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Lessons learned in Florida
Rare is the day in a fisherman’s life when everything falls into place, but thankfully it happens enough to give us hope every time we head to the lake.
Like most everyone, I’ve been on the short end of things too often. Poor weather, malfunctioning equipment, body aches and pains, and fish seemingly just not in the mood. They all have cropped up from time to time to spin fishing days into disasters.
This week, however, I was fortunate. The conditions were great and the odds tilted in my favor. Everything, weather included, aligned.
Making all these fishing factors a bit more conducive was the venue. Barb and I traveled to south Florida just as the arctic blast blew into Youngstown. The largemouth bass there almost always are in the right mood.
Monday dawned warm and the ol’ bones felt great. I had a couple of hours under perfect conditions to see whether I might entice a few bass. The day proved to be another great opportunity to study and learn valuable fishing lessons.
The lakes I fish when I get a chance to visit Naples, Fla., are classic southern largemouth habitat: sandy bottoms, clear spring water and enough cattail stands and offshore vegetation to provide good cover. When the weather is right – as it usually is there – the fish are active.
Such was the case last week, so I was able to explore and discover patterns. During my few hours of fishing I picked up on a few good learnings to noodle on as the winter grinds up here in Ohio.
First, I learned if it doesn’t look great, it probably isn’t. In case after case, I observed the bass were in places that experience suggested looked bassy. On the other hand, locations that didn’t look fishy were in fact fishless. I saved my casts for the good stuff.
Lesson No. 2 was that an aggressive fish often reveals its intentions. A good 50 percent of the bass I caught last week showed themselves before I cast. If I saw baitfish or fry skittering across the surface, I knew I was about to get bit. And I did.
Another good lesson was that points are where it’s apt to happen. Straight stretches of bank yielded zero bass. Probably 90 percent of the bass I caught were from locations that would be classified as points. A bare few came from the backs of coves.
I’ve always believed in using the wind as my ally out on the water, and last week’s experience certainly underscored my belief. Calm water is pretty, but ripples hold the treasure. The lee side of the ponds I fished might as well have been dry land for all the bass they yielded. But the spots where the breeze blew in were always productive.
So can you blame me for looking for windblown points with a bit of cover? I cast to those spots with my finger already on the trigger, ready to set the hook at the slightest hint of interest.
Which brings me to one final lesson. Eyewitness observations proved what I’ve always suspected. We miss more bites than we can imagine.
The clear water provided several encounters with bass that I could see clearly. I was fishing 6- and 8-inch plastic lizards, so keeping my baits in sight was not a problem. When I spied a bass cruising out ahead of me, I would cast a couple of feet in front of the fish, and it would scoot right up to the falling bait.
I decided to see if I could feel each bite that I saw. Several times, it turns out, bass slurped in my lure but there was no noticeable tick in the line. If the bass didn’t swim away after eating my lizard, it was possible that I’d never feel the bite.
I estimate I’d have missed as much as 10 percent of the bites last week if I’d waited to feel the tap or the tug.