Predicting fish behavior is easy when you understand this simple concept.
Understanding Speckled Trout Behavior
I have said it so many times and I will say it again:
Bass angling is the gold standard.
Some inshore anglers have crazy explanations as to why redfish and speckled trout do what they do. I have heard everything from "speckled trout are scared of hardheads" to "slot redfish are sexually mature".
While those two things are ridiculous, we really don't know everything there is to know about speckled trout and redfish.
Bassing is a Little Different
Biologists have spent decades observing these fish in the wild and captivity, learning their habits and behaviors.
Today, lakes are literally engineered from scratch to yield excellent bass fishing. But it doesn't stop there. Those lakes are stocked with largemouth bass bred to grow into hammers.
Despite having all this scientific data, bass anglers still fall back on a very simple and time-proven concept. One of those bass anglers is my friend Morgan.
One day, he dropped a knowledge bomb on me that really cleared my mind.
Morgan told me: Fish want two things. They want to eat and they want to be comfortable.
I had never heard it put that way before. I was absolutely mind-boggled. And when you stop to think about it, the concept becomes pretty clear.
Think about it: How speckled trout and redfish behave has everything to do with being comfortable and having food to eat.
Conclusion
Whether it's summer or fall, or the fish are spawning or transitioning, they will always need those two things.
Understanding they want comfort and food is where we begin understanding fish behavior. Work from there and ask yourself these questions:
- Where do they go to be comfortable?
- Where can they find something to eat?
- What location has both of these features?
If you can do that, you will catch fish every time. But, more importantly, you will understand why you caught fish.
That's Fishing Smarter.
Thank you, I appreciate the kind words and feel you’ve got a good point there. It’s definitely happened for me.
I think sometimes it’s just helpful to have something said a certain way that helps it “click” in your mind. You hear something at a seminar and you nod and say ‘yeah,’ but it doesn’t change the way you fish. But then someone says something like this article and even though you already “knew” it, you approach the knowledge differently and suddenly it becomes more useful to you – just because the right words are used or arranged differently.
Hey Chris, I appreciate you commenting!
Actually, I feel I drove the point home: fish want two things, to be comfortable and have something to eat.
Obviously that varies from species to species, but is more than enough for an angler to get his “head in the water”, especially in a world where everything else that doesn’t matter (i.e. lure color) gets in the way of locating fish.
Tight lines.
This is a fine concept, but you say almost nothing with this article.