earthshaking, but they are indicative of the types of things you might encounter. And they are the same things the traveling pros run into all around the country—they’re really universal.
In chatting with Dean Rojas, a former San Diegan, he pointed out a fairly common occurrence when using a target bait such as a jig or plastic worm.
“A lot of times,” he says, “I get no bite. I’m casting to a lot of targets and one time, I pick up and start reeling in to make another cast and the fish strikes. I was fishing too slow, so I start covering water (with a faster bait). All it takes is one bite to show how they want it.”
That was a lucky accident, you might think, but not every cue is a bait swirl or a flock of diving terns. For those whose natural fishing pace is uptempo (whether related to personality, or just one’s training), the same can happen with a “slow” bait, such as a Senko. You toss it, you agonize for it to sink, and you hop and drop it, until you think you’re out of the zone.
That is, until something interrupts your approach: you reach for a drink, adjust your sonar, nudge your rods from under foot or your cell phone rings. In any event, you stop your retrieve, even for just a few seconds. And what happens? When you pick up, the line gets heavy or has moved off—as the fish has cued you to slow down.
But in this case, and the ones I’ll bring up in a moment, the real genius comes in how the fisherman responds. For example, in the case of being alerted to a faster retrieve, you have the options of a straight crank, or perhaps one with interrupted periods of stop and sudden action like a rip bait.
The same could be said of the bite that came from a pause—or long pause—in the movement of a “bottom bait”. If you can, assess what just happened. Did the bite come on a pause, or did it come after a few moments of phone conversation where the boat drifted and dragged your bait? Sure, it may have been a lucky strike, but it also may have been a cue to lots more bites.
For those whose fishing is actually a precursor for something else—as in tournament practice, or a guided trip or that opportunity to show your boss or your girlfriend (just an example) a good outing, it’s possible to rely too heavily on what you have found. Sometimes your response to what you have uncovered most recently needs to be dramatic.
As Rojas suggests, “There are things that will drive
Issue 1 April 2011
you awry [in the prefish].” One of those, he noted, was when you have found a good area with good quality fish on a reliable technique. But when you get there at crunch time, “[what] you get is lots of bites, but all you’re catching is little ones. That is another cue you need to change.”
Exactly what the change will be is up to you for there is no sure answer, anymore than there is a sure answer for why the small fish have replaced the bigger biting fish. As Dean said, “Maybe the better sized fish don’t want what they did, or maybe the bigger fish have left and the small ones are running rampant.” In either event, unless you have the luxury of not having to be somewhere at a set time—or the size of the fish is not an issue as in pure “fun fishing,” you have to make a move.
Closely related to this situation where the 3-pounders turned into rats, is the issue of timing. If you are proactive, you can sometimes deal with this kind of fish behavior by finding the right time frame when the right fish become active on a certain stretch or structure spot. Outside of the competitive arena, not everyone is driven to “check back” to waters they have already fished. Over the years, some of my partners have tended to launch, get on the merry-go-round and fish a regular route of stops,
how the fish take a lure, or don’t, can be a key part of figuring out what they want.
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