Words to fish by: Watch and learn

From the day I first shared a fishing trip with another angler, I have been learning about underwater life.

We anglers are familiar with the notion that 90 percent of the fish live in 10 percent of the water in any lake or river. It’s true, as far as I can determine. So the challenge is to find the one-tenth of our favorite waters where we ought to concentrate our efforts.

I have been a fisherman for as long as I can remember. I learned from my earliest experiences that I could catch more bluegills around the shoreline than by launching my bait into the middle of the pond. I learned that at night, the closer my bobber was to the lantern hanging off the side of the boat, the more crappies I might tease.

Years later, Dad and I learned the nuances of walleye location on a northern Michigan lake.

A wide sandbar formed where a trout stream emptied into the big lake. Walleyes moved there in the evening to feed. The best place to catch them was the place where we could feel cold water on one side of the boat and warm water on the other. We’d anchor and drag nightcrawlers to pick off the hungry walleyes.

Those early lessons formed the foundation for the day when I would begin to read about the importance of understanding where the fish live. Time and time again, I have gained new knowledge that fortified the foundation and built a sturdy platform from which I know I can catch more fish.

I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to share boats with some of the best anglers in the business. Many of those learning experiences were with professional bass anglers competing in the world championship Bassmaster Classic tournament.

In 1990, as an observer in the Classic on the Chesapeake Bay out of Baltimore, I spent a day with Kevin VanDam. He rocked the water with a machine-gun attack featuring crankbaits and spinnerbaits that tricked largemouths living on the riprap in a marina.

I learned that covering water was the ticket. The more water he fished, the more bass he caught.

At the Chicago Classic in 2000, Mike Iaconelli showed me how to whack urban bass. We fished the Calumet River and pulled an awesome assortment of smallmouth and largemouth bass from the steel walls, concrete rubble and other junk that falls into the water in a city.

I learned fish live where they find cover, and it doesn’t have to be pretty, pristine stuff such as vegetation or willow bushes.

In 1999, I watched from the back seat of Mark Davis’ boat as he pitched plastics to the hydrilla in Bayou Beouf in the Louisiana Delta near New Orleans. He caught three limits of bass on the weed line, all the while with a 12-foot gator trailing 50 feet behind the boat.

I learned once again that fish love the edges. Like deer in the woods or rabbits along a fence row, bass use spots where different types of cover intersect.

Other top pros, such as Rick Clunn, Larry Nixon, Guido Hibdon, George Cochran and dozens of others, showed me the inside scoop on the tactics about which we read in the magazines and watch on TV.

Sharing the water with experts is a surefire way to grow as an angler. And the cool thing for all of us weekend fishermen is that we’ve got friends and neighbors with almost as much insight as the big-time pros.

Find them this winter and invite yourself to join them on the water. You’ll learn and grow in your own angling knowledge.

jack@innismaggiore.com