Hailing from Virginia and known as a pitching/flipping specialist, Curt Lytle has ammassed wins at every level of competition. With nearly half a million in winnings from FLW Outdoors events, including 3 BFL wins and 2 Stren Series wins, along with another $175,000 from B.A.S.S. and a Missouri Invitational win to his credit, Curt has proven he has the skill to compete on any water in the country. Big Indiana Bass caught up with Curt after this Spring's Guntersville event to get his answers to our 10 questions.
Q - Specialist vs. generalist? Do you see yourself as one style or the other technique wise?
CL - I've been a flipping specialist for the majority of my career but in the last two years I've diversified especially toward more finesse techniques, which are needed on my pressured waters.
Q - In practice, better to cover lots of water or learn an area intimately?
CL - In a good pattern lake such as Kentucky Lake, Buggs Island it's much better to cover a lot of water but in a more area-specific water such as Okeechobee, Guntersville, or rivers it's better to learn an area intimately.
Q - How long do you try a pattern without a bite before abandoning it?
CL - If I'm confident of being on the right pattern I'll try it all day long, but try tweaking it constantly with different baits or presentations until it clicks.
Q - Easier to win a local one day (BFL, etc.) or a 3-4 day regional/national?
CL - Always easier to win a local one day event because there's no concern about qualifying for a championship and you can gamble on getting fewer but bigger bites.
Q - How much practice time do you believe is optimal for you to be able to compete effectively?
CL - I've competed professionally for 12 years and I've found that 3-4 days of practice is ideal except that a summer or winter pattern is harder to fine-tune and might take more time.
Q - How critical is bite timing (i.e., finding "afternoon" fish, "morning" fish, etc.) versus fishing your fish all day -- don't leave fish to find fish?
CL - The timing of feeding fish is absolutely critical. I will always leave non-feeding fish to go look for feeding fish.
Q - In practice do you stick'em or shake'em?
CL - I will stick fish that aren't on a specific piece of cover - but not excessively. If they're on specific visible cover I won't even throw a lure with a hook in it. I keep tackleboxes full of lures with all of their hooks cut off just for practice.
Q - Bank beating vs. structure fishing? Do you prefer to comb large amounts of shallow water or drag fewer specific deep spots?
CL - Far more fish live in large areas of shallow cover as compared to specific spots in deep water.
Q - Any thoughts on making daily adjustments to your fish patterns (how critical)?
CL - Fishing patterns don't just change daily - they change hourly. Sometimes just a couple of clouds, or some wind are all that's needed to change some part of the pattern. The entire pattern won't fall apart, just some part of it.
Q - Favorite big fish technique?
CL - Of course my favorite big fish technique is pitching a big jig because the little ones generally will leave it alone, and that means that most bites will be big ones.
*photo by Brett Carlson
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