How long do you fish a spot before you hoist the anchor and heave ho?

10 minutes if I do not get a bite

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? 

The age-old question.  The one so many bassheads, including myself, ask themselves at least once a trip, and oftentimes it’s quite a bit more than that.

I’m referring to when we are on a spot, whether it was producing or not, we’ve given it what in our own minds is ample opportunity to produce, and it hasn’t. 

So, do we stay or do we go?

Clearly no hard and fast ‘rules’ can be drawn upon during these deals, but here’s my version of it. 

I am going to start off with a couple of ‘deciding factors’ that often cause me to lean one way or the other.

Seasonal pattern and what I’m fishing, so boat position. 

Early in the season, before and, of course, during the spawn, fish are looking & wanting to come shallow.  Not exactly a new flash and something we don’t even need FFS to figure out. This can be one scenario where I am often willing to wait it out on a known or recently producing spot or area.  And if I do choose to relocate, I’m generally not going very far, like maybe just 2 or 3 cast lengths one way or the other, depending on what type of structure/cover I am working with. If I’m feel particularly confident that the fish are ‘coming to me’ (eventually), I may Talon down, shut everything off (electronics-wise), and have a sandwich while the area ‘settles down a little.’  Might be just enough to have a few more fatties roll right into casting distance.  Sometimes it happens by itself if I need to retie or perhaps change baits or hardware. 

On-scene weather conditions can & do play a role here as well. Especially skinny water, 10 ft or less.  An increase or decrease in cloud cover and/or wind speed can affect my decision-making matrix.  Forecast or not, if it’s been a sunny day and clouds move in, I may wait them out if I can see an end in sight.  Reverse can be said if it’s been a cloudy skies deal.  Bites in the wind rarely get better if it flattens out, so I’ll usually not put too much extra time into an area if and when it goes flat calm. But going from calm to windy is a whole different ballgame and one I like to play.

Chuck & wind, baby.

 

As the season progresses and the spawn is done & over with, the local brown bass population on the bigger inland lakes makes themselves very scarce by spreading out all over the place. This goes straight into summer and is the time of year when I do The Most are moving around and will only stay on spots very briefly. Except for some early morning or late afternoon topwater off the end of long, deep main lake points, I’m almost always fishing deep(er).  Trying to focus on targets of deep bottom cover (rocks/wood) that could hold bait/bass.  If I can get bait in front of them, they’ll usually eat.  Maxscent flatworm is a confidence bait here for me. Need decent conditions; some sun helps; boating traffic does not.

 

It’s easy to admit that this IS the toughest fishing of the year for me.  Accordingly, I don’t spend a whole lot of time on these bigger lakes from late June through most of July.  But sometime in the first week or two of August, things get much, much better.

Bigger bass start showing up shallow again. It’s almost always on flats.  They seem to be a bit more scattered/spread out, but there are some real brutes up there.  And they are looking to EAT.  As the shallow weeds die back and the bait fish become more and more exposed, the fishing just keeps getting better.

Almost becomes the same type of deal for me as in the spring. Fish are coming to me so I don’t move much.  But that’s sort of a relative thing; I still need to cover water, but it's just over one or two special flats.  So I’m not running all over the lakes, just doing a lot of casting.  From August to say mid-September, it’s all about horizontal moving baits. Could be topwater early and just about whatever you want to throw after that: vibrating jigs, spinnerbaits, swimbaits, swim jigs, A-Rigs, squarebills & rattlebaits. Some of the best flats are also the biggest.  A basshead could spend an entire day just crisscrossing one flat with different baits at various depths.  And this one does exactly that. So in this case, I stay.

Come October, the weeds have died back completely, the waters cooled off considerably, and the bass start looking deeper for their wintertime haunts.

If the weather cooperates, and I can fish the deepest flats that have hard cover effectively, this can be the best time of the year for me for sheer numbers of 3-5 lb smallies. Blade baits & swimbaits on a jighead are big-time players for me now.

I’ll stay on a spot long enough to get a couple of biters and then hop over to the next spot and do the same deal.  It’s usually late enough in the season where boating traffic is not an issue (everyone’s deer hunting), and the few boats on the water are targeting walleye and rarely on anything I’m looking to get on.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Fish Hard

A-Jay

I pick it apart so probably too long. Watched Guido Hibdon alot. I always think

Im leaving fish behind .

I don’t have a set time, it’s more of a vibe I get. Is there any kind of fish activity going on? If so, I may stick around a bit. I’ll also trust my gut. There are some situations where my gut tells me “they really should be here” and my patience is rewarded. Other times my gut tells me after a few minutes “this spot is dry, gotta move on”.

Really can depend, but if I’m hitting fish and then it drops right off…on to the next. I don’t typically try to “clean out” a spot. I catch what I do while the bite feels there and when it drops off a bunch…move

Depends on the size of the structure and amount of cover. Some places get 3 cast with no hits, I'm moving. I can always comeback and check those spots later. Some places I'll give 20 minutes. In the Winter I may spend an hour on certain waypoints.

Noted Yall

Thank you for the feedback

My boat blows around pretty bad. So I’m usually drifting or on the trolling motor. If it looks good I’ll stay and work it for a while. But I’m well known to camp out way longer than I should. Even on a bank trip lol.

Depends on how much experience I have with the area. A productive area I might spend 20 minutes before moving. A good looking area with no previous experience 10 minutes.

I like to spot-lock on areas that I know have held fish in the past, and pick them apart. Probably spend way to much time on any given spot.

Patience is for bobber fishing.