Fishing

First off, being patient is very key. If you are going to be fishing for any species of bass in your lake and you know they are eating a certain thing and you have confidence that the fish are in the area, or you can see them in the area you have to just wait it out and continue fishing like you do. This is one of the keys in tournament fishing, you have to be patient. The fish will eventually bite and it can be a great flurry of bites and fish. The best example I can give of this is two guys out at Lake Casitas a few weeks ago, They found big bass in one spot, they sat there and threw the Osprey Swim baits for 3 hours without moving from the spot, and in less than 30 minutes they had about a 40 pound limit of bass including 4 bass over 8.5 pounds. Because they were patient and knew the fish were there, they caught them got them when they wanted to eat.

The second main ingredient to catching a lot of fish when others aren't and in tournaments is to be versatile. I have found this out first hand in many different ways. If the bass are up eating one lure and everyone is using the same thing, the bet is they aren't going to hit it that well. Or if a cold front or front of any type comes through the lake, be ready to change at any time. You have to be able to adapt to these elements that are so key to catching bass when others aren't. The best example that I can think of is myself. I went fishing with my dad, Larry Elshere, and he was catching a lot of bass in the 1 to 3 pound class on the drop shot worms. It was a hot and sunny day. I changed over as soon as the clouds came in,. He stopped catching bass, but I had changed to the Jig and in two cast had 6.5 and 4.5 pound bass. You have to be able to change your presentations when it is necessary. A lot of the ways to find out when to change and to be versatile is from a lot of experience. I have a lot of bass fishing experience, I've done it my whole life and Lake Casitas I know very well.

These two ingredients are very key to be a successful angler. Patience and versatility can go hand in hand. You have to be patient and know if you need to change your baits or presentations. If you aren't patient you will go off and change lures or presentation without knowing if you needed to. SO to be versatile you need to be patient. Fishing is a sport that requires a lot of attention and has a lot more to it than other sports as you can tell. It's not just throw your lure in the water and catch fish, but you need to have these elements to catch the fish.

I am hoping this little article will help out any anglers that were interested in this. I am really writing this article because with the Post spawn closing in on us, the fishing gets harder and you need to be both of these, versatile and patient. If you have any questions drop me a line at:

May God Bless you all and please remember Catch and Release!