41 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

I am absolutely amazed at how much things change almost every single day.

 

Well, you’ve touched on the main stress factor being a guide.  You can’t go searching every day with clients.  You better be somewhat keyed in on where the fish will be.   I’ve always said fish locating is like a 1500 piece puzzle that you have to put together on the ramp before every trip.  Some pieces are easy, others are harder.  Easy is like “they were at X spot yesterday” harder is like “how have conditions changed today”. Always remember fish have a brain the size of a pea, we sometimes give them waaaay too much credit.  They are reaction based creatures.  They react to seasons, weather, current conditions and somewhat to pressure.  I found that being a successful guide hinged on my being able to read the conditions and translate it into locations.  Went to our wintertime lake yesterday fun fishing and the week before found them on grass edges.  One week later they were gone for the most part.  A little stop and reflect moment of thought told me that they probably pulled out deep.  It’s that time of year and current conditions including water temp pointed me in that direction.  Went out to 35 feet and dropped some blade baits, and there they were.  

3 minutes ago, TOXIC said:

Always remember fish have a brain the size of a pea, we sometimes give them waaaay too much credit.  

 

Instinct is powerful beyond our understanding and evolution has had 23,000,000 years to fine-tune the instincts of bass. My claim about the powerful of instinct can be understood thusly: Imagine you suddenly grew wings. Now imagine using those wings to fly through a forest, contorting your body and wings to avoid any collisions. Impossible, right? Not for birds who do it the first day they fly. So, I suggest we don't give bass enough credit. 

Every day is a new puzzle and that's the fun/challenge of fishing. If I crushed them every trip I'd soon grow bored and likely start Lumberjack Sports, Competitive Badminton,  or something. Too many times I've caught them dragging a Ned in 25' only to find them in 3 FOW the next day on a topwater.

Around here bass are everywhere. Put the trolling motor down and make enough good  cast , its usually just a matter of time.

@Swamp Girl don’t conflate survival skill with evolutionary skill.  Give a bass wings and I’m sure they’ll hit every tree in the forest. 😝

4 hours ago, Susky River Rat said:

I cast and pray. 

 

Same.

 

But normally I end up in the trees and start cussing which pretty much cancels out the praying.

@HawkeyeSmallie at least you have the praying down!

4 hours ago, Kirtley Howe said:

At this time I am stuck fishing only from the bank. And with my poor breathing and somewhat compromised mobility, I am limited to spots within in a short walk and with easy access. So, I don't need to know where the fish are.....I need them to be where I am. Sometimes I catch fish and sometimes I don't, and that is OK.

Keep up the fight. Great attitude 

No idea where they will be, but sometimes a pretty good idea where they might be. That’s how I approach it 

On 11/3/2025 at 9:21 AM, Swamp Girl said:

that bass do this or bass do that at this or that time of the year

 

I got back into fishing 12 or so years ago when our daughter was in HS.  I fish eastern MA, Cape Cod, and southern NH.  There are only a handful of waters I can catch bass in the same spot at the same time of year with any regularity.  There are more than a few waters I genuinely STINK at, but keep going back, determined to figure them out.  It's these waters that tell me bass, for the most part, do what they want, when they want.

 

I'm sure a small percentage of bass are predictable, but for the majority of them, trying to figure out their seasonal patterns is like trying to figure out teenagers, or my cats.

 

Take your 50+ years of fishing experience and go with what your gut tells you.

7 hours ago, Susky River Rat said:

I cast and pray. 

I used to do that.  Then I tried praying first and then casting.  Next season I’m going to try confession before every trip.

You have to make sacrifices....

1 hour ago, DogBone_384 said:

Take your 50+ years of fishing and go with what your gut tells you.

 

Yeah, that's what I do. I call it "my hunches." I hunch like this guy:

 

6 hours ago, Dwight Hottle said:

I always fall back on previous history & fish known spots. But if it's not happening I start looking & trying to break it down it down by looking for bait or bait movement. If that fails I look for structure that should hold fish. And I keep moving until I figure it out or run out of time or patience. As long as you win most of your battles it is ok to lose now & then.   

Well said Dwight. That's how I roll as well. 

I'm thinking @Lottabass talks to the bass like Dr. Doolittle. 

 

 

4 hours ago, GreenPig said:

Every day is a new puzzle and that's the fun/challenge of fishing. If I crushed them every trip I'd soon grow bored and likely start Lumberjack Sports, Competitive Badminton,  or something. Too many times I've caught them dragging a Ned in 25' only to find them in 3 FOW the next day on a topwater.

There is the old story about a fisherman who died, and then found himself in a boat with another fisherman. When he recovered from the shock of being dead, he asked the other guy how the fishing was. The other fisherman said "I am catching fish on every cast". The recently dead fisherman said "Thank God, I was afraid I wouldn't make it into Heaven!" To which the other guy responded "What makes you think this is Heaven?"

