Do you always have to mimic local forage?

[BassProAddict]

I fish domestically and internationally.I've been exposed to several lakes with different local forage.Some have this, some have that.

Some lakes have never seen crawdads.Some don't have big shad.

Question is, do you have to match the local forage?

[lookincalifornia]

remeber steve kennedy won a tourney on clear lake last year with a rainbow trout swimbait. clear lake does not stock trout.

i have caught bass out here on a perch colored rapala.

[BassProAddict]

Worms really make me wonder...are there really A LOT of these floating,swimming and crawling on lakes? Why do bass love 'em so much?

[Slyster]

YES.. what does a senko like lure offer for local forage? Nothing. But they work so well!

[BassProAddict]

Bass are crazy

[Deitz Dittrich]

Remember my friends, bass have a brian smaller than a peeanut. They aint smart as we are.. .LOL.. they are also very curious creatures, and unfortunatly for them , god did not give them hands to pick tuff up.. so they must put it in their mouth to figure stuff out..

No, you dont have to mimic local forage. In my opinion it doesnt hurt you if you do, but really all you need is their attention and get the curios ennough to want to pick it up and check it out.

[ocf1]

IMO it doesnt matter cuz think about... if you are fishing where the bass are there is most likely going to be the forage there, if theres too much forage what are the chances he picks out yours? I mean you can make it appear injured but id rather put a perch in an area with sun fish than a sunfish bait.

[BassProAddict]

So for all we know we could throw a strobe light that emits sound and scent underwater and MAYBE catch bass???

Seriously then what's all the fuss about super realistic baits? I mean I've fallen prey to marketing ploys over the years and makes you think what the heck are beavers, brush hogs, kreatures etc supposed to be?

A follow up question would then be: Are some baits more "dispositioned" to catch more/bigger fish at certain places than others? If yes, then why?

[Nick Kuhn]

If you can tell me what kind of forage I'm mimicking with a 5 o'diamonds spoon then I might be inclined to say yes. But no, you catch bass on some of the most obscure things you could imagine. They'll even come up and hit bobbers...

[BassProAddict]

So does this kill the "ultra-realism" of lures especially swimbaits?

[Deitz Dittrich]

BPA- thats not really what I said... I dont think it hurts for a lure to be realistic. Swim baits do work. But I dont think you "Need" to mimic the forage...

One thing to note, maybe with ultra realistic baits you may have a better chance at a larger fish. Big fish get big for a reason.

[polarsusd81]

Good point Deitz. I think that mimicing available forage can play a huge roll at times, but at other times just about anything would pull them in. You can't tell me a wacky senko looks like much of a native species swimming around here. But what about the Bronze Eye Frogs? You get towards the late summer early fall when the frogs make their way off the shore and out into the muddy bays to hibernate for the winter, and you throw a frog bait in the slop and you can have a banner day if you got the right equipment to do it. I had a day last September with my buddy on a metro lake, 2 hours, 10 bass over 17" with the biggest right at 21.5.

The biggest bass I have seen in Minnesota in person, was on the end of my brother's line when we were pretty young. He was casting an old safety pin spinnerbait with a jig head and a plastic sunfish body. That thing came out of the water a couple times and ended up breaking off.

I think there is a time and place for natural baits, as well as baits that look nothing like available forage. It is our quest as anglers to figure out the difference between the two.

[BassProAddict]

Aside from Kreatures,Brush Hogs and Beavers, what are some of the most bizarre, non-forage-on-earth-is-like-it looking baits you've ever seen?

[SnipeZilla]

couldnt it be argued that every bait imitates local forage in some way? a creature style bait that looks like nothing natural above water could look like a crappie or bullhead in a stained, murky lake considering the profile of the bait in the water. and a spoon just mimics the flash of the side of a fish. Texas rigged anything could look like just about any forage. I throw texas rigged salamanders all the time and i cant say i see too many salamanders swimming around the lakes i fish. So long story short, doesnt it just come down to the overall profile of the bait in the water?

[rockman]

I would venture to say that lures with the photo finish that mimic the forage exactly may have a time and place to be fished, and actually catch fish, but most of those lures really appeal to the angler, more so than the fish.I think about the bass caught in times gone by on Johnson silver minnows, spinnerbaits, and buzzers like a Floyd's buzzer,and none of these lures is an exact mimic of any kind of forage.Those lures sure do elicit reaction strikes from bass, along with the myriad of plastics that are available.I think it really depends on the lake, and the forage base in that lake as to how close of a mimic an angler has to, or doesn't have to make.

[BassProAddict]

Baits catch anglers more than they do fish...(see lure addiction confession thread)