Junk Fishing, Pattern Fishing Or Fishing An Area

Spend much time around professional anglers and you begin to realize that success often follows one of three approaches to tournament fishing.  

• Junk Fishing -Fishing numerous "fishy" spots with a number of different lures, techniques and approaches.  This style usually involves tremendous local knowledge with a wealth of fishing experiences on the particular body of water.

• Pattern Fishing- Locking in on to subtle patterns that fish are using throughout the lake.  This involves figuring out a particular kind of structure (depth,) and cover that fish in the lake are using.  The key to pattern fishing is being able to duplicate the pattern in enough areas to catch a winning weight.

• Fishing An Area- Involves an angler locating a population of fish that seem to either be residents of the area or are making a prolonged use of the area and its bass holding characteristics.  Fishing an area involves using what bait or presentation that it takes to get fish to bite and very often involves changing up over the course of the tournament as the fish themselves change.

Mark Tyler of Scottsdale, Arizona demonstrated his ability to effectively fish an area recently in route to winning the BASS Western Open on California's Clear Lake.  Mark fished the same eight spots each day, however each day, changing conditions forced him to abandon the way he fished the previous day.  The result, not only did he weigh in consistent limits, they got slightly bigger each day.

"On the first day, I flipped an Assalt Skirted Ringer (jig) and a tube.  On the second day, most of my better fish came on a Speed Trap crank bait, and on the third day, the fish were all over a spinnerbait." 

Finding a population of bass that can win a tournament is a tough deal.  Making them bite three days is the true test of an angler's abilities.  Mark Tyler passed the Clear Lake Test.