Entry 336-1
How I Hate to Fish with George Cochran
Editor’s Note: George Cochran of Hot Springs, Arkansas, winner of two Bassmaster Classic Championships, the FLW World Championship and many other tournaments over his long and illustrious bass-fishing career, is one of the most-versatile and knowledgeable fishermen on the professional bass-fishing circuit. Cochran is viewed as a tournament competitor who can create bass, meaning he catches bass in places that generally don’t hold bass to win tournaments. However, like other pro fishermen, there are certain types of fishing Cochran dislikes. But, he has to overcome those dislikes to win. The biggest secret in bass fishing is learning to catch bass under conditions you don’t like to fish.
Part 1: Fishing Places You Really Don’t Like to Fish
One type of fishing I dislike worse than anything else is when the tournament circuit goes to the north, and I have to fish for smallmouth on those big, northern lakes. Northern smallmouth move around a lot, but my style of fishing is to get into an area, learn it and fish for largemouth bass. Most tournaments fished on those big, northern natural lakes and the Great Lakes will be won by smallmouth fishermen, and I hate fishing for smallmouth. When you fish for smallmouth up north, you’re fishing open water, and you have to drift around and use your trolling motor to continuously look for new places to fish around invisible structure.
Once you find and catch the smallmouth one day, you may return to that same spot the second day and learn the smallmouth have disappeared. Then you have to start searching for the bass again. Every day you fish for smallmouth, you usually have to relocate them and then see if you can make them bite. These are the types of tournaments where I fish the worst. Most times I get frustrated because I’ll have a good practice and then go to the places 
where I’ve caught smallmouth during practice, and the smallmouth will have vanished.
I’ve talked to the fishermen who’ve been very successful on this kind of water, and they admit that they look for new bass just about every day. Once they locate those smallmouths, they’ll catch their limit in one spot. With largemouth fishing, I can stay in one region and catch largemouth every day, because these places usually replenish themselves every day. When I learned that I couldn’t beat the smallmouth, I decided to join them. I changed my mindset to realize that every day I smallmouth fished in a northern lake, I had to go on an Easter egg hunt to find the bass before I could use my Strike King lures to catch them.
Contents:
- Part 1: Fishing Places You Really Don't Like to Fish
- Part 2: I Hate Deep-Water Fishing
- Part 3: I Hate to Chase, but I Love the Sexy Spoon
- Part 4: I Hate to Fish Slow
- Part 5: I Drop Out of Drop-Shotting
