As he makes cast after cast, each one a thing of beauty, a two-treble Rapala crankbait gently touching down in contact with brush but somehow never getting snagged, Bernie Schultz is asked to think out loud about how he approaches the search process.
Standing in the bow of his boat, his posture resembles that of a blue heron stalking the shallows, and Schultz explains that his strength is stalking the shallows.
“I’m looking shallow most of the time,” says the Florida pro, who is at home chasing bass or inshore saltwater species. “Generally, there are going to be more fish distributed along the bank, particularly in the springtime. So looking shallow is the best way for me to compete. My basic approach is very lateral, horizontal. I use baits that cover water. I make long casts, starting with reaction lures, crankbaits, jerkbaits, that kind of thing.
“Those baits might not be the best choice on tournament day, but they give you some kind of response from the fish (so you can get them to betray their location, at least). It gives you something to go on.”
In this series, we are always trying to show how the approach of a tournament professional should be imitated by even the most casual weekend anglers. After all, even if you have no logos on your shirt, the challenges you face are the same as those of the pro trying to cash a check in high stakes competition.
Schultz, ever the thinker, knows that he might be missing out on fish by not methodically probing deeper water. “Looking deep is a tedious thing,” he says, “especially in a big, deep reservoir.” He nods in the general direction of a distant boat fishing a deep-water spot and talks about deep cranking masters like Jason Quinn and David Fritts. When he doesn’t have to put together a productive pattern in a couple days, then, of course, Schultz says, he spends time fishing deep-water spots, too.
On many days, there are plenty of shallow-water fish to be caught if you can find them and figure out a presentation that opens their mouths. For anybody who just plain enjoys fishing shallow, the Bernie Schultz approach is a great one to imitate.
Thinking Out Loud
We ask Schultz to think out loud, and the topic of moving water comes up right away.
“I definitely look for current,” he says. “In a reservoir, it might be from the dam. In a natural lake, it might be induced by wind. Moving water is something that can cause fish to position themselves.” It is exactly the same thing trout fishermen in a river look for: creases, current edges, where predator fish can sit in slower-moving water looking for food to be moved past them by the adjacent faster-moving water.
“All I try to do in practice,” says Schultz, “is locate the right areas, places that fish are either holding in, or places they will come to at some point in the day. Or, a place that will replenish itself, where you can catch some and others will move in there.
“One potential problem with shallow patterns is that you can be dealing with rogue fish, individual fish that might live on a certain piece of cover. If you catch that fish in practice, that same fish might not bite again in the tournament. But the thing you have going for you, when you find a good spot, is that the best shallow habitat is occupied by the biggest fish. If you find a brush pile under a key dock, even if you catch one nice fish there, chances are more fish will show up.”
As for his overall approach, Schultz says, “to me, looking for fish is about moving and seeing lots of water. I don’t just look at the exact spot where I catch fish; I also look at what’s nearby, what connects to it.” That becomes critical, he stresses, when conditions change and fish move.
“Even when you locate fish and figure out how to catch them,” he says, “you have to know that the weather is going to change, and you have to assume the bite is going to change, too.”
Most modern anglers are aware that weather changes impact fish. The classic shift comes from the dreaded cold front. Yet, for all the talk about it, few anglers adapt successfully when it arrives.
“You can be spankin’ ’em real good,” says Schultz, “and then it gets really cold. That puts the fish in a lousy mood, and sometimes it concentrates them.”
You really have to go to work when the weather changes and your established pattern quits producing.
“It helps if you have enough experience to understand that, when the bite changes, you have a good idea of how it’s going to change,” he says. “Fish move, and their mood changes. A lot of people just give up when it gets tough, but that’s when you should stay on the water and keep trying things until something works. Keep looking for where the fish went. Keep trying to catch them. That’s how you build that experience level, that confidence base, so you can deal with changes when they come up again.”By: Mark Strand
