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Posts: 7036
Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | more baits = more bait switching = less time with a bait in the water. fish eat things that are moving in the water, not baits in the boat. to quote Doug Johnson, "if it moves, its food"
Less baits = less baits switching = more baits in the water = more fish in the boat |
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| Agree |
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Location: Contrarian Island | totally agree... |
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Posts: 1310
Location: Washington, PA | disagree. Of course, we've had this argument how many times? |
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Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | YUP ... |
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Posts: 1996
Location: Pelican Lake/Three Lakes Chain | Not a doubt in my mind! |
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Posts: 724
Location: Southern W.Va. | Some what in agreement BUT when fishing new water, I like to have a w-i-d-e choice of lures and colors to choose from. When traveling to new waters , you never know what colors or lure types are needed to cover water conditions. Once there, lure choices are narrowed down to less and less.
Just me $.02 worth
Mauser |
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Posts: 222
Location: Hartland, WI | How long does it take to switch baits??
20 seconds??
Lets say you switch baits 30 times a day = 10 total minutes??
I don't think it matters much.
Disagree. |
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| Disagree
Different tools for different situations |
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Posts: 1046
| Agree, the more you switch baits the less confidence you have! Even if you change baits 100X in say a 1/2 hour of your fishing day, all you are doing is watching different baits all day! Not working on boating fish. Less baits in the boat the better, you should be able to figure out what you need for the water you are fishing! |
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| agree
but i don't think the issue is time - over the course of the day switching lures (even often) doesn't add up to alot of time lost.
for me, if i'm switching lures alot it means i'm not thinking...i'm busy "hoping" that i'll find the magic lure to catch a fish.
not to say that switching presentations isn't part of the thinking process - it can help tell you what's going on.
it's just that doing it alot/randomly is usually a bad sign for me. |
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| Disagree, bait switching w/o reason is lack of confidence and/or planning. Just cause they're in the boat doesn't mean you have to use them. |
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Posts: 203
| disagree,
last fall front of the boat throwing believer back of the boat throwing bobbie bait. down one stretch of shoreline i caught 43" and 41" , lost a high 30" fish on figure 8 and raised 3 more fish one was 45".. Buddy didn't see a fish except for mine. I know that fish i raised was 45", the next pass my buddy switched lures to a suick and caught that fish on his third cast.. also caught a 34".. If he wouldn't of switched he wouldn't of caught anything..
So is it important to switch even when you know the prime window is closing? absolutely
But the more casts you get out the more chances you have..You've got to have that feeling that it is time to switch and not rely on a time frame... " oh i've been casting for 30min. time to switch..
Bret "Fish hard or go home" |
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| He may have still caught those fish..sometimes and I think most, it is the placement of the cast more so than the lure...Ben |
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Posts: 1185
Location: Iowa | Agree and Disagree...buying baits is soo much fun though... |
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Posts: 27
| Agree with Perc....buying is way more important (fun) than switching. I'm thinking of having my paychecks directly deposited to Thornes. |
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Posts: 691
Location: nationwide | I believe the important issue is not to be changing baits when working spots. Changing baits while in a no wake zone or traveling between spots does not interfere with your ability to fish a spot effectively. I usually have three or four rods rigged with multiple lure types and if I must change during a spot I will usually grab an already rigged rod to save time and try not to be digging through my tackle box while on a spot.
It sure seems like a stupid little detail but how many times have I caught fish while one of the other guys in the boat had his head in his tackle box? LOTS. I am to the point I don't even put on or take off a jacket, take a drink etc while fishing a spot because I do not want to miss that 20 feet or so of water coverage because there could be a fish there. It sounds stupid and I am almost embarrrased to admit it but it probably puts an extra handfull of fish in the boat each year.
I chew on buddies all the time for putzing around when we are fishing a spot and tell them to get their bait in the water and do the other stuff when we are leaving the spot.
Efficiency to increase your odds - that's what matters - and if you are on a good spot and you are in your tackle box . . . . . . your odds bottom right out.
Corey Meyer
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Posts: 32885
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I have many lures. I use about six a day. I carry about thirty. That's me.
