Putting Together Puzzles

Typical early fall fishing, when fish can be "exactly here" one day, and "moved out" the next day. I've encountered this behavior every lake I've fished the last few weeks. Reducing fishing time two days in a row this week, provided a condensed snapshot how I always find fish, 365 days a year.

Tuesday, I went around this 10 acre lake like I was day one of practice for a tournament. (Some pictures are from different seasons on the lake.) Water suddenly extremely low, moving fast through the shallower part of the lake is a good strategy. Never forget-you may not be catching fish but they all react to potential food or annoyances in their territory. Surface wakes, tap-tap-tap, "hits" without hookups-that's all I need to dig my heels in (or stop and let my boots sink in the mud) and go to work. Observation #1-I was covering this water mid-part of a hot day. Another reason to move pretty fast in the shallow part of the lake. Believe I caught two with no taps, wakes or other hits in the shallow part of the lake,

Move on to the deep part-which on this lake is about 12 feet and if the creek channel hasn't silted in more, a small area about 17 feet deep. Found concentrations of panfish in the two areas marked on a frame frozen from a video taken in the dead of winter. It's the hunt that's more exciting for me. Once I find them, I get almost bored, pretty fast. Went home with no intentions of coming back the next day.

Life deterred me from running 30 minutes to the lakes I normally fish, the next day. So I decided to return to where I located the fish day before. It was just two small areas and I didn't have more than three hours to sunset, anyway. Perfect.

Talked my old knees into negotiating a rock dam to get down to the water a second day, and headed to the two panfish party spots. Crickets. Not a surface wake-though 12 feet deep I'm not going to see one anyway, no "tap-tap-tap", no ornery hits. These fish had moved. But a big difference existed today. I was in pursuit of them about six hours later than the day before. I kept eyeing the long, rounded point west side of the lake. When the wind's blowing-and it always seems to blow out of the east on this lake, that point is a feeding ground. Indicated here again with freeze frames from a winter shot. But the wind wasn't blowing today. An inset sitting on the surface hoping for a little breeze to move it along, would have cooked. A feather would have fallen straight from my fingers, to my feet. No-wind! But a west bank near sunset. Shade. Shade! On a hot day-shallow side of the lake! I headed to yesterday's dead zone and sure enough, taps, hits, surface wakes. It's alive! It's alive!

What the pictures don't show is the aquatic project just the other side of the rounded point. It was gold last year. Never been much, this year. But now I'm adding a frequent feeding zone and shade to a fenced garden. I have to mention the fence, because many and usually the larger fish, will sit inside this fence and rush through one of the multiple rectangles made of wire, to inhale a lure. The trick is to get control of them before they turn back with captured lure, to the safety of the fenced area. Or, get control of them before they realize the safety fence is no longer an option and choose to umbrella up under a lily pad. Lily pads have unforgiving stems this time of year. It's the point of no return. Of your fish. Of your lure. On three pound test line.

I threaded a modified trout magnet between a lily pad and the fenced garden on at the left side of this picture, and a huge redder pummeled the magnet. And beat me with the lily pad. Retied a new everything, and as much as I wanted to believe another red ear-typically loners after spawn-was sitting in the same situation other side of the fence, I knew at least a good bluegill may be posted up there. Took a few casts of slightly varying the lure location and what do ya know! This red ear exited the garden in hot pursuit of my modified rig.

In a nutshell, I turned a "0 hour" into (more than) five per hour-my minimum expectation. Including two golden trophies-adult red ear. By flipping the script of the previous day. Adding shade. And then adding the thickest cover in the shade, for potentially the larger fish.

It's just detective work. A puzzle of a certain amount of pieces dumped at your feet, and then putting it together however you've always put together puzzles. Of any type.