Entry 244-2

Spring Fishing with Mark Davis

Part 2: When to Abandon a Working Pattern

Question: Mark, when have you abandoned a pattern in a tournament and followed your instincts, and had it pay off for you?

Davis: I was fishing on Smith Lake in Alabama, leading the tournament. I’d caught all my bass on a Strike King spinner bait. I was casting the Quad Shad and tearing the bass up. The next day, I went out on the water and the conditions looked like it would be a good spinner-bait day. The weather was partly cloudy, and the day looked much like it did the previous day. But the day before, we’d had a big storm, and after 45 minutes of fishing the Quad Shad, I could tell the time had come to do something different.

I had a hard time laying that Quad Shad down because I’d caught 15 or 16 pounds of bass on it the day before. I was a believer. But I knew the spinner bait wasn’t working. So, I totally abandoned that pattern, picked up a Strike King Zero and a spinning rod and reel and slowed my fishing way down. I stayed with the same type of areas where I’d been fishing the spinner bait. But I changed lures and drastically changed the way I was fishing.

I started running water I’d never ever fished. I caught the bass on the Zero, and I won the tournament. If I’d been hardheaded and tried to make those bass bite the Quad Shad like they did the day before, I could have very easily lost the tournament. But the bass had changed, and I had to change with them. The quicker you can make those kinds of changes, the better your odds are for staying in the tournament and having a chance to win.

One of the hardest changes to make is when you’re leading an event and catching a lot of bass. You have to completely abandon what has been a winning pattern and start all over again with a different pattern. The spinner bait is fun to fish. It’s exciting, and if you throw it and wind it enough, you can make bass bite it. The Zero is an extremely-slow fishing lure. You cast it out and hope and pray something will take it. But you have to be willing to make that drastic change when the conditions change, if you’ll continue to catch bass when one pattern isn’t producing any more.

Next: The Shadalicious and the Sexy Spoon

Contents:

• Part 1: Changing Tactics with the Weather
• Part 2: When to Abandon a Working Pattern
• Part 3: The Shadalicious and the Sexy Spoon
• Part 4: The Sexy Shad Color – Gimmick or Reality?
• Part 5: Fish the Big Lizard for Big Bass