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Posts: 141
| I bet we all have had experiencies where sticking to a couple of baits all day has paid off...
and days where changing baits to find what the fish want has paid off also. |
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Posts: 466
Location: Pittsburgh, PA | i always bring my plano 3750 (i think thats the model) thats filled to the max (about 60 baits) but most of the time i will only use 4 or 5 unless i get frustrated, then ill switch up to about 8-10 times. then, i will switch if a discourteous boater or fisherman gets too close (within a casts length) to the biggest bait in the box and start whipping that around in their general vicinity. hey, it works, they move along real quick. |
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Posts: 2515
Location: Waukesha & Land O Lakes, WI | I agree...I do own a ton of baits, but for the most part fill a styrofoam bait bucket for my day trips.....maybe 10 baits. |
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Location: Contrarian Island | to clarify..I think the more baits you bring can lead to more bait switching but that really doesn't cut down on bait time in the water by much at all over the course of a day...some days I'm a bait switching freak if I am not moving fish, some days I may throw 3 baits all day if they are working..just depends..but I think the more baits I bring along and have on the front sidewalls leads me to look down like a kid in a candy store and try new baits quite frequently... |
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Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | 5 baits ...... should use the rest of the crap, but the starting lineup usually gets the job done. |
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Posts: 8778
| disagree, and it's not because I must have thrown 30 different lures Monday...
Sometimes it takes a while to establish a pattern. Once you get fish moving on a certain color or a certain lure, there's no reason to keep switching, but until then, IMO if they're not moving on it, there's no reason to keep throwing it.
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Posts: 158
Location: Eagan, MN | I agree w/ Lambeau. It's not really a time thing. It's more about concentration. It can be hard to read water when you can't get your mind out of your tackle box.
Kind of a function of the water you are on, though...
On big water w/ lots of spots and less pressure you are probably better off simplifying your lure selection and try to find and hit as many good spots as possible. It's more of a location game, where the fish are more likely to hit, so show them something big to get their attention and keep moving.
On smaller lakes with pressure (WI, Twin Cities Metro) everyone already knows where the fish are, triggering them is the problem. Playing the bait changing game (w/in reason) can pay off. I still think though that if you fish a particular water regularly, you will find a few baits that produce consistently and you should stick w/ them.
I don't think you ever need to try 30 baits to find something that works --- there aren't 30 muskie baits on the market that are appreciably that different from each other!!! |
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Posts: 720
| Hi,
I agree with that 100%. I think its more important to stick with a few baits that you are confident in using rather than switching all the time.
Dave |
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Posts: 484
Location: St. Louis, MO., Marco Is., FL, Nestor Falls, ON | Constant changing of baits reflects not catching fish. Out of frustration, we change baits trying to find the magic lure that will produce fish. I have been guilty of that more than I care to admit. In recent years, I usually have 4 rods already rigged with basic bait; i.e. topwater, glide/jerk, twitch/crank and bucktail/spinner. I change between rods as the conditions warrant. I still carry way too many baits in the boat (about 60). But that's for me and my friends and is also my secret security blanket. Probably 90% of the time I'm fishing the 4 lures I have rigged for that day, with only occasional changes.
My success ratio has gone up as my fascination with lures has gone down. Keep the bait in the water. Concentrate more on how and where you are fishing rather than what you are fishing with. Good advice given me that helped. |
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Posts: 8778
| I should clarify
I keep three rods rigged with three different types of lure (i.e. bucktail, glide bait, crankbait). I may have been exxagerating when I said 30 lure in a day, but I usually change colors often early in the day if I'm unable to establish a pattern. If I'm somewhere where I know black and orange is a great color, I start with some variation of that on all three rods, and may only switch lures a few times during the day. If we're not moving fish at all, I'll keep trying different baits and different colors until I get a fish to move on something. Once I get a fish up on a particular lure/color, though I'm married to it for the rest of the day, LOL! |
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Posts: 8778
| How do you guys approach lure selection? Color first lure second, or lure first color second?
Edited by esoxaddict 4/29/2005 5:50 PM
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Posts: 1046
| I pick the lure first by what I want to accomplish with said bait, then if need be ajust by color! Seems the more years I fish and the more fish I catch, I use ALOT less bait choices. |
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