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Why a bass isn’t a trout....The differences that are important to the fisherman. - PART I in a series on effectively catching bass with a fly rod. By Buddy Sanders AZOD Contributing Writer
A BASS IS NOT A TROUT. This is a simple statement. But is its application simple? I know it sounds simple, you’d think. Trout are ‘cold water’ fish. Bass are ‘warm water’ fish. They look different, even. They typically inhabit different environments. They are both still fish, of course. Should be easy, right? We’ve been ‘sport’ fishing for trout with fly rods for centuries. Bass are the most ‘popular’ game fish in the world. We know LOTS of stuff about both species. So, why is bass fly fishing so far behind the ‘times’ as it were?
Billions of dollars and hundreds of millions of hours are spent chasing both species. Catching a bass on a fly rod is at least close to as much fun, if not the same or more so, than catching a trout on one. Since almost no one fishes for food anymore, the whole ‘reason’ for the very existence of the sport is the ‘fun’, right? Fly tackle fishing for trout is on the ’cutting edge’ of the pursuit of this species. Bass fly fishing is still in the ’novelty’ stage (despite some big names and a few huge steps forward). You’d think that ,since more folks fish for bass, at least 90% or more do this for enjoyment, and it’s more fun to catch fish on fly tackle, that fly fishing for bass would be MORE popular and have MORE tackle, flies and technique options for it than trout fishing does. That is decidedly not the case.
Unfortunately for the sport of bass fly fishing, the development of flies and fly fishing tactics for bass has historically been done by trout fishermen. This occurred because the majority of anglers who fly fish exclusively, fly fish for trout. When the trout weren’t available, for whatever reason, and bass were, they would try to catch bass. Since what they ‘do’ is trout fish, they approach bass as if it’s a warm water trout. Taking the lessons they’ve learned on trout lakes, ponds, and streams, and applying it to bass fishing. They seldom do very well on bass with this approach, and it makes sense that this is the case.
How you approach the bass as a predator needs to be completely different than how you approach a trout. These species are farther apart in how they ‘feed’ than humans are from cows. Approaching a bass with the same ‘mindset’ that you approach a trout would be like trying to win a NASCAR event on a bicycle. You may finish the race, but the rest of the field will normally finish faster.
For you trout guys, this is the most important thing you need to grasp to become successful at catching bass on a fly rod. I’m admittedly not an ‘expert’ on trout fly fishing. But there are some basics that I’ve experienced and/or read that seem to be fairly consistent:
A trout in a stream can be very selective about what it eats. Most of it’s food is carried to it by the current. The water tends to be clear, and the trout will (or so they tell me) key on very subtle things like colors, shapes, and particularly ‘sizes’, of prey. They aren’t competing for their food (there’s usually plenty of bugs for them to eat). They don’t have to ‘chase it’, it comes right to them. Selectivity of this nature is a survival instinct, since being overly aggressive and taking ‘odd’ prey place the fish at risk (mostly from fishermen, since we’ve been fishing for them for centuries...). They don’t have to be too opportunistic to survive, since the bugs they normally eat are plentiful. Larger trout, those big browns and rainbows, will often become almost bass like, eating whatever they can catch and preferring a bigger meal, Still, they are more ‘selective’ and scrutinize their prey more than a bass will. Shape, color, and size are more important keys for the trout than they are for a bass.
Trout in lakes are in almost the same situation, less the current. Most of their food is comprised of aquatic insects that are swimming either upwards or horizontally in the water column, or are floating on the surface (or in the surface film). None of these prey species are hard for the trout to catch, and in most of the trout lakes in the western US, such food is abundant.
What most trout fishermen need to do to catch a trout is put a properly presented fly in the size and color close to what the trout are eating within the fish’s feeding area. Sounds simple, and it can be, but those words ’properly presented’ can often trip you up. Trout are often ‘picky’ about such things.
All of this explains why ‘matching the hatch’ is so important to the trout fishermen out there. For bass fishermen, ‘matching the hatch’, that is; a close ‘visual imitation’ of their food that moves or behaves in the same way as their natural prey, is unnecessary and often detrimental. In fact, if you spend too much time worrying about that part, you’ll seldom catch many bass. You’re actually better off NOT trying to match the primary forage base.
Unlike the trout, the bass is an ‘opportunistic’ feeder. Under all but the most unusual circumstances, a bass will eat whatever it can when feeding. A bass will eat anything it ‘thinks’ is food and that it ‘thinks’ it can fit into it’s mouth. That usually means prey up to about 1/2 the length of the fish.
Frogs, baby ducks, snakes, rodents, various terrestrial and aquatic insects, even birds that get too close to the water, plus a host of other various and sundry ‘edibles’, are all ‘fair game’ for the bass. And the SAME bass might eat five or ten different types/species of ‘prey’ on any given day, if they are available. When bass ‘feed’ they eat ‘food’. Not ‘shad’, not ‘crawfish’, not ‘minnows‘, just food. They don’t care which ‘food’ they eat. They don’t ‘think’ or ‘reason’, and won’t decide that a crawfish shouldn’t be falling out of the sky into the middle of the bass’ feeding frenzy on a shad school. They see the craw, recognize it as ‘food’, and eat it.
