(Editor's note: The following is the latest installment in a series of fishing tips presented by The Bass University. Check back each Friday for a new tip.)
John Murray had a good thing going fishing western tournaments, where he won dozens of boats over the years, but on tour he’s often headed to new bodies of water. When he moved from Arizona to Tennessee a few years ago, it opened up another brand new world. While he likes fishing unpressured waters, when he’s competing he’s often going to the best fisheries at the best times, which means that the parking lots and community holes are filled.
It doesn’t help that technology and the anglers themselves are better than ever. “Guys know where the bass live now,” he said. If you go to a popular lake and throw the standard lures, you may have moments of glory but you’re also going to get disappointed and/or beaten a lot of the time.
When he’s going to a new lake, Murray has a checklist to follow. He’ll start by pursuing seasonal patterns, then he’ll pick a section in which to try them, “and just start fishing.” If he gets a bite or two, he’ll try to replicate the conditions. But what about when there’s a boat on every obvious point or dozens of them choking up the best grass beds? Then he’ll try to vary his presentations.
“I would tend to downsize the bait first,” he said. “Then I would probably go to the opposite spectrum, so if it’s red I’d go to a bright chartreuse ... and then I would really worry about what I’m doing with that bait. I wouldn’t just be throwing it out and reeling it in like everybody else.”
His most important tool, however, is between is ears: “Really, what the deal is with pressured fishing is an open mind.”
One technique he uses to cultivate that way of thinking is to approach familiar lakes with new techniques. He’ll take a lure he’s never used there, but knows can be productive, and tries it out. “It becomes a new lake to you.” The example he thinks of is when splitshotting was introduced out west. Suddenly areas that he’d never fished, or that hadn’t produced, became ultra-productive. He started looking for water that he’d previously thought of us infertile. “It changed the whole lake for me.”
Another point he stressed is that anglers shouldn’t be afraid to downsize. Coming from the west, he was fluent with finesse techniques out of necessity, but in the traditional bass belt of the southeast there are still anglers who resist the call of spinning gear. Again, modern technology has made the refusal to try it a self-defeating effort.
“The best thing that ever happened to spinning tackle is braid,” he said. “You can cast it farther, you can feel it better.”
If you want more information about how Murray attacks pressured bass and new waters, including a story of a time when 3-pound line made a monumental difference, check out his full video, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
