Precision and Perfection

Blame climate change, weather, drought, fishing pressure, or the first chapter of the apocalypse-fishing ranges from bizarre to near impossible, this year. Unless...you take everything you've ever learned and apply it in a disciplined rotation until you hit as close to magic as you're going to get.

Case 1: I fought the jungle and the ticks to get to the inlet creek of a lake yesterday-quest-crappie. As has been the result of nearly all crappie quests this year, "no crappie". I rounded one of the points of land extending into the inlet portion of the lake and noted a bare section of bottom. Unusual because vegetation grows everywhere back here. On closer review, it was a bluegill bed. Too early. I went to work on them and they got the 411 a little faster than expected. Back to casting to the middle of the creek inlet, for crappie. Pre-spawn bluegill! Staging (for spawning/making beds). So now, I've got what usually represents 2-3 months of positioning all in one day.

Case 2: Based on this , I actually drove to (big lake) another part of the lake that has a fairly condensed area of staging to bedding. I lined up facing the wind, expecting to find a reasonably wide area of either staging or spawning, bluegill. Wide area, "No". I could have invited two of the many fishermen on the lake that perfect Sunday afternoon, to stand one each side of me and almost touching my shoulders. Then, expecting common courtesy to not cast over my casting zone, simply cast straight in front of me and fanning casts only five feet either direction. I'd have still caught my 49 from that spot, They wouldn't have caught 49 between them. Not even a dozen between them. Cast location had to be absolutely precise.

Case 3: To end the day, went to one of my main crappie lakes. That's been a bust so far, this year. A Sunday afternoon, a family of four had taken up residence in my spawning crappie test zone. So I stayed close enough to observe their success, or not. I quickly discerned they hadn't and weren't going to catch much of anything, so if a crappie made one made an appearance at the end of one of their lines, it was worth staying until they left. In fact, dad caught a decent enough crappie, and the little girl caught a Pedro crappie. They left. Being late in the day, my thinking cap was on a little crooked and I began fishing pretty much the same way they were fishing-I was just convinced my lure was better than their live bait, and my technique was better. Not. And not.

I had actually cycled through all but the last possibility when I executed that technique as my excuse to go home after what I was sure would be failure. Swimming a micro jig "high and fast" through the top of weeds-that I was standing in. (A fishing weakness born from thinking I have to become one with the fish and stand in the water-this time of year often resulting in standing in their living room.) I saw the crappie shoot straight up and out of the weeds like a submarine launched missile, to nail that jig. And this continued in the small patch of weeds I was standing in (!) until I'd landed another 13 crappie. In about as many minutes. Remembering that staging bluegill were located far from spawning bluegill earlier in the day, I made a heli-cast ((long cast) waaaaay out in front of the beds the tuxedoed boys were preparing and that I'd just sore lipped the whole village of 'em. This big girl. Pregnant. Waiting for the boys to call her for a date. Me, interfering with her resting before her prom with a precision cast that was counted down to "go deep", as a staging crappie without cover will often sit.

Case 4: Today, I went back to a lake and checked a stretch that the boys were preparing for the crappie prom, last week. A cast and retrieve worked somewhat. My polarized glasses eventually revealed what I figured were bluegill beds-crappie don't make that many beds that close together. So, just for fun and a break from now and then crappie, I held my rod out and dipped the jig in the water over a bed. Crappie. Again. Crappie. Crappie-crappie-crappie. Well, if the small crappie were 1-6 feet from me, bigger ones would be a little farther out. Right? Clipped an itty bitty float to the line and cast out a little further. Crickets. Brought the suspended under a float rig to the beds where I was catching crappie with the dip and go method. Crickets. Whatever that "dip" was presenting to them, was the only way I was going to catch them. Precision presentation.

Honestly, I think anyone would have caught "some" on about any color of jig. Thankfully, after years of experience I can usually observe several clarity facts about water and be dialed in on the right color from the git go. Believe I was yesterday and today. (Monkey Milk. Today, after monsoons and a mud wash into the lake, Black and chartreuse.)

Numbers: 85 crappie, bluegill and red ear yesterday. Six hours. Today, as my self competition trials rolled out the last one was, "Can't leave until I catch 85 today." Done-86... in 4 hours. Because anyone that's ever fished much knows, the last cast (number 85) is never the last cast.