Entry 114-4

George Cochran and the Keys to Catching Bass

Don't Be Afraid To Change

Editor's Note: This week George Cochran, two-time Bassmasters Classic winner and long-time Strike King Pro Team member, will tell us how he fished five tough tournaments and the tactics and the baits he used to survive in them. Often to do well in a bass-fishing tournament or to catch bass on the weekend, you have to use somewhat offbeat and often seemingly inappropriate techniques and lures. Here's a look at how Cochran handled five tough tournaments.

Cochran: Often we get too comfortable when we're bass fishing. We're using one lure and catching the bass that we want to or need to take. Rather than giving up that pattern that's working for us and changing to a different pattern that may or may not produce bigger bass, we'll stay with the lure and technique we're using with which we're comfortable and that's catching fish.

I was fishing a tournament on Kentucky Lake and Barkley Lake once and was catching good limits of bass using a Wild Shiner jerkbait by twitching it around bushes. But, I didn't have those big fish bites that I needed to do well in the tournament. So the last day of the tournament, I got off the horse that had kept me in the race, which was the Wild Shiner, and decided to start fishing a big top-water lure. The wind picked up and created a little chop on the water, making this big top-water lure appropriate for the weather conditions. But I had to gamble. I had to be willing to give up the Wild Shiner technique that had produced such good-sized bass for me throughout the tournament. After making the change during the last hours of the tournament, I caught two, 6-pound bass just before the tournament ended. Those two big fish really moved me well up in the tournament and caused me to place about twice as high as I would have placed if I hadn't changed baits.

One of the key factors affecting my fishing in that Kentucky tournament was that the weather changed. When the wind picked up and created a little chop on the water, I knew that the chop would allow me to fish a bigger surface lure and possibly catch bigger bass than I'd been catching. So, you have to be conscious of your fishing environment throughout the entire time you're fishing. When weather and water conditions change, oftentimes you have to be able to identify those changes quickly and give up a lure that's producing for you to fish a lure that will increase your odds for catching bigger fish. One of the hardest things a fisherman can do is to lay down a rod that has the lure on it that has been catching bass and pick up a different rod with another lure that requires a different technique that hasn't produced any bass for him. Many times, the quicker you can change from a technique that's producing fish for you to a tactic that may produce bigger fish for you, the quicker you can start catching the bigger bass.

Don't be afraid to experiment with your fishing when you're catching bass. Our natural tendency is to switch lures and techniques when we're not catching bass. But when we are catching bass, we want to stay with the lure and the tactic on which we're catching bass. However, if the bass you're catching aren't big enough to win a tournament or aren't as big as the bass you want to catch, then don't be afraid to lay down your hot lure and pick up and fish a lure that you think may catch a bigger bass.

Next: Weird Worms




 

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