I am sure there is something to the fact that I always seem to catch better fish when I am fishing alone. As anyone who has fished with me can attest I like to talk, and I have a feeling that even this sound is transmitted to the fish.

I fish Folsom lake quite a bit and it is one of the busiest lakes in Northern California. I have noticed that while the fishing gets tougher when the skiers and pleasure boats come out you do not need to be a stealthy. As an example I was on a pod of fish this last April-November. The same group of fish were on one of three points every trip I took. Early in the mornings before it got crazy with boat traffic the fish were very spooky, but more willing to eat a bait, especially the bigger fish in the group. Now when the boat traffic would pick up in the late mornings into the afternoon I would get far more fish following my baits, but only the smaller fish in the pod were willing to eat. The most success I had with the bigger fish in this pod was rolling up on them quietly, with no electronics, before the boat traffic got heavy.

When they put the 5MPH restriction on the lake this in early fall, I found that I had a harder time locating the fish because they were more spooky. It took me knowing that the fish were there to figure out that I needed to be a bit more stealthy in my approach and sure enough I would get the fish to show themselves and sometimes eat. Going back to what I said above about being not as quite when fishing with others, I tried to show a buddy of mine this pod of fish on three different times and the only time we had any followers was in the middle of the day when the skiers were everywhere and never when we had the lake to ourselves.

Lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what have-yous