The “home” of the fish (where he spends the greater part of his time – a sanctuary from the changing or hostile environment) is somewhere in the deep, or deepest, water in the area being fished. When in the sanctuary depths, the fish are normally so dormant, or so deep, they are almost impossible to locate or catch.
I think it will be easier for me to convince fisherman of the existence of Santa Clause or Aliens before I will get many people to believe this beginning paragraph. Why?
Because most of us (me too before I learned) fish in depths of 15 feet or less. Most fisherman have only caught fish in these depths. On top of this, whenever we watch a Fishing Show or a tournament on TV there are so few guys fishing DEEP, that how would any of us think fish live in the deep water? I mean the Pros and TV personalities know it all right?
If any of you have caught a fish deeper than about 25 feet, you probably thought it was some sort of fluke and not likely to ever happen again. Quite honestly until someone starts actively catching fish in the deep water, on purpose few will accept this fact that I and many others accept without hesitation.
As long as I am telling you impossible things let me tell you a few more…
000• Most of the water, contains NO FISH. It is said that the biggest percentage of adult fish are in 1% of the total 000))body of water.
000• Except for the spawn, the biggest percentage of the fish never get much shallower than 30-35 feet.
000• All fish in a body of water get active at the same time, although how far they migrate will be different.
Unfortunately nature spoofs a lot of people. Call it survival instinct, nature, individual fish tolerance but there are fish in a lot of different areas of a body of water for the protection of the species.
For most of the year the fish in the shallows are going to be the smaller, younger fish. The highest percentage of these fish will be 3 pounds or less. There will be a small number of larger fish in the shallows, but this is less of a whole species trait and more of an individual fish’s tolerance for the water and weather conditions associated. Generally, as fish age (just like people) they become less tolerant of unstable or extreme conditions (clearer water, cold front conditions, etc.).
The number of larger fish in the shallows can increase if the amount of cover protection from the changing weather conditions is good. But again, if a strong enough change occurs – such as a cold front, even the little fish that spend most of the time in the weeds will go deep and become uncatchable. This is why you can be catching a ton of small fish for weeks and all of a sudden they stop biting. They may not have stopped biting, they just aren’t there.
There are a lot of people who will say a fish needs to come shallow to feed. However Bass will eat at any depth on anything that gets into their strike zone. A large bass has no trouble eating a 3 pound fish or bigger at any depth it chooses.
So your next question is “Why do I catch fish shallow when you say that all the fish are in the deep?” I didn’t say that. I said the biggest percentage of the biggest, oldest Bass are in the deep water most of the time. In fact most of these fish die of old age and not from anything else.
HOME OF THE FISH
Bass Digest/February, 2014