FISH & FISHING
PRIORITIES
A
MARK SOSIN
nglers tend to reverse priorities. Instead of focusing on fishing an artificial effectively, they worry more about choosing some magical fly or lure guaranteed to produce a spectacular catch simply by being in the water. Success seldom happens that way. If you have confidence in your choice and believe it will work, it probably will, provided your presentation and retrieve are effective. The best bait in the box will bomb unless it looks realistic and natural to your quarry. Fishing an artificial is a mental game. It’s easy to be distracted and simply cast and retrieve without any purpose or thought behind each presentation. Every cast should be made to correctly cover a specific segment of water and effectively put an offering in front of a fish. Simple things can make a difference. Here are a couple of examples. I watched an angler cast a swimming plug with a lip into the shallows, crank the reel handle four to six times so the plug dove downward along the dropoff, pause for a moment until the plug began to rise, and then continue the retrieve. If you stood next to him and simply retrieved the plug without pausing so it could rise, you couldn’t buy a strike. Another time, a friend who had been a guide was fishing with me. He kept getting strikes on his lure, while I became more frustrated with every cast, and we were using the same artificial. I watched his every move and tried to duplicate it to no avail. Finally, I asked him what he was doing that was different than my retrieve. As he worked his lure, he kept vibrating his hand. It was too subtle to see. Vibrating his wrist caused his lure to flash underwater just like a real baitfish. That made all the difference. Finding a school of breaking fish on the surface stirs the soul and telegraphs the imminent success to every fiber in your body. The key is to keep the boat away from the school while moving up ahead of it. Casts should be made in front of the school when possible or
at least close to it so that the retrieve follows the basic path of the school. Assuming the school is moving north, you want your retrieve to cover the northeast or northwest quadrant. It should move in the general direction of the main body of fish. Not very often will a school member chase a lure going in a direction opposite that of the main body of fish. Retrieving an artificial must make it appear to the fish that it is trying to escape. If the predator senses that the lure is moving toward it, you can bet it will spook. Every cast should be carefully calculated to make the lure look realistic. If a fish fails to strike, vary the retrieve. And, in cooler water, don’t overlook a slower retrieve. Those anglers who set the standards fishing artificial baits make every cast count. Follow their lead and you should begin to catch more and more fish on artificial lures.
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