How many times have you found fish in practice using a certain technique, only to return during a tournament and not be able to even get a bite? Bassmaster Elite Series pro Chad Pipkens offers up some solid advice this week on the best ways he has learned to force feed those same fish, and get them to react even if they aren't in an active feeding mode. "If you fish enough you are going to run into a scenario where the fish that were feeding so aggressively during your practice just won't bite for you during the event. Nine times out of ten the fish are still in the same area but just aren't wanting to eat," says Pipkens. He relies on three general rules of thumb to get inactive fish to react in this scenario. "The first thing I am going to do is change my retrieve, whether it is speeding it up or slowing it down. Secondly, I am going to change up the color of the bait I am fishing. And finally I'm going to change the angle, whether that involves fishing up the hill on a ledge versus down the drop, or just the angle of my casts to give the fish a different look." Pipkens concluded.