‘Selectivity’ of the sort exhibited by trout is an incredibly rare occurrence for a bass. So rare that serious tournament fishermen discount it completely, and most successful conventional tackle bass fishermen seldom give it any thought at all.
You’ll almost never find that bass are feeding on a ‘snake’ hatch, or a redwing blackbird hatch, or even a ‘frog’ bite. Even though bass will eat each of these things, with the exclusivity of tail water rainbows feeding on midges, or small stream brook trout taking blue winged olives. It just doesn’t happen that way. Bass are different. Not better, not worse, just different.
There are currently zero mainstream bass lures that are ‘functionally realistic’ (look and ‘move‘ just like the real thing). Lure designers have the capability, and more importantly the funding, to produce almost exact replicas of just about ANY type of prey that a bass may eat. The ability to make them move ‘realistically’ is unchallenged, but they don’t do it. Even the realistic looking trout shaped plugs that have taken so many big bass over the last few years have some type of built in action, either a diving lip to impart a ‘wiggle’ or an ‘action tail’ which makes this part of the lure swing from side to side or vibrate. We have the technology, we have the money, we CAN make a fish that swims exactly like a fish (or a crawfish that moves exactly like a crawfish, etc.). No one does. Why? They don’t work very well.
It works like this. A bass may be happily munching shad from a huge school. There are literally hundreds of thousands of these prey fish that it can easily catch and eat within a tail flick. It will still hit a plastic worm with abandon within seconds of taking a mouthful of baitfish. A bass that is holding next to a submerged tree, within easy striking distance of a whole school of bluegills, will strike a black jig that falls near it. A smallmouth that lives in a stream full of easily accessible crawfish will still hit a popping bug, even though it is not actively feeding at the time.
Also unlike the trout, the bass is an ambush predator. How most bass catch their prey is by staying still, often ‘hiding’ in some type of underwater cover or shade line, then darting out to ambush passing prey. This is due to the fact that the majority of what a bass eats is capable of fleeing or hiding from the bass. A bass ‘hides’ from it’s prey when it can. Trout don’t need to do this. Insects don’t ‘flee’ from the trout.
Bass also eat, or take in their food, differently than a trout does. A trout ‘grabs’ or ‘bites’ it’s food. A bass is an ‘engulf’ feeder. Bass don’t grab their prey with their jaws. When a bass ‘eats’ it flares it’s gills while opening it’s mouth, sucking in a large volume of water along with it’s prey. The bass closes it’s mouth and expels the excess water through it’s gills, leaving the prey inside the cavernous mouth. There are ‘crushing plates’ on the top and bottom of this cavity. In the next step, the bass crushes it’s prey to kill it before it turns it for swallowing (it’s during this part of the ‘bite’ that the bass can, if it detects something that alarms it about the bait, expel it just as fast as it took it in). A bass ‘biting’ a lure is in reality ‘sucking’ it in, along with a large slug of water.
Things like color and size and shape are rarely as important to a bass as are the action of the lure or fly. Bass key in to other things. The motion of a lure is much more critical for successful bass fishing than the size, color, or shape of the bait. Bass look for an easy meal. The gauging of the relation of work expended to calories gained is instinctual in the bass.
In most situations where bass exist, they are right at or near the top of the aquatic food chain. As such, they are genetically predisposed to attacking and eating the sicker, weaker, or injured among available prey. Just as the lion will single out the weakest in a heard for it’s dinner, so the bass keys on the injured or weak among it’s prey. They are easier to catch, thus less energy expended.
What this tells us, as fishermen, is that we need to make our baits stand out from the natural food around the bass, rather than ‘match’ it. Your bait needs to act like it’s hurt, dying, struggling, or disoriented… in a word, easy to catch. A bait that behaves just like a healthy swimming bluegill won’t catch many bass, regardless of how closely it looks like one.
When most aquatic life is dying it typically does one of two things. It floats while struggling to submerge, or it sinks while struggling to rise. Unlike the trout’s food in a lake, which moves mostly upwards or horizontally, the bass will key on prey that is sinking downwards, etc.
Now, as bass fly fishermen what does all this really mean for us? All of this tells us ‘how’ and ‘where’ to fish for bass. And, with a bit of creativity, it can help you with the ‘what’ to fish with for bass.
Presentation is, and always has been, the key to consistently catching bass regardless of the tackle type you use. The basics of presentation are quite simple.
You have to find the fish. You have to put the bait where the fish can see it (the bass has to be aware the bait is there). You have to put the bait where the fish will strike it (the bait has to be within the fishes ‘strike window‘). You have to present the bait in such a manner that the bass will strike it (the bass must recognize the bait as either food or a threat).
The most obvious, yet certainly the most overlooked and least understood aspect of bass fishing is the find the fish part. One truth to bass fishing is this: You can’t catch a bass where there aren’t any bass.
