Pinpoint Patterning

"If they're here, this should be the cast, Michael Murphy said confidently as he released his thumb and sent a bait sailing. We'd made half a dozen casts apiece since pulling up on this area, but he had told me that we'd start a little off from where the fish "should" be. As if the bass had read his script, Murphy leaned into a chunky fish about five cranks into his retrieve.

He had done the exact thing on the previous spot, making a handful of presentations before calling the cast that should produce, and then catching a fish on that cast. He had then explained what he had figured out based on other fish we'd caught that morning.

From time to time an angler "calls" a fish on a perfect-looking piece of shoreline cover, but we weren't working the bank. Murphy's called casts were off long points and were based upon the slope of the point, the distance out, the depth the boat was over, the direction of the wind... The bass were relating to specific types of points in a very specific way, and by fishing a handful of spots and paying attention to every detail, he truly had figured it out

An FLW Tour pro, fishing buddy and ever-eager source of great information, Murphy was helping me with a specific story project. We spent the biggest part of our day doing photo work but still managed a 21-pound bag from our best five. "We'd have won today," Murphy said with a grin as he weighed the last fish, knowing that most recent local tournaments had been won with weights in the mid to upper teens.

Murphy also figured out what the striped bass were doing on the same day, and he used his knowledge of Lake Murray to run a few key spots, where together we caught at least 25 stripers.

One of the greatest privileges of writing fish stories for a living is having the opportunity to spend time on the water with many of the best anglers out there. If I don't learn a thing or two that I can't pass along in stories, I'm not doing my job very well!