Down through the years we’ve been taught that fish do certain things at certain times of the year, and that there are certain ways that we can catch those fish. Often those time-tested techniques for catching fish work well, but there are times when we need to do things a little or a lot differently if we want fishing success. One of those situations happened to me last week.
I was fishing with Mike Frisch and Josh Zenner. Mike had been catching walleyes consistently the previous couple of days, but they had been extremely finicky. They were responding best to a 4.5 Rattlin’ Hornet crankbait that was mostly silver with some purple, and we only had one bait in that color. So we experimented with a variety of colors. We went through a lot of colors and different styles of crankbaits, but always kept that productive color in the water. Nothing produced as well until we tied on a Silver-Blue Shad 4.5 Rattlin’ Hornet. The walleyes went crazy over that color, and we had two of them, so the catching increased notably. Sometimes color really is important.
Another strange happening regarding lure preference: Much of the time in the summer, the fish prefer larger baits. When the fish are hitting a particular size really well, if you go bigger, you’ll catch bigger fish and often more fish. That 4.5 Hornet is a pretty small bait, so when the fish started really smackin’ it, we went bigger. No way: The walleyes showed a very strong preference to the smaller size. There have been many times on fishing trips of the past in the summer when we went bigger and did much better, but on this day, they wanted that smaller bait. I don’t know why, but it was obvious.
Last pretty strange thing for this trip: We were fishing a lake that was maybe thirty feet deep at the deepest and had lots of structure. Much of the time on this lake and lakes like this, the walleyes will be on the structure in the summer. But the baitfish were near the top, four to six feet from the surface. And, since that’s where the baitfish were, that’s where the walleyes were. We were seeing walleye marks on the sonar just below the baitfish, less than ten feet below the boat. We were using planer boards to avoid spooking those walleyes that were close to the surface, and the boards took most of our fish.
Through the years we’ve learned a lot of things about fish and catching fish. Many of the things that we’ve learned are things that can be repeated from year to year to year. We know that a jig and minnow is an outstanding walleye presentation in the spring, but we’re learning that a jig and plastic is also a very good producer.
We know that a spinnerbait worked through the rushes can be very good for largemouth, but we’ve also figured out that a swimming jig retrieved through those same rushes will catch sometimes even more bass.
The deal is, the more we know about catching fish, the more we know there is so much more to learn. Fish respond in a particular way until they start responding differently. They get conditioned to colors and presentations and other factors. If we want to catch more fish, we need to continue to experiment with different lures and presentations and locations. When we start doing that, we become better anglers.
PHOTO CAPTION(2 photos)-Sometimes fish show a strong color preference. A Silver Blue Shad 4.5 Rattlin’ Hornet was what this walleye wanted.
PHOTO CAPTION #2—Those three(3) marks in the middle of the sonar screen are walleyes looking for something to eat.
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