11 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

I'm thinking @Lottabass talks to the bass like Dr. Doolittle. 

 

 

First of all; you are not an outlier.  You are an excellent angler.  I think one key to success is listening to the bass.  Many days I have fished with my hearing aids turned off!

The only thing I know, the fish are in the water. Many of the good anglers on here say 90% of the bass are in 10% of the water. I’ve come to the conclusion that as I check off the empty water the bass just follow the back of my boat around the lake. 

Absolute certainty is not the goal or the result of learning bass habits and behaviors to better predict their location to catch them.  It’s like some people enjoy being able to do a puzzle with the lights on.  It’s still a puzzle.

2 hours ago, Lottabass said:

Many days I have fished with my hearing aids turned off!

Can you still hear yourself say “goodn’, that’s a goodn’” when you set the hook into a solid 20”+? I sure hope so my man! Lol

I'll soon be 80 and what I can say is that catching fish is very easy. It's finding the fish that is very difficult most times. But that is the allure to fishing. If you caught fish on every cast I believe most would not be nearly as excited to go fishing. By the way, I call B.S. on these stories of catching 100 bass in a day. If you caught a fish every 5 minutes for 8 hours you would have caught 96 fish. At that rate of hook-ups I'd be back home by mid morning. I digress.

Now, as they say, "even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while." Therefore, like many others, I stumble onto enough fish to keep it fun. Actually, after many years of fishing, we do develop a sense for where the fish are likely to be. How many times have you made a cast to spot that "looked good", got bit and said "nice, right where he was supposed to be."

In any event I've enjoyed, no, loved fishing for 70 some years. I have a ritual while running back to the ramp at the end of every fishing trip. I look to the sky and say " thank you, lord, for another day of fishing and thank you, daddy, for teaching me how to fish."

A final thought. If we knew where the fish always were, think of the fish finder companies that would go out of business. 😉

 

23 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

For me, bass fishing isn't going to where bass are and catching them because I don't know where they'll be.

I knew everything about bass behavior 40 years ago,  then slowly the bass taught me that I don't know as much as I thought.  It's human nature to want to explain patterns in our life that are partially or completely random in nature.  Why did I catch them on that point today?  Was it the wind,  the moon,  the barometric pressure?  Was it because I spent 90% of the time fishing that point?  We want to explain it.  As I get older I realize the importance of being honest with myself about what I don't know.   I think the bass fishing puzzle we are trying to solve is far more complex than we want to admit.  Every body of water is different.  Every day is different.  Every bass is different.  When you say  I don't know you're just showing your age and your wisdom. 😊

40 minutes ago, Nitro 882 said:

I look to the sky and say " thank you, lord, for another day of fishing and thank you, daddy, for teaching me how to fish."

 

I do something similar. I stop, drop my rod, and say, "Thank you."

 

40 minutes ago, Nitro 882 said:

I call B.S. on these stories of catching 100 bass in a day.

 

I couldn't do it now, but I could when I was young and could fish for most of the day. We camped on an island on my favorite lake and that lake had a saddle off one end. I'd climb out of the tent before my partner and walk to the saddle. It was good for five to seven bass before my partner even emerged from the tent. That's a five-to-seven bass head start on a 100-bass day before my partner made his first cast. With fishing that good (and days that long), 100-bass days are doable. Heck, I had a 75 and 70-bass morning here in Maine, but after those mornings, I was spent. 

 

48 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

I knew everything about bass behavior 40 years ago,  then slowly the bass taught me that I don't know as much as I thought.

 

Ha! So true.

 

47 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

When you say  I don't know you're just showing your age and your wisdom. 😊

 

So, my lack of knowledge is a good thing? Cool!

 

49 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

It's human nature to want to explain patterns in our life that are partially or completely random in nature.

 

That's it. We want to perceive order in chaos. My best fall pattern was eel grass beds, but was so herky-jerky as to be nearly worthless. If you had gone fishing with me, it might have gone like this:

 

"I caught them on the edge of eel grass beds yesterday. You'll catch 'em too today."

 

And then we'd proceed to catch no bass on the edge of eel grass.

 

The next day, I'd say, "Let's try the eel grass again."

 

"Waste of time," you'd reply, "they're not there."

 

But then they would be.

 

The third day, you'd say, "Let's get back to that eel grass!"

 

And they wouldn't be there. 

 

 

This is why I try to fish the whole pond and through the water column when I launch.

 

 

Katy, You are not an outlier, you’re in the majority. To be honest, anyone who tells you that they know exactly where the bass are and what they’ll be hitting is simply guessing. Seasonal patterns play a role, but if FFS has taught us anything, it’s that we as anglers don’t know half as much as we thought we knew. That said, I’ll still never have FFS on my boat.