Pressure matters very much

Conditioning is a repetitive lesson given to any animal over and over to train that animal on the response wanted. Fish become conditioned the same way. The best lesson they have learned is; when all those motors crank up on tournament day or even the weekend, it is time to disappear to deep water. I also believe fish get conditioned to certain lures. That is why I want my baits to represent the forage they are feeding on with all the senses coming into play like sight, sound, vibration, smell and taste. Baits should be as real as possible to help your catch ratio. Fish that live deep, feed deep and spawn deep have not had as much conditioning as shallow water fish. Therefore those are the ones you need to learn to target.

At certain times of the year, the weather conditions and lake levels will move more fish up shallow to become conditioned. As long as they keep returning to the shallows and we keep fishing shallow then their lessons continue and their conditioning improves.

I like the small body of water theory that if you fish a pond on a regular basis the fish become conditioned and it gets tougher and tougher to get them to bite. I have wore ponds out just fishing them once a week; but really hammered the fish that one day. About the third week of hammering it becomes hard to catch enough to eat.

This is why I want 3 early morning top water areas to go to. Then move to my 3 mid-range areas and finish out the day on the 3 deep water spot. I make one pass though each of those 9 areas taking what I can get and never hammering the fish in any one spot. They will be there for many, many years until you show someone those spots. Then it will be over quickly as they will take a friend and he will take his friend. Those Super Spots will be depleted and a fish was never removed form the area. This is why a serious Bass fisherman that tournament fishes will not share much information as to where and above all he will make sure he is not followed to his spots, which is one of the most difficult things to do. I use to burn a lots of gas and many times had to leave after making only a couple of cast because someone was in the area.

Kinda hafta agree. Many lures have limited uses and fish just don't respond regardless angler skill level. Could be the retrieve speed designed to use a lure is too fast for fish that 98% of the time are just suspending somewhere in the water column. I base lure choices on irritating bass to strike man made objects that move a certain way, at a certain speed, with a specific action and profile. Many lures fall into the category of lures one can use on pressured lakes - especially at night and expect to get bitten at least by a percentage fish vulnerable to lures. No doubt the percentage of vulnerable bass changes seasonally and even daily: IE you see them on your sonar screen, cast lures in the middle of a school and might be lucky to get just one; or the school becomes agitated after one fish is caught, prompting more fish to strike aka as a fishing bonanza.

Right place right time right lure. Aquarium or small pond bass may be conditioned to ignore lures, but even the chances of bass seeing a lure is less the larger the water, or if tidal, bass move with the flow and cause fish to sweep through an area like a vacuum cleaner allowing the chain reaction of many fish striking because one did. You'd think that fish would turn off immediately after seeing a brother or sister bass caught, but it's just the opposite: he did it so why not me?!

I suggest that school crappie are no different than school bass and both are vulnerable to lures cast from an anchored boat that may only be in 4' of water. It happened a few days ago that my partner and I caught a load of crappie on a certain style plastic grub and then out of nowhere a bass joined the fun and slammed my lure.

Bass also react or not depending on environmental factors that dictate activity such as water clarity, sun angle and brightness, cloud cover changes per hour, water temp. and possibly water chemistry via heavy rains. Fish thought is never an issue IMO, but the minimal level of provocation needed always matters which can change from hour to hour.

Specific bass lure/location patterns exist at least during one hour of the day, the challenge being being at the right place and time the pattern exists if even for a short period and hoping such patterns are going on in other areas of the lake.

Thanks Mr. Harper for explaining my theory better than I ever could about pressure. Never in my wildest dreams did I think one day I would be fishing with something called a Whopper Plopper and a Yum Dinger to catch bass. The horror of it all, lol.

Agreed. I�ve fished this same lake this year, and the fish are easier than ever to catch. The only thing that�s changed is the pressure. There�s a reason guys that fish lake Fork all the time say they feel sorry for other guys that can only fish it on the weekend.

Also, I think people confuse memory and conditioning. Being conditioned to something and retaining memory of something are two different things.

Fishing pressure matters. Too much evidence to suggest otherwise. For example, fishing offshore. I could find a school of big fish and work them over early in the summer and for several weeks. By later in the summer, those same spots held fish but, as soon as I graphed them and turned around, they were gone. On multiple spots. Why?

Seen it happen myself, Mr. Donald. So have Dr JL and several others here.

I think it matters, but like Steez said you have to make adjustments. If you fish a spot that has seen 60 brush hogs thrown at it that day, your chances I think diminish. So different presentations (and a little less pressure)may produce IMHO

subbed

Because they know it's you Fouz and they know you're fixin' to put a hole in their head! They recognize your boat. I think we should test your theory and you get in my boat and let's go to those deep spots!

my belief is that most fishery biologists are very knowledgeable about the physical part of fish but not so much about fish population and behavior as they would have you believe...the fact is that very few fishery biologists are avid fishermen therefore do not spend a lot of time on the water and observing how fish react to fishing pressure or the fish populations in a given lake...
here's couple examples of biologists simply being wrong....several years ago,the corps of engineers brought in some fishery biologists trying to justify spraying hydrilla on Seminole.....we had a public meeting and one of the fishery biologists testified they had done a shocking survey on spring creek arm of the lake and there were no fish over 4lbs in the area due to the hydrilla ...he further stated the hydrilla was so thick,the fishing only seemed better because the bass were being forced to the outer edge of the grassline�..
he had no answer when I pointed out to him that I had won two tournaments recently with a 5lb average in spring creek,that I and others had caught and weighed in numerous 6-8lb bass from Spring Creek recently...
we pointed out to this biologist that his shockboat findings were flawed due to him being unable to shock anyplace but the creek channel because of the grass and that we used heavy lead weights to punch through the thick hydrilla mats and caught most of our fish from back in the grass where the biologists claimed the fish didn't live....perfect example of a biologist being wrong because he didn't fish or more importantly,didn't seek input from fishermen...

there was another example where the biologists were trying to justify spraying water hyacinths claiming they had done a study and there was no oxgen under hyacinths therefore fish could not live under there.....again we as fishermen pointed out to them that fishing under hyacinths was one of the best winter time patterns....

as a fisherman,I have been real disappointed in our fisheries biologists reluctance or refusal to recognize hydrilla as an excellent replacement for cover in our aging reservoirs and equally as important,failure to admit the disastrous effect of grass poison on great fisheries....

I do a lot of dragging uphill on Humps and deep water ledges. Makes a lot of difference on conditioned fish and will usually fool Mother Nature.

Thanks for that tip, sir! I always drag downhill. Gonna have to try uphill when the fish get spooky

I've got a spot that you can't get a bite dragging down hill but can turn around and fish uphill and whack em!

Only one thing about bass fishing I know for sure, I don`t know Na-da.