We had another great question from one of our readers that we felt we needed to address. This gentleman asked why, when he went fishing the other day, he caught lots of fish in areas that seemed as though they had been disturbed by something.
He also wondered why his usual spots didn’t produce as well as these area that obviously had been subject to some kind of unusual, seemingly destructive grinding of the vegetation. Without any pictures to see exactly what he was talking about, we’re going to do our best to explain what most likely occurred.
Here we are in the dog days of summer and the fish are hiding out in spots that provide them the opportunity to ambush their prey without having to expend any more energy than necessary. So, you have a patch of weeds, grass, lily pads or some other form of aquatic plants just doing their usual thing and hanging out.
Enter The Bass Boat Blender
At this point we don’t know what is under there other than the spot looks fishy. Along comes a boat trying to creep in there to get the best angle for casting and for some reason, as opposed to being stealthy, this boat is like a bull in a china shop and runs through the area chopping up everything in sight.
When this happens, by accident or design, it can be a great place to catch fish for the following reasons. When an area is sliced and diced like this, and all manner of things are dislodged, so are the inhabitants of that cover.
The first critters that get displaced are the smallest prey on the food chain which leads to larger predators coming in to take advantage of the fact that these little guys have been flushed from their hiding spots. From there it just goes right down the line as larger and larger hunters come into the area to take their place in line for the smorgasbord. Eventually, the bass will find this area and do their level best to capitalize on these easy pickings.
Fish Like A Scavenger
Enter the angler who, against his better judgement, takes a cast or two to see what happens and is rewarded pretty quickly by a strike. Having caught a fish, he decides to take a few more pokes at it and again hooks up. Why leave a spot when it’s producing? The angler can just stay there for a while and wind up having an outstanding trip all thanks to one, lumbering idiot that lost control of his trolling motor!
No, that’s really unfair. The reality of this situation is that this happens time and time again. As a matter of fact, there are those folks who will go into an area and chop it up intentionally to take advantage of this very situation. I might be letting the cat out of the bag but this isn’t all that uncommon a practice for anglers who find themselves on a body of water without a lot of company and have the time to do this with the thought of returning a couple of hours later to fish the same area knowing that they may have sparked a feeding frenzy of sorts.
So, if you are fortunate enough to run across a spot like this, resist the urge to pass it up off hand. You just never know what you may find without at least taking a few casts to see whether or not someone did you a huge favor! Hope this helps.
See ya’ on the water …