When Fishing Gets Tough

[snagged in outlet 3]

You can't solicit a bite based on hunger unless fish truly ARE hungry and seeking food.  You gotta play on some different instincts, and doing that (on purpose) requires knowing exactly (almost) where some fish are at.   

I think that immediate bites (on the fall) are the bites missed most by anglers on those slow days.  They simply never knew they even had a bite.  All that jigging, hopping and seductive twitching and dragging along bottom or through cover is a waste of time some days, but the fish WILL bite on the initial drop ALOT when your cast lands in the right spot.    Ya gotta watch for that and set the hook instantly when your instincts tell you that something about the way that bait is sinking just doesn't seem quite right.  

And that is why I love to fish the fluke.

That's my go to bait when it's tough.

Pete

 

[J-Doc]

I've tried a fluke many many times for years.  Even the double fluke rig.  There are days it works, and many days it does not for me.  Slow, fast, dead stick sink......I've tried it all. And lots of colors.

 

Yet I still throw them

[mic]

I love Rooster Tails for open water and white bass and largemouth jumps, but they get hung up too much along the bank or any kind of cover.

Cut off the treble and replace with a single hook and split ring.  Works very well, but really reduces the snags.

[Al Agnew]

I'll admit, I don't usually go small when fishing is tough.  I don't LIKE fishing small and light.  I don't like having to use spinning tackle.  Those are the main reasons.  I don't mind catching some little ones and targeting other species, but I have to get myself into a different mindset to do so, and lots of times I don't even HAVE the appropriate tackle and lures.  

Fishing for me consists of a lot more than catching fish.  I'm so wedded to stream fishing, with all the other rewards besides fish--the landscape, the usual solitude, handling a canoe in fast water, the wildlife--that I can relax and enjoy the day even if the fishing is tough.  In fact, I sometimes enjoy the other things a lot MORE when the fishing is tough; it gives me "permission" to not concentrate on the fishing as much.  And I really do enjoy just making good casts and working my favorite lures, always remembering the times when a big fish took the lure I'm using and keeping my anticipation up that it might happen on the next cast.

So...my default when the fishing is tough is to simply put on a lure that I really enjoy fishing, and fish it, looking for that one big fish that might be tempted to take it.  It helps that all my favorite lures are mostly reaction baits, fished fast, looking for the reaction bite, the fish that takes it by predatory instinct because it looks edible and it's getting away.  I'm not advocating that for anybody else, it's just the way I am.  

[Haris122]

Not that I know much about yanking out many of them, even on great days, but I too am becoming more and more of a fan of the single hook roostertails. Both because of the snagging much less while being a good lure for some kind of action, and because the trebles can really do much more severe of a number on the fish's mouth. A couple times the fish end up hitting it exactly so, that you have to mess with those poor things mouths for minutes, before you get all the hook points out. Even with the barbs clamped "barbless" with pliers, the trebles still do a number on the fish. With the single hook, especially with barb bent straight, it's as easy as a few seconds of work and off they go, barely any worse for the wear. Like Al, I do like making good casts with something that's not fished slow, as well. I usually don't have the patience, and in the meantime you feel good about getting it to some spots you really didn't think you would've. And then when they do hit it, it feels all that much better, and more confidence boosting. But my good casts are definitely a relative term. Cause they sure are not pinpoint precision stuff. 

[Norm M]

  I go the opposite way, much larger than the standard size lures

[kjackson]

Cut off the treble and replace with a single hook and split ring.  Works very well, but really reduces the snags.

Or go with the Rooster Tail spinnerbait...it has a double hook but snags way less.

[Mitch f]

Not a small and light guy either.  Will go small when things get tough, but not light too often. I want the reaction bite in clear water.

[kjackson]

I've found that in walleyes, at least, color can make a big difference in clear water.  One case really stands out-- my buddy and I were using soft plastics (four-inch worm on a plain jighead) for 'eyes. He was catching fish while I wasn't. We were fairly well matched in skills, so it wasn't that necessarily. However, his bait was smoke with blue flake, and mine was smoke with red flake. 

Once I changed over, I started to catch fish. Having said that, after I got bored (the walleyes weren't that big but they were plentiful), I started playing with different colors and found that a laminated worm that was red bug over a  pearl chartreuse was working as well.  

I've not had something similar happen with bass, though, so I can't speculate there. 

[J-Doc]

I've had similar situations where I tried to match a particular worm color but it wasn't exact.  I wasn't catching and the other guy was. Once I tried his worm, I started catching.  

 

I've also trolled cranks where one color variation outperforms the other almost everytime.  I think it's because it's more visible than the other is the only reason. 

 

So color plays a factor and can impact a bite. But vibration and presentation behavior seems to be the larger factor for me at least.  

 

Recently, going smaller has not done anything for me and it seems going faster or slightly larger than the gross population of bait we have is doing well.