You're a flipping fiend, but you're going to a deep-structure lake. Or vice versa. Or you're a clear-water expert heading for the first time to a muddy lowland reservoir. What do you do when you have to fish a lake you know doesn't suit your fishing style?
"First I try to find out as much information as I can about that lake," says Triton pro Paul Elias. Most important is "what area consistently provides good stringers for tournaments -- what section of the lake dominates where tournaments are won."
When Elias shows up at the lake, "I'll try to concentrate on that (winning) area of the lake and won't try to cover as much water," he says. "When I do that, I usually can figure out a good-enough pattern to catch some fish."
Do What It Takes
Elias is known as a deeper-structure fisherman (primarily using crankbaits), and will fish that when he can. But he notes that you have to fish what works.
For example, if a lake is fishing shallow, he's comfortable doing that. "But I try to stay away from bank fishing as much as I can because such a high percentage of guys do that," he says. The shallow water he likes to fish is away from the bank, such as flats with deep water nearby.
But as you might know, many times it's not that easy -- because of the mental hurdle.
"I've seen a lot of guys -- including David (Fritts) and myself -- blow tournaments because they don't want to go and beat the bank," Elias says. "But you can't force-feed a fish that isn't there.
"A perfect example was Lake Murray 2 years ago. We had an FLW and (BASSMASTER) MegaBucks back to back. All the fish (for both events) were on the banks and coming to the banks. There was no structure fishing whatsoever. If you didn't sight-fish, you didn't catch any fish. So I sight-fished and finished 11th in (MegaBucks) and in the teens in the FLW."
And when it comes to making cuts, he adds: "You can't fish your strengths unless you fish."
When To 'Give Up'
But what if you found some fish with your preferred technique in practice or pre-practice and they're not there in the tournament?
"I'm a very stubborn fisherman," Elias says. "If the fish have shown me they're there, I'll usually stick with them. It's cost me in a lot of situations, and also saved me in a lot of situations. I don't feel bad about it if they don't bite because I made a decision and stuck with it. But you have to be careful in practice and pay attention to what's going on."
An example he gave was this year's Guntersville BASSMASTER Tour event. "That's one of my favorite lakes, but this year it cost me the Classic," he says. Here's what happened.
In the pre-fish, he found fish on a blade (spinnerbait) bite in the grass. "I just knew the tournament would be won that way. But the first day of practice I fished a spinnerbait all day and caught 3 fish. I decided the fish had moved out of the grass and went shallow."
He fished shallower during the next 2 days of practice and caught some fish, so he stuck with that in the tournament -- and finished 82nd. That was the last event of the season, and he ended up 44th in the points, about 10 spots out of the Classic.
The lesson here is that "the tournament was won with a spinnerbait over the grass," Elias says. "I made a huge mistake, but you can do that. If you happen to hit places at a time the fish don't bite, you can miss them. You have to go back and check."
The bottom line is that "you can't be too quick to move, and you can't be too stubborn."
One More Factor to Consider
There's another lesson to be learned from Elias' experience at Guntersville. "A lot of fish were biting, so you had to consistently catch a 3-pound average to do well," he says. "It throws you a curve when you're catching 2 1/2-pounders and it's not enough. You don't leave those areas because you're catching so many fish.
"I had to say, 'Okay, I have 12 pounds, now I'll go out here and won't get many bites, but I have to catch a 5-6 pound fish.' The guys who did that ended up doing well, and the guys like me who stayed on schools of fish for 12-13 pounds a day ended up in 80th or 90th place. It's hard to leave a school that's consistently producing 2 1/2 pounders and you know the big ones are there.
"This game is so full of choices that it's easy to make the wrong choice," Elias says, "especially on those kind of lakes."
