The term Pattern Fishing is a big part of the angling vocabulary these days. 

What does pattern fishing mean? 

Interestingly, Legendary bass angler Roland Martin first coined the term Pattern Fishing decades ago. In his words, a pattern is the exact set of water conditions — such as depth, cover, structure, temperature, clarity — which have produced bass at similar locations all over the same body of water.

Successful anglers note the water conditions of a pattern and the bait types, sizes, and colors that are most successful under those conditions. 

Today Pattern Fishing gets applied to many aspects of finding and catching fish. 

For example, you may be able to identify a simple seasonal locational pattern. In spring, a lot of fish concentrate in shallow water. You may also find a particular presentation pattern. For example, it’s cold water in spring, and the best lure is a suspending jerk bait retrieved with a long pause between rips. In other words, determining the best lure and retrieve speed for this time in this situation is a presentation pattern. 

You could also find precise habitat patterns directly tied to weather conditions — such as walleyes biting in the wind on shallow rocks. 

It’s an angler’s challenge to figure out the best pattern every time they go on the water. 

Let’s Join James and AL Lindner with strategies and principles for patterning early season bass in northern natural lakes.