From what we know of the bass’ behavior and feeding methods, we have clues to help us find the fish. Bass are ‘edge’ creatures, spending the vast bulk of their time relating to transitional features in their environment. If you put a small school of bass in a featureless round tank, they will scatter and be disoriented to the point of not feeding. Throw in a single penny, and the bass will ALL be relating to this terrain feature within minutes.
This has to do with the bass’ physiology. Remember that the bass is primarily an ambush predator. It has evolved to enhance this. The bass is short and deep, with large fins, a broad, powerful tail, and a huge mouth. It’s built for short bursts of speed. Bass are colored so that they can blend in to their surroundings. They prefer to have some type of transitional effect between them and their prey, making them less visible. Shade and background are the primary factors here. A bass in the shade of something is difficult for a prey species in direct light to detect. A bass looks out into open water with some type of cover behind it that it’s coloration blends into, etc. This tells us where a bass, particularly a feeding bass, will be in it’s environment.
Look for bass at the edges of things. Differing bodies of water have more or fewer of these, but all of them have at least two. The bottom of the lake extending to the shorelines, and the surface of the water. Expect to find the bass where any edge is interrupted by some type of change. Brush or fallen trees along the bottom of the lake. A log protruding through the surface of the water. A ridge or ledge along the bottom (points are ridges along the bottom), etc. Start with general features and work to the more specific, i.e.; a long point is the ‘general’ feature that attracts your attention. You look for something that’s different on it, a brush or weed line, piles of rock, a sunken car, etc. Once you find one or more of these, you fine tune it: a change in the type of brush or a change from brush to weeds along the same area, a differing bottom composition, or an abrupt depth change. Always look for edges and then any thing different along the edge.
You have to put your bait where the bass can see it or be aware of it. Bass are primarily sight feeders, and in only the most extreme conditions will a bass ever eat something it can’t see. In clear water, bass can see incredibly well. Most of our desert lake and pond environments are clear water fisheries, and our bass rely on sight for feeding even more than those found in more stained waters.
The bass also has a highly developed sense of hearing (the ability to pick up vibration). Sound, or the ability to detect vibrations in the water, help a bass detect it’s prey at a distance. Sound (vibrations) travel five times faster through water than they do through air. If your lure hits the water within twenty feet of a bass, the bass will know it’s there.
Smell or ‘taste’ only comes into play at very close range, but can be a deciding factor in a bass not striking a bait. Smell is NEVER a primary reason a bass stikes it’s prey. Scents don’t ’attract’ bass (sorry to the scent makers out here, but that’s a fact). What this means is that scent/flavor can only be a negative key. If a bass gets close to your bait and it has an odor that the bass senses is ’wrong’ the bass is unlikely to strike. If it does strike, and your bait gives off a ‘taste’ that the bass doesn’t like it will spit out your bait. A bass won’t approach a bait it wouldn’t normally strike and then decide to strike because it smell ’good’. Scent can be a negative key, but is NEVER a positive one (commercially made scents do have a valuable place for bass fishing, however. They work as ‘masks’ to cover up any unwanted odors that will get on your lures or flies).
You have to put the bait where the bass will strike it. This is different from the ‘bass can see it’ part. Even though a bass is ’aware’ of your bait doesn’t mean it will strike it. Bass strike for only two reasons. They intend to eat something, or they intend to kill or drive away something. Food or threat. For the strike to occur, the baits distance to the fish must be within what we call the ‘strike window’. This ‘strike window’ changes, often on a frequent basis, depending on the ‘mood’ of the fish. It’s usually larger for the ‘eat it’ response, and smaller for the ‘kill it’ response. An actively feeding bass might move over fifty feet to hit a lure. A bass not actively feeding or in what they call a negative mood, might only strike if something came within a few inches of it. A general rule is that closer is better.
Even though a bass might not be hungry or actively feeding it will still strike if it feels threatened by the bait. Since bass are opportunistic predators, once it decides to strike because it feels ’threatened’ it will go ahead and eat the offending entity once it’s caught it. It may also strike a close offering, even if not hungry or threatened, because it sees it as food, and since it’s a close easy meal why not?
Last, the bait has to be something the bass will recognize as food. There are two elements to this. First is the ’what to fish’ part. Not as hard as most fishermen make it out to be. It’s important, but less so than the location items above. Bass aren’t too picky, really, and a reasonable bait in the correct place is more critical than a ‘perfect’ lure in the wrong place. We’ll get into this part in more depth at another time.
The second part is HOW you work the bait, or the baits built in action. Remember the part about the bass keying on dying or injured prey? You’ll need to learn to manipulate your flies so that they imitate distress. Some baits have this ‘built in’, on most, you have to manipulate and fish the bait in particular ways to achieve this action. Without it, you won’t catch many bass.
The differences between the bass and the trout are quite striking. If you remember them and apply them when approaching a bass fishing situation, you’ll find that you’ll catch many more bass.
In the next installment of this series, we’ll discuss the theory of bass flies in general, some simple specific flies that fit certain applications, and some ways to get more bass to eat your flies. Up front I’ll tell you that it will be radically different from any other bass fly information available, and geared specifically to our waters in this area of the country. -END-
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