Unlock the Laws of Nature

     The best result of any work is often the product of team effort. To experienced fisher persons everywhere – what you have before you is a lead-in to such a project.

     A Fishing Seminar: an “In “Fin” it” Honey Hole (Not found elsewhere in the Sport Fishing Industry).

Warning: This information may be met with claims of anomaly, or maybe ambitious thinking. We all need to open our views to a new and higher level, or we will not grow and not take others with us. If you will, please keep in mind that changing minds (even our own) is one of the toughest things to do in life. Not to be flashy, or to take any of this as gospel: We need to remember – give or take 2,050 years ago, a person came on the World Scene greeted by both acceptance and rejection. Either way, that person will live forever in the hearts and minds of believers and skeptics alike.

 The day to day catching of fish can be repeated in the sense that we may do the same things every time we are out on the water. How right or wrong that may be, proves itself at the end of the day.

If we can nail five random fish in a day, we can be within the top 10% of all fishermen on a tough body of water by giving conditions just a little more thought. We can reach that goal if we apply what we learned from our day(s) on the water. There are no weird chants to make us better at what we do. But there are some basic things, and some new things we could look at to have that extra effort pay off. How those things come together for us will always be the secret to our success.

Those 20+ fish a day catches are not out of your reach. I can remember several fishing sorties where the principals of this report paid off handsomely. Putting this method together as it should be, proves Ralph Waldo Emerson’s wisdom on “The years teach much which the days never knew”.

Success tomorrow starts with observant work today. As with all things in life, the Gumbo (angling success) we make for ourselves is either good or bad depending on the ingredients and the chef.

Keep in mind a thoughtful explanation and definition of the word “pattern,” and how it fits into all this.

A Fishing Pattern is a combination of water, weather, and environmental conditions such as light penetration, depth, cover, bottom structure, air and water temperature, water clarity, direction, and speed of water currents, even Solunar Tables as well as functional and seasonal aspects of predator fish, available prey species and their habits, which produce greater “catches” at specific locations in a body of water.

Keep in mind that some locations on some lakes will have altogether different patterns than other locations on the same lake. Also, know that the higher altitude of your lake alone can have the same affect – shortening what is thought to be “NORMAL’ in another lake at lower elevations.

Patterns change! A pattern that’s good now might be terrible tomorrow, and there could be several successful patterns existing at any one time on any body of water — especially a giant reservoir or lake. When conditions are stable, a successful fishing pattern can last a long time. When conditions are changing rapidly, a successful pattern may evaporate in minutes.

As fishermen, we are all affected by changes in the environment. As we will see here there are many changes to contend with. The observable facts are tried and true about these changes and why species such as Large Mouth Bass are seemingly turned off; don’t bite as well at these times in shallow water. What follows here will help in understanding changes, cycles, and stability.

These shallow fish are turned off, or on by, will or won’t bite because of, the “Change(s)” in their immediate stabilized environment. If we get hung up on any one change, or a concrete, or segregated definition of stabilization rather than the combined difference various changes have on one another, we may come up short sighted. Sometimes we should go beyond what the best of the dock talk, formal education, and dated experience wants to tell us.

 Simply said, good and bad stress level relationships and their mix – offsetting factors can be overlooked if we are not careful. Changes in water temperature, changes in light penetration, changes in oxygen content, in water clarity, in Ph, changes in fishing pressure, in atmospheric pressure, in water pressure, changes in water density/viscosity, changes in water movement and more, all add, subtract, or mix in unique ways.

These tradeoffs are either advocates or opponents of one another. These components have an exponential quality to them, their effect on fish, and acceptable environmental stabilization. Changes prompt a decrease or increase in bass metabolic rates, neuron energy, hormone activity, etc., carrying over to induced activity.

The effect of change(s) on feeding then depends on alternatives that may be acceptable or unacceptable over the time they are experienced by the fish. Sometimes these changes are good for the fish – providing for better than average activity/feeding situations. Sometimes the collection of change is bad – worse than average.

These are the times we need to be subtler, more patient, have more accurate bait presentation, as well as better thought out location factors and approaches. Unfortunately, we have no way of telling whether fish have eaten recently. However, heightened metabolism, competition, and relatively easily obtainable food source, can often override normal routine.

 Then of course there is always adaptation. Adjustment to conditions, whether temporary or permanent, occurs for practical reasons. Those reasons are survival related and nothing more. Once stress levels become overbearing and cannot be relieved or adapted to, fish will perish. Understand the changes that occur within your lake and whether they will provide more, or less of the good, or bad ingredients needed – and you will increase your ability to catch those fish.

Bass, Walleye, moreover all fish notice small changes in their environment. Commonly referred to as Cold Blooded Animals – a misleading term – properly referred to as “Ectotherms”. These are animals that do not have an internal mechanism for regulating body temperature fish, snakes, lizards, reptiles, their body temperatures, metabolism, and chemistry matches the surroundings they live in; relying on solar energy captured by the environment (all practical energy, however manifested, comes from the Sun and the Moon).

Unlike warm blooded creatures, fish have no comparable way to counterbalance the stress of having to maintain an imbalance. Depending on their chosen niche or starting point, fish become, or lean toward being active when warmer than normal and inactive – moving slower – when colder. In addition, fish must maintain some consciousness of neutral buoyancy in order to function at their best. Internal gas bladders are the ticket for maintaining neutral buoyancy. Too much fish movement up or down in the water column, or for too long a period produces an imbalance of water pressure on the outside and the amount of gas within the gas bladder of fish that have them. Making an adjustment to maintain neutral buoyancy causes stress.

 Additionally, when a fish moves it produces energy. Muscle movement produces heat energy which to some minor extent offsets normal body temps influenced by external water temperatures. When environmental changes occur, fish must adjust. Too much, or constant adjustment throws their systems out of whack, stunts growth, and they cannot maintain any sense of favorable normalcy one niche to another.

If that environment they live in changes drastically and rapidly enough in one or more ways, they shut down in part or in whole while making an adjustment to those changes. How fast they adapt or how much they need to do so depend on factors we will get into later.