(or, The 7 Factors That Decide
Almost Everything on the Water)
If you’ve hung around any fishing-related forums for longer than five minutes, you’ve seen the classic “What do I throw here?” post that includes absolutely no context for readers to run with.
It’s practically become an inside joke at this point. It’s almost a rule at r/WWYTH
“Please add location or target species for better suggestions!”
(With trolls, of course, offering their own tongue-in-cheek content parodying the very posts we’re talking about here…)
I mean, it was funny once...
In all seriousness, though, it’s not a complaint. It’s not gatekeeping. It’s just… the truth:
When it comes to fishing, vague info gets vague advice.
Because someone’s “perfect fall lure” in Texas might be useless in Maine. And what crushes in a muddy pond won’t make sense in a clear river. Heck, what worked in your own little spot yesterday might not work at all today.
And there’s always a reason for it, even if it’s not immediately clear what that reason is.
It’s these unseen factors that more seasoned anglers can discern from other contextual information — as long as you’re able to give them that much.
Now, nobody expects beginners to know everything. Most of us started with the exact same “uhh… what do I fish here?” question.
This guide simply gives you the basic info that makes your questions easier to answer. So instead of starting every conversation with “It depends…”, you’re already halfway to good advice before anyone even replies.
And guess what?
You’ll get better at understanding “what you should throw here” — and why — before you even reach out for more guidance.
(And when you do, you can ask more specific questions that’ll get you even further along in your fishing journey in the future.)
With that in mind, let’s break down the seven things that matter most to determine what to throw and where.
What species are you fishing for?
If you’ve never caught a fish in your life, and have no idea how or why catching a bass is different than landing a catfish…
Start there.
Do a bit of research on your own to begin with. Learn what type of fish swim the lakes around your area. Watch videos of anglers landing different species at different times of year. See what’s gonna interest you and fit your day — before you just start casting into the unknown, for the unknown.
Why it matters
“Fall fishing tips?” means nothing.
“Fall bass from shore in a clear pond in New England?” means everything.
Different fish means different gear, depth, retrieval speed, and bait. Trout in a cold stream, bluegill in a pond, and catfish in a muddy river might all live in your zip code — but you won’t catch them the same way.
Quick rule:
Name at least one species you’re targeting. That choice alone will narrow your path — and make fishing so much more enjoyable from the start.
Where do you live, and what type of water do you fish?
This is the first “environment check” that shapes almost everything else you’ll do on the water.
You don’t need lake names or GPS pins. Just a clear sense of where you are and what kind of water you’re fishing.
Why it matters
Different regions grow different fish, support different forage, and create different conditions.
And different water types behave nothing alike:
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Ponds warm fast, cool fast, get choked with weeds, and keep fish shallow most of the year.
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Lakes and reservoirs have depth changes, structure shifts, and multiple “zones” that can fish differently in the same hour.
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Rivers add current that changes where fish hold, how they feed, and what presentations make sense.
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Tidal creeks swing entirely with the t–...well, you know.
Knowing your region + water type instantly narrows down the realistic patterns, the fish likely present, and the techniques that make sense.
Quick rule:
Aim to identify two things:
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Your region (state or general area)
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Your water type (pond, lake, reservoir, river, tidal water)
Those two clues alone filter out 80% of the noise and give you a clearer starting point for understanding what’s actually happening in front of you.
What’s the water (or air) temperature?
Fish care about temperature, not what month it is.
Why water temperature matters
A few degrees changes everything:
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Around 60–55°F: bass will still chase. Think moving baits, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, swimbaits.
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Around 50–45°F: things slow down. Jerkbaits, light jigs, Neds, small paddletails. Long pauses.
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Around 40–35°F: fish glue to the bottom and pick their spots. Now you’re in float-and-fly, tiny jig, “one good bite all day” territory.
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20s air temp, skim ice on the bank: you can grind with jerkbaits and finesse rigs… or you can join the “I’d throw another log on the fire” crowd. Both are valid choices.
Temperature is also tied to all the weird stuff you notice: dying weeds that smell like rotten salad, super-clear water after turnover, or that “everything just shut off” feeling.
That’s nature, baby. Learn it, love it, and catch more fish in it.
How clear is the water?
Understanding water clarity is one of the fastest ways to understand how a body of water will fish — and what a lure actually needs to do to get noticed.
Why water clarity matters
Two ponds can look identical in a photo and still fish completely differently.
A tannic, tea-colored Maine pond with 3–4 ft of visibility calls for quiet plastics and subtle swimmers. A dark-green summer creek with low visibility needs louder, water-pushing profiles — chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, rattling cranks.
Clarity also explains a lot of the “why was it so tough today?” mystery:
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Cold + clear: fish get spooky → smaller, slower, more natural.
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Warm + muddy: fish still feed → but you must help them find the bait.
Quick rule:
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Clear water: smaller profiles, natural colors (green pumpkin, brown, translucent), slower retrieves, longer pauses.
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Stained water: slightly bigger and slightly louder. Greens with chartreuse accents, 3–4" swimbaits, compact jigs.
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Muddy water: darker or high-contrast colors, larger silhouettes, more vibration or sound — chatterbaits, Colorado blades, rattling cranks.
Once you understand clarity, you can look at a pond — chocolate milk or glass-clear — and immediately cut your lure options in half without guessing.
How deep is the water?
Depth dictates whether a fish will ever even see what you’re throwing.
Before you overthink it, though, you can cheat a little: contour maps (like Fishermap’s U.S. charts) will at least tell you whether the lake has real drops or if it’s basically a giant soup bowl. On small ponds or creeks without maps, you can still get surprisingly close from shore with a few tricks.
