Fast vs Slow

[fishinwrench]

7 minutes ago, joeD said:

I thought I was fast and smart. My wife caught me in 1991, using the less is more approach. I was a lunker that succumbed to a slow and steady retrieve, ensnared before I even knew I was caught. Unfortunately, I was kept, and not released.

Yeah well, therein lies the difference between pre-spawn and post-spawn. 

You are definitely post spawn now. So a pretty little thing walking across a parking lot might get your attention but you probably won't go chasing after her.   Drop a hooker in your lap though....and there's likely to be trouble.

[Mitch f]

11 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Just imagine that you are a big ol'bass sitting in a brushpile.  You sense something tickling it's way closer to you, so you lazily turn to see.....   Awwwe it's a pretty little worm, look at it with it's glossy tungsten head and pretty little sparkles.   I just love those, they are so cuuute.   Don't hurt it !

Now, same bass..... A big nasty looking brown and black snake suddenly comes crashing down almost hitting you in the head.  SONUVABITCH!   Gulp!  

It's like sitting in a lawn chair on a gravel bar when a butterfly comes flittering by, vs. when a horsefly comes ripping by your head.   Which scenario makes you jump up ready to kick some @ss ?

I get your point Wrench....But I've also heard KVD say that he pitched 14 times at the same log before the fish took it. Before the swimbait craze took over, the preferred method for catch a big bass out West was chunking a live craw into structure and waiting it out.

[joeD]

What happened? One minute a callow youth, now a post spawn malcontent typing opinions to complete strangers on a computer.

[joeD]

In the future, when fish talk, we will know why they eat our lures that have hooks in them. Until then, ........

Wrench, the only trouble will be that the "hooker" (do we call them that now?) will be disappointed that she landed on the wrong lap and will walk away confused about men....

[DownStream]

This seems really basic to me, but fish would rather have an easy meal and spend less energy, if the opportunity  prevails itself. That being said, I throw it all until something works,and then I stick with  it. 

[fishinwrench]

Knowing why they ate your bait is irrelevant.  Doesn't matter.   But knowing why some days they all want to eat it, and other days it seems none of them do....Now that's the perplexing part.  

And how interesting that the discussion has now turned to women and hookers.

Why are we men so fascinated by things that we'll never EVER understand ?  We are obviously programmed for ultimate failure.

[RSBreth]

Never call Malarkey - after all, he would risk getting shot for a stupid Luger:

 

Seriously though - I've caught my biggest Bass of all three species on both my slowest presentation (Suspended stick bait just sitting for a minute or more), and one of my fastest - ( burned compact spinnerbait) - so it really depends on the situation at hand.

So that's clear as mud I guess.

[Old plug]

It all comes to being in the right place at the right time doing it the right way.. No matter if it is female ot fish. Knowing  those three things is the the difference between a climatic conclusion and not. It ce It certainly helps helps to have good solid infleuential training in either case.

 

[Al Agnew]

18 hours ago, DownStream said:

This seems really basic to me, but fish would rather have an easy meal and spend less energy, if the opportunity  prevails itself. That being said, I throw it all until something works,and then I stick with  it. 

Yeah, that would seem to make sense, but....

Fact is, bass are consummate predators.  They can swim a lot faster than we can reel.  You can't reel a lure fast enough to escape a bass if it wants it.  And in reality, in warm weather when their metabolism is cranking, they don't really expend a lot of energy chasing down a fast moving lure from a few feet away.  And they don't think complex thoughts, they react to stimuli.  So they don't consciously weigh energy expenditure versus energy gained.  If it looks edible and has some positive cues and not negative ones, they try to eat it.

But they also react to slow movements by NOT always making a quick attack.  If it's moving slowly, they tend to approach it slowly as well, which gives them time to pick up on any negative cues.  Maybe there aren't any, so they eat it.  But maybe there are, and they turn away.  A fast moving lure forces them to make a quick attack, and they don't have as much of a chance to pick up on the negative cues.

But the thing is, both approaches work.  Sometimes either will work just as well, other times one will work better than the other.  So fish the way you feel most comfortable fishing.

[Al Agnew]

22 hours ago, Mitch f said:

I get your point Wrench....But I've also heard KVD say that he pitched 14 times at the same log before the fish took it. Before the swimbait craze took over, the preferred method for catch a big bass out West was chunking a live craw into structure and waiting it out.

One time when I was a kid, Mom, Dad, and I were fishing Wappapello.  It was a slow fishing day, though we'd caught a few nice fish.  There was a small, deep stump field that Dad fished a lot because once or twice he'd caught a couple of big fish there, but I always tired of fishing it pretty quickly because we usually caught nothing there, and because the set up to fish it made it pretty difficult for anybody but the person in the front of the boat to get in any good casts.  On the other side of the boat, out in the middle of the channel in about 15 feet of water, was an old log with rootwad on the bottom and the far end barely emerging from the surface.  I was bored with fishing the stump field and that log was a nice cast length away, so I made a cast over there with a crankbait (back then, our most used crankbait was a Hellbender, and I was using a frogback one).  I felt it come over the log and reeled on in.  I made another cast.  Nothing.  Another, nothing.  Ten casts to that log, nothing.  Dad kept fishing the stump field, and for whatever reason (boredom), I kept casting to that log.  On the 20th cast, I caught a 6 pounder!