Northwest Fishing Reports

When I first started bass fishing, I was completely focused on fishing fast and covering water in mostly shallow lakes for LMB. Spinnerbaits, Jerkbaits, Lipless Cranks, and topwater covered 80% of my fishing with the last 20% being texas rigged plastics and unweighted plastics. I would only fish plastics tight to cover near the bank. This left me with good fishing mid spring to mid fall with nothing in the colder months.

When I moved to E. WA, I had to learn to fish structure and deeper water. I became more SMB focused and learned to throw deep diving cranks and gravitated toward tubes instead of grubs when fishing deeper water. I found myself throwing spinnerbaits much less and focusing most of my time on jerkbaits and cranks. Again, not much fishing from November to March and I still mostly hit easy to see cover and structure near shore.

Moving back to W. WA with a stronger desire to fish for bass more often throughout the year, I've really had to learn new techniques and find more fish on offshore structure. I bought new electronics with bottom imaging and I now have no clue why I never fished more finesse presentations. I'm probably now fishing 70-30 with drop shots, jigs, and wacky rigged plastics making up the better part of my time.

I feel like I catch more fish and can adapt to more lakes. Sure, I can still fish fast but I'm much more selective about when I choose to do so. I basically forced myself to fish a new technique until I learned it or totally gave up on it. I still have a lot to learn with jigs and I still hate to carolina rig.

What are the ways you all like to learn a new technique? My biggest challenge is not having immediate success to give me some feedback on whether I'm doing it right. What baits do you want to learn? I'm wondering if I should focus on a few presentations and get really good with them or if I should be a jack of all trades guy. You always hear about how one guy is a finese guy, or a pitch/flip guy, or a power/speed guy.

I hear you! When I was younger and just learning my favorite bait was whatever I caught the last bass on and I was hard pressed to put it down for the rest of the year. This was good and bad, because I was so stubborn I became determined to find a way to fish said bait until it worked, like slow rolling a spinnerbait in 20-25' of water. Nowadays I can pretty much see a technique on t.v. or the internet and go out and fish it the next day, time on the water I guess?

One trick I used to do to FORCE myself out of my comfort zones was to leave the house with only one variation of a bait. I may have 3-4 rod combo's but every one of them had some form of that bait on it. That way I had no choice but to fish a new or 'weak to me' technique all day. This actually worked pretty good!

I like to be versatile on the water. I want to catch them the way I want to catch them these days but I like going out some days and seeing just how many different techniques I can get bit on?! That gets fun. I think breaking away from shore is the hardest thing for most bass anglers to do, but boy can it be worth it!

So far today, Ive got one one a shadow rap shad, five on a#11 Rapala Jerk Bait, two on a crank including a 5 pounder, one on a tube, and about fifteen on a drop shot with 500 rockbass mixed in.

I have been having fantastic luck recently floating crappie tubes under a bobber, for surface feeding smallmouth.

No love on plastic worms, spoons, plugs etc. that I would otherwise have used for these bass.

It's important to have confidence in whatever new lure/color/technique you're trying. To gain that confidence, I'd suggest going to a body of water that you know to have abundant 8"-11" bass. Wear those out for a day or two and you'll be ready to tackle (pun intended) anyplace and everyplace. At least, then you won't waste half your fishing time tying knots or digging through your tackle looking for something different to try.

After awhile, you'll get to a point where you're willing to try something new that's way out in left field, but you'll still have confidence that it'll work. Why? Because showing 'em something different is always a good thing. It doesn't have to be NEW, just something they haven't seen every day for the last month.