Those of you who follow my columns know that I’m a fanatic about preparation and especially about note taking and mapping. My notes and records could be described as a super detailed fishing log with a ton of specific lake or river information thrown into the mix.
That’s the only way I know how to do things. It makes me a better angler. If you keep a log, I’m sure it helps you be a better angler. The thing is, though, some logs have a lot of information that may or may not be relevant the next time we go fishing.
What I mean by that is information about the lake level, water clarity, water temp, baits, weather and the like. That’s all well and good but if you stop and think about it for a moment you’ll realize those are things that change, things we can’t do anything about.
Where that makes for trouble is that we all fish when we can or when we must, not when conditions are exactly like they were last April. That’s obvious for casual anglers but it’s just as true for professionals. We fish when the tournament is held, not when we want to or when it fits into our schedule.
And so, while you should certainly record all the information I mentioned above, I’d like to suggest some other things that will always be helpful regardless of when you go fishing or what conditions you face when you do go.
Forage
This is absolutely critical. You must know what the bass are eating if you expect to catch more than a couple of stragglers. Fishing for bass feeding on shad is very different from fishing for bass that are feeding on crayfish. How are you going to match the hatch if you don’t know what the hatch is?
Historical areas
Know and mark the historical areas when you go fishing somewhere. A lot of the places you mark might be community holes, but they’re community holes for a reason — they hold bass. Guys catch them there.
The other thing is that almost any community hole will give you a good, solid starting place as you search for your bass. You can move shallow, deep or towards a channel if you know where they are usually found (caught) during the time of the year you’re fishing but for some reason they aren’t there the day you’re there.
Structure
Cover might come and go but it takes years for a lake’s structure to change. This is a good thing. If you know where the major channels, sunken islands, humps and things like that are located you’ll have a better chance of finding bass no matter the season. Make sure that information is in your log and easily accessible when you’re on the water.
Moon phase
OK, this is one you can’t do anything about but it’s so important, especially in the spring, that I couldn’t leave it out.
The moon phase, combined with the month and the water temperature, will tell you when the bass are prespawn or when they’re most likely to be postspawn. That’ll give you a real leg up when you’re trying to find them.
Take the time to make a useful fishing log, and don’t leave home without it.
Mike Iaconelli’s column appears weekly on Bassmaster.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter or visit his website, mikeiaconelli.com.
