Understand the food chain as prey-predator relationships of the fish you are trying to catch. Buy a seine or build one from a old screen material and collect samples of aquatic insects. Start studying bugs and the percentages of your samplings. Keep a record of where you find these bugs on certain stretches of river or lake. Remember that vegetation is a food factory for fish- meaning insects also inhabit the same area. Fish enjoy highly oxygenated water, so look for them there as well. Vegetation equals oxygen as does riffles or broken water. Observing where fish occupy water and at what levels of the water column also help. Remember that most food stuff (insects) are on the bottom unless it is in emergence and this emergence is the exception to most of insect life in the water column. Ralph Cutter has an excellent video on bugs of the underworld to help you understand what food stuff is available. Here is the link-
http://www.../bugs_of_the_underworld/ Once you understand how to mimic a food source, you are on your way. Size, shape and color of your flies should correspond to your sampling as well. Ken Hanley has an excellent book out there on bass fishing if you want to target just bass. The toughest part is foregoing preconceived notions about what fish will and will not eat. Think of fish as opportunist when it comes to feeding.
Above all else, a mentor via any avenue is worthwhile. Seek out productive fisherman and ask what they are doing in order to understand what it is that you are not doing. Sometimes it is worthwhile just remembering where a successful fisherman was catching fish and figuring out why. It is definitely an observation game when it comes to locating feeding fish. Once located, then you have to figure out what it is they are eating. Did I mention a seine??
Best of luck.
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