8 Rules To Help You Catch Big Fish
By Spence Petros
Fishing Facts, Sep 1984
Excerpt:
RULE 1 - Fish Where Your Chances Are Best ... deals with selecting trophy-producing waters.
RULE 2 - Be Aware Of Key Times And Conditions... deals with seasonal and weather conditions that usually turned the big ones on, plus some examples of on-the-water peak periods that occur.
RULE 3 - Forage Means Fish... explains how important forage is to game fish concentrations. Briefly, the more forage that's funneled through, collected or drawn to a specific area, the better it will generally be for consistently producing numbers of bigger fish.
RULE 4 - Big Balts For Big Fish.... Day in and day out bigger lures and baits will produce a lot more big fish than smaller-to-medium-size baits, unless dealing with certain adverse conditions that were noted.
Now let's get to the final four rules for maximum effectiveness on big fish.
RULE 5 - ACE-IN-THE-HOLE PRESENTATIONS
I have a standard rule that's almost always followed: If I fish EXACTLY like everyone else on a lake or in an area, my results will pretty much be like everyone else's - average... and that's not a favorite word of mine.
RULE 6 - THAT BIG-FISH FEELING
Of all the rules given, this is the toughest one to teach. That big-fish feeling is similar to a very skilled hunter's sense of awareness. It's more like a feeling that comes over you that seems to signify it's big-fish time or you're on a big-fish spot. Most of these feelings probably stem from years of successful fishing experiences, and only those who have this awareness will understand exactly what is meant.
RULE 7 - LEARN TO 'PATTERN' FISH
Before you learn to "pattern" fish, you should understand what a fish-catching pattern is. By definition, "a pattern is the exact set of water conditions such as depth, cover, struc-ture, temperature, clarity, current, forage availability, etc., which attracts fish to that specific spot and generally to other similar spots all over the same body of water that day." Isolate features which are producing, and try to find similar situations elsewhere.
RULE 8 - MINIMIZE MISTAKES
Unfortunately, a lot of mistakes will never really be cured until they're made. But when a foul-up costs a trophy, you'll remember the hard way.