Fan polls show that Paul Elias is one of the most popular anglers in the sport of bass fishing. And one reason for that is that he's an excellent fisherman, as is proved by a BASS Masters Classic win (1982) and, more importantly, his current No. 5 world ranking.
So when he has advice about what it takes to stand head and shoulders above other fishermen, it comes with that weight behind it.
Pay Attention to Subtleties
"I'd like to pass along what I think separates the Rick Clunns, Denny Brauers, Gary Kleins and people like that from the rest of pro fishermen and everyone else," Elias says. "What makes them such good anglers is the ability to see the little, subtle parts of a fishing area that can be easily overlooked by the everyday angler."
By that be means crawfish holes on a bank, a certain combination of aquatic vegetation that holds bass in a small area, certain type of rock or even a color of rock, he says.
Noticing these subtleties happens by "being more aware on the water," says Elias. "It's very important that a person take the time -- instead of trying to make 100 casts a minute or 100 casts in 5 minutes -- to look and really become aware of what's in the water."
Ask yourself, "What's there? What's causing the fish to be there? Is there something to key on that can be used to pattern fish on the rest of the lake?"
This is "deeper than pattern fishing," he notes. "It's getting an understanding of the environment the fish are living in and why they're doing what they're doing."
Champlain Example
While practicing for the now-canceled FLW Championship on Lake Champlain, Elias used the above skills to find a largemouth pattern.
During practice, "the places I was finding largemouths were places lot of the guys were having trouble finding largemouths," he says.
The reason was that Elias paid attention to subtleties. "I realized that patches of some type of leafy grass grew a few feet off the bottom in the deeper milfoil," he says. "You couldn't see it unless it was calm and sunny, but the fish were hanging in those patches. Anywhere I found concentrations of largemouths, that leafy grass had to be there with the milfoil.
"Those kinds of things can be overlooked even by pro anglers," Elias says. So "once you catch some fish in an area, get in there and really look. Find out why they're there. Look, and then turn what you find into a pattern in other places."
