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Subject: "Situational awareness" Previous topic | Next topic
swimbaitMon Oct-31-11 06:54 PM
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#12028, "Situational awareness"


  

          

July 2005, San Pablo Dam. It was fishy in the morning, with breeze but glassed off during the day to tough conditions. All day I poked around catching nothing.

At 5pm, conditions changed and the wind started blowing over the hills. This is a common condition at that lake. As that change happened birds started to work in the middle of the lake, picking silverside and shad.

Having caught nothing for hours I drove to the middle of the lake and started spooning and casting a huddleston in the bait balls. This produced nothing, but I drifted with the wind toward shore for a while.

As I got closer to the shore, a subtle point that was exposed at low water looked good from the angle I was coming from. One cast across the point and my bait got smushed by a 13lb bass.

None of this would have happened without the typically pointless trip to the middle of the lake, being at the right place on the right condition, and the natural drift of the boat.

...........

Last year in Sherman Lake fishing for stripers there were birds here and there but nothing worth moving on. After a few stripers and not much action we got set to leave.

As I drove across the lake, one grebe moved in a way that made me stop. Just one grebe out in the middle of the grass beds. But the way it moved looked like something was happening.

We stopped and put 40+ stripers in the boat. There was never a boil or another bird, just wide open striper fishing.

............

This spring at Don Pedro, we were having a slow day in an ABA team tournament. Our plan wasn't working and we had perhaps 10lbs in the box. We've been beaten down so many times at that lake fishing a set program that we decided to just turn it loose and try all new places.

We struck out on a few but as we moved through the lake bites started coming. The fish were on windy banks eating reaction mid-day. With 5 minutes to go in the tournament I cast through a mudline (and I hate fishing mudlines) and sure enough a nice 5lb bass came up and ate my bait.

Everything that happened in the last few hours of that tournament was situational. Wind, time of year, mood of the fish.

.............

Some days the fish make you feel smart, some days they leave you feeling dumb. But there's a thing that happens over the years of fishing where it becomes more and more subconscious.

Instead of thinking about the rod, the reel, the cast or the lure, you're fishing with more of a heads up mentality. Watching the horizon, listening, waiting for changes to happen and knowing when to move.

This is the experience part of fishing that can't be substituted for. It makes me wonder what it's like to be a guy like Clunn or KVD or Aaron. To have seen tens of thousands of hours on the water.

These guys probably never think about their boat or their gear when they're on the water. It's just a look to the horizon as the sun comes up and a feel on the skin.

We all have these seminal moments where you click with what's going on around you and start catching fish. The hardest part is repeating it, staying in it and making the right moves while you're on the water.

Every day when I go to the lake this kind of thought is in my mind. It's how you learn and keep learning. I think it's part of why the fun of fishing stays with you, because no matter how many hot baits come along or fancy fish finders, there's still the environmental aspect that no machine can capture or manipulate.

  

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MarcusTue Nov-01-11 08:00 AM
Member since Nov 11th 2009
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#12029, "RE: Situational awareness"
In response to Reply # 0


          

Good post. I was fortunate to be able to hit the water 200-300 times a year for many of my prime adult years. When you are on the water every day, or twice a day, you have the unique opportunity to stay with the fish, not only in terms of locations but those minute by minute, hour by hour adjustments to presentation that keeps you in tune to get the bites.

When you fish relentlessly you are the one pressuring your own fish, educating your own fish, then you make adjustments and continually re-educate their asses and move them around and make them tougher. That is why many anglers are so secretive and territorial, it's because the fish can't even stand the pressure of ONE intense angler, much less TWO!

Time on the water is everything - there is no subsitute (not even internet research), but it is not a linear relationship where a guy that fishes more catches more in proportion to the additional opportunity his extra time affords him.

A guy that fishes 200 days a year will catch triple+ a guy that fishes 100 days a year. A guy that fishes 100 days a year will catch triple+ a guy that fishes 50 days a year. A guy that fishes 20 days a year probably never catches big ones with pre-meditated intent unless he spent alot of time out there previously in his career.

Part of it is the weekend warrior "I may try to get out this Saturday" doesn't have the breadth of experience to go out and swing for the fences, be willing to not get bites. He just wants to catch some fish, so they don't develop much in the limited amount of time they have. They fish for action and not to learn. You can't care if you succeed in that moment, or that day! You have to think about the long run. Daily results mean nothing. Obviously I am not a tournament minded angler.

When I was fishing daily, or twice daily, (pre-multiple-crumbsnatchers era), I had total control of my fishing results. If it was tough I just worked harder. Allan Cole once wrote "Don't try to figure them out, just fish hard!" Part of that you can out-work the fish, and out-work the competition, or just out-last them. The other part is that when you fish harder than the rest you learn more, learn faster, and gain the wealth of all the little flashes of detailed observation that repeat themselves over time during successes, and failures, so you end up able to predict the future. If you do it every day or nearly so the string of observations stays solid in the mind and psychologically irrefutable, and the knowledge builds over time producing extreme confidence and a massive ego!

Marcus



  

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NicoTue Nov-01-11 05:46 PM
Member since Nov 03rd 2001
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#12030, "RE: Situational awareness"
In response to Reply # 1


  

          

I just wish the bass wouldn't be so situationally aware of what's going on.

  

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