4 Tube and Worm Striped Bass Trolling Mistakes

Have you had a couple trips this year when you marked bass but caught nothing?  Are the people around you "pulling em in", while you troll around without a bump?  Have you spent all day fishing, covering miles of water, without a single bass?

If so, join the group!  We've all had unproductive trips at one point or another.  Believe me I've had plenty. However, there are a few details that can have a big impact, especially when trolling the tube and worm.

Today I wanted to take a look at some of the common things anglers do that hinder their ability to catch fish.  In this post in particular, we will take a look at why you may not be catching as many bass as you could be while trolling the tube and worm.

1)  Trolling an area with no fish in it

This one seems like a no-brainer, but it happens all too often.  Just because you are fishing in a well known "hot spot" such as East of Chatham, the Fingers, Race Point, or the Elizabeth Islands, it does not mean that you are in a hot spot for that particular trip.

Take a look around the next time you are on the water.  In Cape Cod Bay in particular, the bass could really be just about anywhere.  There's a TON of water out there to cover! 

I never put a line in the water until I mark at least one bass on my sonar.  Marking even just one fish, amongst all this open ocean, is a big deal.  Odds are that one bass under your transducer is but one of many bass in the immediate area.

2)  Carrying lots of different tube colors

There's probably a boat load of folks who will disagree with me on this (which is A-OK) but I really do not see a need to carry tube colors other than red and black. 

I think hot pink, green, purple, brown and other color tubes are made to catch fishermen-and of course a few fish here and there. 

If you are coming up empty, but folks around you are catching fish, try paying closer attention to the depth and tube length you are using instead of the color.

This happened to me not too long ago.  The action was hot, but then strangely died.  I initially thought the bite had shut off, but I noticed that my friend in another boat was still hitting them hard. 

It was not until I realized that my friend was trolling an 18 inch red tube, instead of the 24 inch red tubes we had been catching them on all morning.  Unfortunately I only had 18 inch black tubes on board. 

It didn't matter though to the fish, and as soon as they saw that 18 inch black tube they were all over it and we began catching again.  I know, crazy!