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Despite weather, lessons learned
Blustery weather does more than buffet the boat and burn the cheeks. It makes for some pretty perplexing fishing puzzles.
Abrupt weather changes can trigger or stymie the bite. Approaching and passing fronts present new and challenging circumstances that can work to an angler’s advantage or put a hurting on the fishing day.
Perhaps no time is more puzzling than autumn, when the weather can turn from sunny and warm to cloudy and cold in the span of a few hours or less.
Last Saturday was a perfect example of the impact a blast of weather can deal.
It was an almost idyllic dawn. The sun popped over the eastern horizon and Lake Milton was a sheet of glass as we zipped up to the dam for low-light topwater fishing for smallmouth bass.
Within a few casts, my friend was hooked to a spunky fish and a while later one rolled up on my small popper. We tallied six fish — none big but all fighting with autumn vigor — in our first 90 minutes of fishing and began to speculate about the bruisers that were sure to come soon.
But a funny thing happened on the way to fulfilling our hopes.
A blustery front swept over the region and white caps plowed south on the heels of the north wind. The bright sun was obscured by the gray clouds and no doubt the water lost a degree or two of temperature.
That’s not an impossible combination to overcome during most fall weather transition days, but the fact is it KO’d the fishing for us last Saturday. The day that began with promise finished with a dose of disappointment.
Our fishing time, however, was not without value.
Yes, we caught a half-dozen smallies. That’s a success by most gauges.
More importantly, we learned a few lessons that we can apply in future fishing trips. We learned what not to do, as well as what we might employ the next time it’s clear that the day will be punctuated by a rapid change in weather.
The morning began with a front just over the horizon. Wildlife, fish included, have a survival sense that kicks in when the weather is about to turn abruptly.
That pending weather system actually was nature’s cue to us that we should go on full bore attack mode early. That is, we need to “get while the gettin’ was good.” We needed to be fishing in our best spot with the tactic we suspected would be most productive with the thought that later in the day we’d be much less likely to be successful.
When the wind kicked up and the cloud cover increased, both changes were indicators that new tactics were required. What worked in the nice, calm morning conditions simply was not the way to entice bites when the bluster blew in.
Smallmouth bass are so much fun to catch. They often do bite better when the weather turns a bit crazy. But they sometimes shut down and suspend in locations that make them almost uncatchable.
We hit that wall Saturday, and when we recognized the odds were decidedly against us, it was time to call it quits.
Sometimes, it’s better to throw in the towel than to beat a dead horse.
All was not lost. We’d caught a few and learned a lesson or two. The ride back home on I-76 was softened by the recollection of six leaping smallmouths, which is all the incentive I need for a return trip very soon.