Keep your baits moving!
Unlike crappie or bluegill fishing, bass are far more active and require anglers to be more assertive. This means that anglers would need to use different casting and retrieving techniques along with a variety of different lures and jigs to entice that bass to strike. Additionally, having some general knowledge about water depth and weather conditions will significantly increase your odds of landing that next bass (we will talk more about water depth and weather conditions this in a future article). Understanding the bass’s natural habitat and food source will also increase your chances. Based off what we know, bass love hanging under cover. This means you can find them at or around boat docks, stumps, brush, overhanging trees, or even around pieces of floating or sunken logs.

Bass behavior has inspired a wide range of rods, reels, and artificial baits that give anglers a competitive edge on bass fishing. We’ve learned that bass are not bottom feeders, filter feeders and do not feed on aquatic vegetation or lifeless carrion. Bass are active predators and prefer to hunt moving pray. They are likely to ambush and or stalk their pray before making that final strike. Bass have learned to rely on a visual system that is specifically meant for detecting and analyzing movement. This means that they are always on the lookout for signs that indicate an active live bait or a bait in distress.

With this in mind, this is why it is always good to keep your baits moving! Use different retrieval speeds and different lures that might reflect light the best. The important thing to remember here is that presentation is key. Bass analyzes it’s pray based on movement, so be sure that you are presenting that bait in its most realistic form.

Also, bass lose interest when baits are moving at a constant speed. Bass will sometimes stalk a pray that is moving at a constant speed and will not strike that bait until the moment it speeds-up or slows-down. Again, bass will strike based on movement.

So the next time you are out fishing bass, be sure to use a variety of speeds on your retrieve and don’t be afraid to twitch that lure from time to time. You might just find yourself catching that next big bass. Well, we hope this information was helpful to you and we wish you the best of luck on your next fishing trip. Until next time, take care and tight lines!