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Good question John. While diving, I spend most of my time trying to go with the flow and ride the current to conserve energy. Whether I’m cruising a beach or a rocky shoreline I expect to see the bass coming at me, into the current; this happens more time than not, but there are so many exceptions you can’t consider “into the current” as a general rule.
The biggest misconception that anglers have about fish and how they hold to structure is that they picture a bass sitting behind a rock like a trout in a stream, this very rarely happens.
You have to think of stripers as fish that are almost always on the move. If you have a favorite rock, let’s use “plug rock” at the mouth of the Charlestown Breachway as an example, don’t think it’s a great spot because bass (either one or a school) are stationed there waiting for the baitfish to flush out of the inlet. The same holds true for what you “think” you see when you read a fish finder and the sounder shows fish “stacked up” next to the down current side. In both cases the fish are not just parked there, they’re constantly milling around or “shoaling.” They visit these hot spots at various times during the day and then they go on to some other happy hunting grounds.
I can count on one hand how many times I’ve found bass stationed behind a rock, tucked into a crevasse, or waiting in a gully, and even when I’ve seen this happen, they’ve been transfixed on some particular type of bait. I would imagine they made their initial approach, much like a lion, and momentarily settled in an area where they could make a quick ambush attack. This doesn’t mean they spend the day there, they’re probably only in that spot for a few minutes and that’s it. In high current situations like “The Race” or in a narrow channel, bass are not glued to a certain location, not even inside the shadow line next to a bridge, they are on the move. It’s just that they confine their movements to the areas that create eddies or block the current and they move alongside the length of the shadow line.
If I’m surfcasting from a beach I’ll expect the fish to be running just outside the trough where the baitfish will be schooling and I’ll expect them to come in at the bait from any given direction...except off the beach. If I’m casting to the outside of a line of boulders I’ll anticipate that the stripers are working the edge…the same with a drop off. That’s why it’s important to work an area that is often productive for more than just a few minutes. You might be in the right spot but just not at the right time…and that could mean that fish are moving in and out of that area every ten or fifteen minutes…especially if there is bait around.
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