Patterns - A Fishing Shortcut

After a couple of days chucking lures on Lake of the Ozarks, Fishwrench.com technical advisor, Jeff Stegner showed up to show me a few hot spots on the lake. Before he even mustered up a "hello", he asked, "What's the pattern?" Like Homer Simpson being asked how he thwarted a nuclear meltdown, I stared at Jeff with the most dazed of confused looks. I was quickly trying to recall the water temperature and depth I was fishing in, the angle of the sun, my shadow direction, and the type of forage the fish were chasing after. Following a few of my hems and has, Jeff stopped me and simply asked, "Where are the fish?" That certainly made the question a lot easier to answer - Kentucky's were sitting over pea gravel in less than 3 feet of water. A pattern is nothing more than an answer to 'where are the fish', and by answering this question after your first couple bites on the water, you can turn a ho-hum productive day into a hot-bite sort of day.

Before hitting the water, I used to study a map of the lake to find my fishing holes. I'd take time of year and depth considerations into account, and then pick the best-looking areas on the map that had my depth and structure requirements. When I got to the hole, and my guess on fish locale was right, I'd usually catch a few fish here, and a few there - it was rare that one entire area would be productive all the time. Even though I was catching fish, I probably wasn't being as productive as I could have been. I knew that my bites were coming in a warm bay with steep drop-offs. That's a good assessment of a pattern at a macro level, but if I looked at my catches at a micro level, I would have discovered that my fish were coming out of warm bays with steep drop-offs where granite met gravel. Knowing this, I could have passed over areas where granite met mud, or slipped into weeds - that wasn't the pattern for the day. Had I focused only on those areas where granite met gravel, I could have motored to several other spots during the day that met the conditions of this pattern, and my fishing would have been more productive. I would have saved time and energy by avoiding areas not fitting the pattern.

It's important to establish a pattern early. Once a few fish have been caught, take an assessment of where they came from. Did they all come from secondary weedy points? Were all of the fish caught on the shady side of docks over gravel? Maybe all the fish came from deep-water rocky holes. On an opening weekend in Minnesota, I was fishing with a friend on flooded Prior Lake. The lake greeted us with the echoing sound of thumping water pumps, moving water out of basements and back into the lake from which it came. The water was so high, backyard picnic tables and other patio furniture was submerged, and not surprisingly, holding fish. It only took a few casts to realize that our pattern for the day would be flipping and pitching to these picnic tables. If a yard didn't have some sort backyard furniture, it wasn't worthy of our fishing efforts. If it hadn't happened to me, I probably wouldn't believe it myself - a day of catching fish from underneath patio furniture - ludicrous. Regardless of how ridiculous the story might sound, it stresses the point of identifying a pattern early and sticking with it to make a day of fishing a productive day of fishing. Of course, I was lucky in that this pattern held up for the entire day. Not all patterns do.

Patterns, like everything else with fishing, change over time. Some last from morning to mid-morning, others all afternoon, while some are just around for a couple of hours. Rarely, do patterns last all day. Once a pattern dies down on me, meaning that I haven't caught a fish my last few attempts at fishing the same pattern, it's probably time to move on. I'll make a few casts into different areas, or toward different types of structure to find the spots where the fish have moved. Once I've caught a handful of fish all under the same conditions, my new pattern has been established, and I can fish those conditions until they too die down. It could be that I wind up fishing three, four, maybe even five to six different patterns throughout the day, but what's important is that I established my pattern early, and was quick to identify when the pattern was no longer productive. This kept me in the fish more throughout the day than if I weren't fishing patterns, which means more fish in my boat.

Pattern fishing equates to productivity on the water. View your catches at the micro level instead of the macro level, and you are better able to zero-in on the hotspots for the day. Ever since that morning on Lake of the Ozarks with FLW co-angler Jeff Stegner, I start my fishing day by asking myself the question, "Where are the fish?" Ever since that morning, my fishing days have been productive days.

Bob Wood