When bites are few and far between you need to make an adjustment to catch fish. The first thing you should try is to downsize your offerings.

I can remember a day many summers ago when I was on a small lake in West Virginia and I was getting bites but not nearly catching as many fish as I knew where there. I immediately reached into my storage compartment on my boat and grabbed a five inch version of the same bait I was fishing. It was lights out! Over twenty fish later I realized by simply downsizing my bait I was able to entice the same group of fish that saw my seven inch version only moments ago into biting without hesitation. I guess if you think about it we do not always want a double cheeseburger, sometimes just a small little hamburger will cure our hunger or look more appetizing to us. The same applies with fish and their outlook on feeding.

The good thing about downsizing is that it works everywhere in the world. I have yet to fish a body of water that in some way downsizing helped to put fish in the boat. You can downsize anything from spinnerbaits to soft plastics. There are also many times when a smaller profile spinnerbait will get more attention than the normal large size spinnerbaits. I feel it is time to downsize when I am getting bites with no hookups or no bites at all. This usually means that my bait is not the right size that the fish are keying on.

When downsizing soft plastics I like to use spinning gear with lighter line when the conditions allow. Spinning gear lets me make more accurate casts with smaller baits and I am able to feel the bites better. Remember to downsize everything about your setup. The hook, weight and bait all need to match up to make this effective.

My favorite baits to downsize are small finesse worms, spinnerbaits and topwaters. You may get alot more smaller fish to commit to your bait but it’s better than not catching fish at all, especially if the money is on the line. If you find yourself struggling to catch fish on your next trip try downsizing your baits, it may just salvage your day!

Keywords:  Downsize  |  Spinning Gear 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Fishing Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.