Good anglers know that the strongest mindset pits you against the fish. But there’s no denying the impacts of fellow anglers, and finding less pressured fish can be the key to catching bass. FLW Tour pro Alex Davis is all about minimizing the impact of pressure on fishing by finding grass offshore that most others won’t spend the time to dissect.
“It’s probably largely overlooked because you can’t see them; and, because the grass beds can be so big, nine times out of 10, people don’t want to spend the time to fish them to find them,” Davis said. “It’s almost a lost art anymore — going fishing.
“If someone can’t ride over a grass bed and see the fish on sidescan, they don’t want to waste time fishing for them. But that’s something I love to do, and I feel like I’m good at because I’m stubborn.”
Elite Series pro Jason Christie agrees to an extent but has changed his approach in recent years to what he calls “fishing off the graph.” Essential to his change has been the developments in modern marine electronics.
“You have to use your eyes under the water, and for me, that’s Garmin’s new Panoptix LiveScope,” Christie said. “Back in the day, with traditional sonar, you had to be right over top of the grass to see it, but with LiveScope, I can fish the grass before I get on top of it.
“This opens up the lake because I don’t have to fish the stuff a lot of guys are fishing; I can fish stuff under the water that nobody else can see.”