Be Careful What You Read Into Boating a Fish on the First Cast

Recently read this story about a fella who started his fishin' day on a stretch of shoreline rip-rap, where just a year earlier...about the same time and under the same weather conditions...he had "killed it" while throwing worms all day.

And don't you know that, as he motored over to the rip-rap area this time, that angler again knew exactly what he was going to be fishin': none other than a 7.5-inch Culprit worm in grape shad color.

On his very first cast this day, it was Bam!...and a nice 2-lb. bass came over the gunwale. The fella couldn't help thinking, "Here we go again!" He felt certain he was going to have another "killer" day working this rip-rap, which quickly dropped off into 12 feet of water.

Unfortunately, it took four more hours of nothing but a few light hits and a lost fish at the boat to persuade this angler to try something different. Late in the day, he finally found a pattern that produced well.

There's also this account of a fella and his fishin' buddy who signed up for a local eight-hour tournament. It was mid-fall, cooler than normal, and breezy. One of them boated a 14-inch largemouth on his first cast, and they both also immediately lapsed into visions of grandeur. Seven hours and 45 minutes later, however, without even another bite, they realized they simply had endured a brutal day. Their one fish helped them finish fourth out of 12 boats.

Another fisherman put the situation into perspective this way. "If I catch a bass on my first cast, then don't catch anything for a few hours, I figure one of three things has happened: that one bass is a blabbermouth and told all the others to swim away once he was released; that bass has eaten everything, including other bass who lived near him; or that the first bass was a social outcast, which no other fish wanted to be around, and he only hit my lure 'cause he was looking for a friend."

The simple lesson to be learned here is this: Take that fish you catch on the first cast, but don't assume you have magically found the "killer" pattern.

As another angler explained, "We've all been fooled by an isolated fish, or as my friend, Dave, called it this past Saturday, a 'liar fish.' You think you're on the beginnings of a pattern and spend the next few hours realizing you aren't." The truth of the matter is that "one fish is luck, two fish are the start to a pattern, and 10 fish is a good day."

In closing, I would like to add a personal lesson learned to this list...one that took me a few times before I finally got the hang of it. Back in the day, I used to occasionally compile a run of two or three good days back-to-back, using the same bait each time. Whether it was a hard bait or a certain type and/or color of soft plastic, I would run to the local tackle store and buy up as many extras as I could afford.

More times than not, though, I would discover...usually within the next trip or two...that the fish had turned off to the bait I just had stocked up on as quickly as they had turned on to it. Bottom line: That's why I ultimately decided it was time to start trying to sell all that extra stuff in the West Neck Marina Store. My garage and closets simply couldn't hold any more.