Fishing Barometric Pressure   (frontal)

    After the fronts move through, you will have a period of roughly 3 days before the bass begin to get back into normal habits and patterns.  When faced with postfrontal fishing, the best technique is fish vertical.  The bass will have their nose stuck to the cover on blue bird days after fronts and a presentation that puts the lure on their nose works best for me.

    Try pitching lures to cover that is vertical like trees, docks or stumps.  Use heavy jigs if only getting bit out of a reaction when the lure passes their nose, or if they are taking the lure but just very non aggressive.  Most times use a lighter jig with a bulky trailer to slow the fall.  Senkos also work great on the slow fall days.  A spinning reel on these days will let the Senko to glide right next to the cover without swinging away.  For the jigs, just pull line so it falls.

    Another technique to try is running spinner baits and shallow crank baits into the same cover after you work it over with vertical lures.  Other areas that are great are the first deep drop or ledge near the areas the bass were before the front.  The water temp will remain much more stable deeper and the bass will often pull out to these areas and hold there until the pressure gets back to normal after the front has passed. 

    And when fishing the days before a front hits, the bass are easier to catch and work lures faster around the same areas you had been catching them before.  When the fronts are on you and the day after, many times the winds will have the water looking like mud.  That is another reason to fish tight to cover.  Bass don’t feel secure when they can’t see inches in front of them and they will hug the cover.  Like if we were in a dark room, we would not feel safe out in the middle of it, we would back up against the wall in the corner so we had some security.  A bass will do the same thing.        

    High pressure is a tough condition to be faced with.  Normally this occurs on the first day of a tournament, after several days of great pre-fishing.  Just kidding, but at times, it sure seems that way.  When a front passes through, especially a cold front, the pressure will normally rise, after the front passes.  Most times, there will be bluebird skies, high winds, and tough fishing.

    Look for fish to be in two locations.

      1 - Buried in thick heavy shallow cover
      2 - Suspended along ledges over deep water.

    Both scenarios can mean tough fishing.

    The shallow cover is often the easiest to target.  Flipping a jig, or worm, right into the middle of the cover will produce a few bites.  Normally, the fish is going to be against the center of the brush, tree, etc, and fishing the edges is not likely to produce.  Look for the type of things that are the least abundant.  If there were stump rows everywhere and a couple rock piles then fish the rock piles. 

    For the suspended fish, baits like the Senko, Fluke, or trick worm, as well as suspended jerk baits can produce fish.

    If the fish are deeper, try a structure spoon jigged in front of the fish, using your electronics, and also, consider downsizing and using a Slider worm, or a small Roadrunner.  Stay shallow unless you know the place well, or you know that there are a lot of fish in it, if not, then stay shallow (less than 8 ft).  This also will also help eliminate a lot of water.  Also fish points on an unfamiliar body of water for a different pattern.  Use your electronics to find what depth you can locate baitfish on and fish that depth at numerous points.