Does Fishing Pressure Make a Difference?

Does Fishing Pressure Make a Difference?

Well this is a very common question among fishing experts and the weekend angler. I would like to key you in on a little thing that I believe to be true. Fishing pressure does have a huge impact on Bass fishing across the nation. I found this out first hand. Here’s my little story of why fishing pressure has so much to do with the way bass react at certain times.

I have fished Lakes Casitas almost everyday since school got out, June 15th. The


fishing has been very tough and not many fish are being caught, and the few that are, are small fish. Lake Casitas has had some type of tournament for the last 2 months every weekend. If it’s a big invitational or a little club tourney, it is getting hammered every weekend by the anglers. Either the tourney is in the day or at night. The fish have no breaks what so ever. This is making the fishing for us tourney anglers tough and the weekend anglers also.

I have been fishing this summer and picking off a few fish here and there, but if you don’t catch fish worth while you lose confidence. That has been the case for me. I have had the worst year of bass fishing in my life of bass fishing. This is due to the enormous amount of pressure on the lake.

Lake Casitas started out the year with a bang. There were many bass over 10 pounds brought to the scales and even a few over 15 pounds. The tourneys came along and the pressure drove them away and made the fish tougher and tougher to catch. Now days, you can barely pick off a few small scraper bass just to keep the rod bent.

I got invited to go and fish a private pond on some land a little ways from Casitas. My expectations weren’t that I was going to do well, due to the time of the year and the owner fishing it all the time. Well he, Morgan the owner, told me that he has fished it maybe 5 times his whole time being there and owning it. He has a few people come and fish it every once in a while. My hopes got higher and higher.

I made my first few casts of the day and the bite was pretty good. My first cast produced me a small bass. As the day moved on and on, the bite kept getting better and better. By the time I had put down the worming rod, I picked up the cranking rod. In three casts I had 3 fish. Awesome! I made a few more quick casts and nailed one more to end the day. By the end of the I had 40 bass all the way from half a pound to four pounds.

In both of these cases, at Lake Casitas and the farm pond was I fishing with the same baits. Drop-Shotting worms and crankbaits. But the less pressure on the pond allowed me to go nuts on the bass. The heavy pressure at Casitas has made for the fishing to be terrible, but the pond was on fire. The same conditions and structures, but the fishing pressure has the fish acting different. In my eyes, if someone fished the pond everyday or as much as Casitas is fished, the bite there would be just as tough.



The weekdays are some of the best times to go. The pressure is off a little and the bass are more willing to bite your bait. I went out one week and nailed huge bass on live crawdads, then went out on Saturday, fished the same spots but the fish knew it was weekend and they quit biting. This show me that the best fishing is during the weekdays and not on weekends.

If you are fishing a lake and the bite is terrible, just think of the type of fishing pressure the lake is receiving at the given time. That’s what makes Lake Casitas such a hard lake to fish. If you can catch fish consistently all year round and under the given pressure you are definitely doing something correct or found some fish willing to bite. I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion as to why the bite is better at one lake from another. I have experienced this by just spending one day at a Pond and a whole month at Casitas, and comparing the results. Pressure is a major role in the way bass act and bite. Remember this, it will make you understand the fish better and help you choose the better times to go and fish your lakes or ponds.

Eric Elshere