Sunday, September 16, 2012

Fish Where the Fish Are

How do you catch more fish when conditions are tough?  Fish where the fish are.

That's the simple answer of Brad Wiegmann, a guide on Arkansas' Beaver Lake. A highland impoundment of the White River, Beaver has miles and miles of rocky, riverine banks that at a glance look very similar. Not all rocky banks are created equal, though, and Wiegmann showed me that today. Despite the fish being in a definite transition between summer and fall patterns and the day shaping up calm and gray but not distinctively dark or rainy, we caught a few dozen bass by hand-picking stretches of bank to work and bypassing a lot of non-productive stuff. Wiegmann pays close attention to swings in the inundated channel and changes in the banks slope and make up. Within any given stretch of bank, he concentrates on rogue boulders and wood.

Wiegmann has learned the types of banks that hold the fish on Beaver, so he spends his time fishing where he knows the fish are. That allows him to experiment with baits and presentations and to let the fish say what they want and how they want it. Today the bass wanted BOOYAH spinnerbaits burned tight to the bank.

No comments:

Post a Comment