It truly may seem as though they've just suddenly vanished from the face of the earth, or perhaps are being hidden from our electronics and lures by the Romulan cloaking device (e.g., a form of stealth technology that uses selective bending of light and other forms of energy to render an object completely invisible).
Wish I had the answer to this mystery, but I don't...and neither does bass pro angler Greg Hackney of Louisiana. "If I had the answer," he said, "I'd use it to go catch them. I don't do that, though, so draw your own conclusions."
Hackney continued, "It's a tough problem that we all face. Think about it this way: When things are perfect, the bass are actively feeding all day, and we're catching the daylights out of them. It doesn't seem no matter what or where we throw, they want to eat it. But then comes a day...sometimes the very next day...when we'd have to go to a grocery store to find a fish. Nothing much seems to have changed, but we can't find them, despite our best efforts. Several things might be going on."
The first thing an angler subsequently often thinks is that the fish have moved to parts unknown.
"That might be true in some cases," said Hackney, "but I'd hazard a guess that movement isn't our problem most of the time. The truth is that bass rarely move very far in a short period of time.
"A far more likely explanation is that they simply have shut down. It might be that they ate their fill the day before and simply have no interest in eating, or it could be that environmental factors have turned them negative.
"For example," continued Hackney, "if the water's cold and warms quickly, they often move vertically into the upper foot or two of the water column. This is especially common when the water's heavily stained or muddy. It's unlikely you'll be able to find them with your sonar, and you can fish for a long time without getting a bite. It's like they have no interest in anything, except enjoying the good weather."
The Louisiana pro went on to note, however, that the fish sometimes just go negative for reasons none of us understand.
"I personally think this is the problem a lot of the time," he explained..."after all, they're fish. They're coldblooded...they don't think. They exist. They do things for reasons we don't understand. We don't know what we don't know about how they're affected by things we don't even know exist. If those things cause them to suspend in the water column (more on this topic in my next blog post) or sit motionless on the bottom, most of us never will know they're there."
Hackney offered a personal example to illustrate the complexity of this problem.
"I fished a treetop every day for three days in a row. I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that there was a three-and-a-half-pounder in it. The first two days I never got a bite. On the third day, though, she nearly ripped the rod out of my hand.
"That fish always was there," said Hackney. "Why she wouldn't bite the first two days is a complete mystery to me. On the third day, the day I caught her, I didn't do anything different. But for some reason, she wanted my jig that morning, the same jig she ignored the two days before. Go figure... ."
In conclusion, Hackney acknowledged that he perhaps had raised more questions than he answered, "but that's just a part of fishing." he said. "We don't know everything. All we can do is our best and enjoy those times when we think we have them figured out."
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