Why It Matters
Fishing 6 feet of water and fishing 26 feet are two completely different games.
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Bank anglers are usually stuck in 0–6 ft, even when it’s winter.
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Boat/kayak anglers can sit over 15–40 ft and fish straight down.
That’s the difference between someone recommending a Texas rig, a jerkbait, a spoon…or just a plain ol’ earthworm.
If you don’t understand (or notice) the depth you’re actually fishing, you end up mixing techniques meant for completely different zones.
Still, you don’t need sonar or an exact measurement. You just need to know roughly how much water you’re working with:
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Shallow: 0–5 ft
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Medium: 6–12 ft
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Deep: 13+ ft
If you need to guess, just use the info you’ve got:
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Can you see bottom 5 ft from shore?
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Do weeds top out just below the surface?
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Does the water suddenly shift from sandy/tan to dark?
If you’re on a boat:
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Drop your lure straight down near shore where you know the depth (say, 1 ft).
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Count how long it takes to hit bottom → that’s your “seconds per foot.”
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Cast out, keep the bail open, and count until the line stops sinking.
Cover & Bottom Type
What you’re casting into is almost as important as where you’re casting to catch.
Every lure choice — weedless vs open-hook, moving vs bottom-contact, light vs heavy — depends on what’s under the surface.
Beginners miss this constantly. It’s why a crankbait turns into a moss magnet, or why jigs vanish between river rocks and send you back to the ol’ online bait shop. But once you can recognize cover and bottom type, lure choice becomes way less random.
Real quick: Cover vs. Structure
People mix these two terms up all the time.
(Even the pros use them interchangeably from time to time.)
For our purposes…
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Cover: Things on the bottom, like weeds, moss, pads, brush piles, timber, docks, laydowns, algae mats, cattails, fountains, culverts. Typically, fish hide in cover.
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Structure: The shape of the bottom. Points, ledges, channels, bowls, humps, drops, saddles…anything fish can position themselves around.
Why It Matters
Different bottoms demand different rigs:
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Weeds / Moss: Go weedless; Texas rigs, flukes, swim jigs, and frogs.
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Rocks: Use baits that won’t wedge or die between cracks, like Neds, tubes, football jigs, grubs, and blade baits.
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Soft muck: Light weights or weightless plastics that glide instead of punching down.
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Heavy wood / brush: Texas rigs, weedless jigs, flukes.
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Scummy ponds: Accept that some crud is unavoidable; use rigs that shed 80% of it.
Bottom type also reveals “high-percentage” targets, like a lone stump, medium-sized rock, or even a man-made pipe outflow.
Quick rule:
Structure tells you where fish set up. Cover tells you what rig survives.
Learn both, and you’ll always know what to throw — and, perhaps more importantly, what not to throw — wherever you post up.
Seasonal Behavior
Season shifts change how fish act pretty consistently…if you know what to look for.
Temperature swings, daylight changes, dying weeds, moving baitfish — it all stacks up into entirely different patterns throughout the year.
Most beginners judge by air temp, which is definitely a factor. But fish live in water, and…well, it’s different down there. A week of cold rain means more than a single warm afternoon.
Why It Matters
Season isn’t just “spring vs fall.” It’s metabolism, location, and mood:
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Warm, stable weather → fish roam, chase, feed more often
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Cold, volatile weather → fish stay tight to cover or deeper edges
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Sudden swings → weird, inconsistent bites even in “good” spots
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Multi-day trends → the real driver of how active fish are
General Seasonal Behavior (Super Simplified)
Here’s what to expect when fishing at different times of the year.
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Early Spring (40–55°F): Sluggish fish warming up. Small baits, slow retrieves, long pauses.
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Late Spring (55–70°F): Fish everywhere. Spawn, post-spawn, reaction bites, topwater sparks to life.
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Summer (70–85°F): Morning/evening windows, shade lines, deeper structure. Medium-fast retrieves.
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Fall (55–65°F): Fish feed hard before winter. Cover water, chase bait, match shad/perch.
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Winter (<45–50°F): Subtle, small, bottom-or-suspending presentations. One or two good bites beat covering water blindly.
None of these are hard lines; just anchors to help you actually read what the water is doing — and what it’s making the fish do.
Quick Rule:
Stable weather = predictable fishing.
Sudden swings = strange behavior.
Fish don’t “stop biting.” They just switch gears — and if you switch with them, your catch rate jumps instantly.
Getting Better Before You Even Start Casting
The first thing you should know about fishing is that it’s a lot more than “cast it out and hope for the best.”
Before you even open the bail, you’re already making decisions:
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Where you’re standing
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What the water’s doing
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How deep you can actually reach
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What kind of bottom, cover, and season you’re dealing with
Those details aren’t “extra credit.”
That’s what fishing is.
It’s paying attention to what nature is telling you, and becoming more in-tune with it.
You stop treating a pond like a flat blue circle and start seeing points, drains, shade lines, mud lines, and little patches of isolated cover that scream, “Something lives here.”
And sure, at Doolittle & Fishmore we’re absolute suckers for the sentimental side of all that: the quiet walk to the bank, the way a cold morning smells, the little shock of seeing your line twitch.
But for our purposes here, the point is simple:
Learn to notice the things that matter before you cast, and every cast starts working harder for you.
Once you can describe your spot in real terms — location, season, depth, clarity, bottom, cover/structure — a few big things change fast:
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Your instincts get sharper
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The advice you get starts getting more useful (and way less confusing).
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You start seeing patterns instead of “lucky days” and “dead days.”
From there, catching fish gets much easier — and a whole lot more fulfilling.
Okay, all that being said, you can almost always catch a nice-sized largemouth with a soft plastic worm. Check out what we’ve got in stock, and hit the lake!
