"I think anglers need help focusing on their lure choices surrounding windows of seasonal bass behavior," he said. "Essentially, I'm talking about understanding when and what lures to throw in certain circumstances, so that you're able to catch bass consistently all year long."
As he went on to explain, "Every body of water has patterns that consistently happen every year, around the same time every year, because, much like us, fish are creatures of habit. Ironically enough, I find anglers are less students of bass habits as they are fishing tackle. In other words, they are quick to latch onto a favorite lure, rather than a favorite bass behavior."
Sealock has six tips to help you improve your bass fishing by understanding the windows around where you fish. His first tip is to document data, especially on good trips. Keep a record of the date, the water temperature, whether the water was clear or dirty, and what lures did and didn't work.
The second tip is to be a fish psychologist. Putting an area together with the best lure to catch them is developing a pattern, which is the key to the windows in bass fishing.
Said Sealock, "I've spent a lot of time learning where the bass are during a given season, even within the same season how they change, on the lake I fish the most. When you're able to do this, you can predict when the fish will be in certain places and when certain lures catch them the best, either because of where they are or what they are eating.
"The simplest way to pattern fish is to fish a lot of water with multiple baits that make sense for the season and location. As you start to catch bass, see if there are other ways to catch them in the same areas that are maybe a little more effective.
"It's generally easier to stick with seasonal trends, like looking deep for winter fish, or looking shallow for spring and fall fish and work out from there. The warmer the water, the faster and more you can move baits, while the colder the water, the slower and less you want to move them.
"Once you figure out a solid pattern at a specified time of year, take good notes on it."
Tip No. 3 is to test more when fish are biting. While Sealock will try several different lures in an area before moving on, because of the windows he's figured out on a lake, he knows when certain lures are going to produce and others aren't. When he really makes an exception is when fishing is good.
"When I'm catching a lot of fish, I experiment," he said. "If you're not on the fish, or the fishing is very tough because of environmental factors, it's usually better to bare down with one lure and technique and work through a lot of later. When you start catching a lot of fish, though, it's a good idea to see if there are more efficient or better ways to catch fish in the area with other lures or other techniques.
"For me, learning that I can catch them on five baits in a certain window always is better than only having one option."
The fourth tip is to hit your proven stuff, as well as unknown areas. Sealock makes a commitment to himself on every outing to hit several proven areas in the window he's fishing. However, he also wants to find at least one new good area, spot, interesting cover, or something that he feels will be a bass producer, either in the current window or a future one.
"If it's ledge season on Kentucky Lake," he said, "I try to hit a few proven ledges, but I also spend a lot of time looking for new stuff off the beaten path. If it's a shallow flipping window, I'll look for new creeks, pockets, maybe an isolated laydown or bush, and give the area a test.
"If you do this for just a few years, you'll be surprised how quickly you build a complete matrix of windows and proven patterns and areas that you can keep coming back to year after year."
Tip No. 5 is bait can be the biggest clue. According to Sealock, the key ingredient for most good areas and patterns from year to year is the presence of food. He's gotten to where he spends as much time learning about baitfish, crawfish and other things the bass might eat in given windows.
"While weather has a big influence on whether a bass will be in the same areas at the same times from year to year, the presence of bait probably has a bigger impact," said Sealock. "I've often argued that weather patterns don't change the fish we're after; they change the bait.
"Wind might push the bait into a shallow feeding area, and the bass move in to trap and eat. The influx of mud might push the bait to cleaner water, and now the areas of grass I was flipping are replaced with cleaner areas. A warm influx of rain from a runoff could bring the bait up shallow on the bank and cause the bass to follow. Sunny days could position the bait in the shade pockets, and gamefish will follow."
The sixth and final tip is become a student of the weather. When Sealock goes to the lake, he likes to know what the conditions have been and are going to be and hypothesize about what impacts that will have on the typical windows during the year. If the lake has been warming for several days in the winter, he knows the fish are going to get a little more active. The bait might move a little bit. If warm rain has come into the lake, it can change things. Water getting muddy can change windows. Wind also can change the windows. So he tries to track all that stuff around his fishing.
"It might be confusing to some," said Sealock, "so I figured I might jot down my matrix of windows (see below). Obviously, other windows might develop. And this list of windows may not work on every lake or any of the lakes you fish. That's sort of the thing. You have to put in the time to figure out the windows of fishing on your body of water. Hopefully, though, this example drives home the point of finding great fishing year-round where you fish.
"As you read through it, keep in mind I constantly pay attention to when one window is closing. It generally means the next one is opening. Sure, they sometimes overlap. Sometimes they don't materialize, or maybe they go from being four weeks long one year to one week long the following year. However, I find these windows open and close nearly the same time every year, and I get to where I look forward to the next window every year."
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