Having just come off our annual two-day season-ending event in which that was the scenario, I would be less than truthful if I didn't admit that I was running a tad short on patience by Day 2. The reality is that I was totally frustrated with our one-fish Day 1, followed by having only one "in the hole" yet again at 11 o'clock on the second day.
My frustration finally boiled over, and I decided to throw reason out the window and do something really stupid...by most standards, anyway.
While Wayne was fishing the outside line (with soft plastics) on a couple of trees, located well off the shoreline, I picked up a craw-colored square-bill and just started heaving "Hail Mary" casts anywhere and everywhere. And guess what? I hadn't made but three or four such casts before I actually felt a fish hit my crankbait as it bumped off a submerged stump. Wayne picked up his crankbait and, only seconds later, picked off another fish. And the fishin' actually became catchin' for the next hour and a half.
When we called it quits, we had five in the hole. Granted, they were all "just keepers," but our efforts had...at long last...been rewarded. And our mounting frustration over the two insufferably windy days finally had been assuaged.
If I had any feelings of guilt for my actions, they quickly disappeared earlier today after reading an article by an outdoor writer who said he remembers fishing with a lot of successful anglers over the years who, in his opinion, weren't patient at all.
"In fact," he said, "they usually were quite impatient. Here's why.
"For most people, our time spent fishing is limited. We just can't be out there every day. And since we're fishing, we want to catch some fish, and more is better than a few. For those reasons, it doesn't work well to be patient. We need to get after it. We need to spend time fishing the areas where the fish are, and then we need to show them a bait they are willing to eat.
"If you have confidence in a particular area, it's OK to spend a little extra time there, but don't fish memories," he noted. "Just because you caught fish there yesterday or last year doesn't mean they'll be there now.
"The same thing is true with lure selection. Many anglers have their favorite lure, and if you want to start with that favorite, and if it's appropriate for the area being fished, by all means tie it on. But if you believe fish are in the area and your favorite lure isn't their favorite thing to eat at the current time, give them another offering. I have many memories of fish liking a particular bait one day but refusing it the next. They sometimes even change preferences on an hourly basis."
This outdoor writer went on to acknowledge that "people go fishing for a variety of reasons, and that's the appeal of fishing. If you enjoy throwing a bobber off a dock and watching it while you watch other things going on, that's wonderful. But if you want to catch more fish, patience, for the most part, is not the answer. Keep moving, keep trying different presentations, keep doing whatever it takes to get a fish to inhale your lure, and you'll catch more fish," he concluded.
"Works for me"...or so the saying goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment