Makin' 'Em Bite When They Don't Want To

The fish just aren't biting. A cold front has turned 'em off. It's too windy (or not windy enough). It's too hot (or cold). There's too much boat traffic. I don't have the right lure. I'm fishing the wrong place.

Sound familiar? I'd venture to say we've probably all heard these excuses and/or maybe uttered a few of them ourselves at one time or another. The fact is that everyone, even experienced anglers, have occasions when they don't do very well.

As a tourney director, I distinctly remember a couple of those occasions this year--days when the usual "heavy hitters" didn't fare so well. Each time, though, I witnessed one or more other anglers who managed to find a bite that produced a nice bag of fish.

So, how do you make stubborn bass bite? It starts with making mental adjustments. You fight off a defeatist attitude. When you're not getting bitten in an area where you've caught fish recently, step back and try to figure out why the bites aren't happening. If you think the fish are pressured, look for a different area, but remember this: The fish don't usually move far, so resist the temptation to start running all over the place. And if the weather is an issue, simply slow down and fish more methodically.

Another suggestion is to fish heavy cover, which can include everything like thick vegetation, brush tops, gnarly stumps, and logjams. According to the pros, brutal conditions will make "sulking fish pull into the thickest cover available, and you have to go in after them." Forget the obvious targets. Instead, concentrate on the high-percentage places--those that are hardest to reach but are the most likely to hold fish. Bass burrowed in heavy cover feel more secure and are vulnerable to baits that drop into their safety zone--baits like soft plastics, especially scented ones.

Be thorough and slow down. Patience is a virtue when bass don't want to bite. A smart angler resists the urge to fish faster through potential areas in an effort to cover more water. Instead, he lets the bait soak longer in the same spot. In other words, make the most of each cast with multiple presentations from different angles. You want to cover every inch.

Whether you have to deadstick the bait, shake it, or maybe do a combination of the two, the onus is on you to entice the strikes. If you're fishing fast movers like spinnerbaits or crankbaits, use the bottom or cover to deflect the lures and create erratic movement that can trigger reactionary strikes.

Also don't hesitate to downsize your lures. Smaller lures are apt to produce more bites from lesser quality fish, but on tough days, smaller fish are better than no fish at all.

And finally, rotate locations. When the water temps reach the upper 80s and hotter, fish become less active because it burns up their metabolism. However, they still feed--just for shorter periods. At times like this, pros often will rotate their fishing spots, keying only on those where they know the fish live. Under these conditions, you don't have to worry about slowing down or scaling back your lure size because, as one pro explained, "they'll eat anything when they feed."

If you accept the conditions, stay confident, and fish with patience, you'll catch fish, insist the pros. "The secret to being a good angler," according to old-timer Denny Brauer (right), "isn't knowing how to catch fish when they're biting. It's being able to catch them when they're not."