TERRITORIAL INSTINCT

Occasionally I catch a bass that strikes out of territorial instinct, and this is a trophy-fish situation. Bass guard their territory just the way a big bear in the woods does: when other bears come around, he chases them off.
As I have stressed, the most important thing in bass fishing is to establish a pattern. That is locate the depth, cover, and structure and couple it up with whatever water temperatures are productive and the water currents and the wind conditions present. Then you know what to look for, and you've got plenty of places to try.
Suppose you establish a pattern, such as a point with big stickups, and you've hit the last three points with big stickups and have caught some fish on every one of them, and you come to the fourth point with big stickups and it looks even better. It has bigger stickups then the rest of them, and there's deep water close by. The wind is just right, and there's some bait there. Everything looks absolutely perfect on that spot. And yet you don't catch fish there.
I've hit places such as the fourth point, and I used to leave and run on down the lake. Then I got to thinking maybe the reason I didn't catch one was that there was a smart old trophy bass lying on that point where he had everything he needed. He's seen bass boats and he knew all about lures, and I'd probably made to much noise. The fact is there should have been some fish there, but maybe since I didn't catch one, there were no small bass present.
Then I'll go back and try for that big trophy fish. Often I will start with a different lure, such as a large plastic worm instead of the 6-inch worm which catches most of your bass. I throw a 9-inch worm rigged up on heavy line with a big hook and put it right against the biggest stickup on the point and twitch it ever so slowly in that spot in hopes that the big trophy bass will be there.

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