the only way to fish many of these high pressured lakes.

This technique is not just limited to the many dead stick presentations like sinko抯 we are all use to.

Many times I just let a jig lay motionless along a river ledge or in a flipping hole in the grass to allow for the subtle bite to occur. Motionless fishing for periods of many seconds at a time is our new aggressive power fishing technique; how many times have you noticed that you pause your bait to talk to your partner and all of sudden there is a fish on your line. Remember don抰 limit this to bottom baits as many top water baits like walking baits or popping baits will accomplish the same thing. The golden days might be gone, but motionless fishing is taking over!