By Louie Stout

Avid fishermen like to use a term that some anglers don’t quite understand: The pattern.

A “pattern” is proven methodology used to find and catch fish on a specific day. It can be a type of lure, how the lure is worked, depth, or any number of environmental factors. The best pattern is one in which you figure out all of those elements.

It’s like putting together a puzzle. The sooner you get all the pieces in place, the better your success will be on a given day.

It’s a system bass fishermen use but it also can be applied to just about any other kind of fish that lives in our natural lakes.

Although all fish can be difficult to catch, they are predictable in some of their movements and habits, especially after they spawn.

This time of year, they are motivated by food and comfort, the latter of which can include safety. They often school by size; there can be multiple patterns ongoing throughout a lake, but there’s usually one or two that produce the bigger fish.

My outing recently on an inland lake with buddy Chuck Powell is a good example.

We expected the bass to be along the weedy drop-offs and we were right. However, as the day progressed, we began to notice that, if we fished a long stretch of drop-offs, the larger fish were positioned at very specific spots.

While we expected the fish to be around underwater points of the weeds, we found them on edges that turned abruptly toward the shore or cut into the point and where schools of bluegill were holding.

We caught a four pounder, a three pounder, a 15-incher and several smaller fish in those specific areas, and the bigger fish came in late morning when most people stopped catching fish shallow. We caught them in about 10 feet of water on jigs and soft plastics.

My point isn’t to boast about our successes – we should have figured it out sooner and done much better – but it demonstrates how patterns come together and can make a difference in the quantity and quality you catch.

We could catch an abundance of smaller fish shallow, but knew the bigger bass were moving into their summer patterns along deeper edges.

A lot of bass fishermen seek the lee side of the lake when it’s windy, but this time of year, the wind is your friend. It pushes plankton (aquatic organisms) against the weed edges and that draws the forage (small bluegill) that feed on it. Bass are there to feed on the gills, using the vegetation as an ambush point.

Every fish we caught had the wind blowing into the spot.

The wind not only stirs the water, it distorts sounds on the surface, which makes bass more aggressive and adventurous. The absolute worst condition is dead calm on a bright, sunny day.

While bass and bluegill patterns can differ considerably, it’s important to be cognizant of the conditions where you catch quality fish – regardless of what you’re targeting - and the environment in which they were holding. Lure type and color can be important, but only if it best mimics the type of forage the fish are eating in that area.