Raise your hand if you’ve ever spent the entire day on the water without getting a bite. Be honest. Now look around the room at other people who are reading The Angler Magazine and see who else has their hand in the air. Probably all of them.
It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Deer hunters spend countless hours in the woods, waiting patiently for a big buck to come along, and often never get to pull the trigger. It’s certainly happened to me. But we still come back for more, and that’s a good thing. So what can you do on those days when the fish simply don’t want to bite? The obvious answer is, ‘Pack it up and go home’. Before you throw in the towel, there are actually some tricks you can try that can fire up the bite, and here are a few that have helped me put a fish or two in the boat.
Now let me start of by saying some days are just going to be fish-less…no matter what you do. And sometimes these tactics work, and sometimes they don’t. But remember, if you’re down to these maneuvers, you really don’t have anything to lose…do you? So don’t complain too much if even this bag of tricks doesn’t work. You can still go home feeling good about the fact that you weren’t stuck in the office all day.
To me, there are three key components to reigniting the bite…Location, Presentation and Bait Choice.
The first one’s pretty obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people will sit on a spot and continue to flail the water because they ‘know’ there should be fish there. Well maybe there is, but after 152 casts beside the same stump, that fish is probably not going to bite on cast 153. So move. It might mean simply re-directing your casts to a different stump, piling, rock pile, oyster bed, creek mouth or other structure. Or it could mean a major move to another likely spot where fish might be holding. If you watch The Nuts & Bolts of Fishing TV series, you know that I prefer to fish moving water. It’s been proven time and time again that fish actively feed when there’s some current. So, during slack tide, or while you’re waiting for the power company to start pulling water at the dam, take a boat ride. But before you crank the engine, get a game plan. Look at your chartplotter and pick a spot that you feel has a high percentage of being fishy. Creek mouths, structure, river bends, etc. And then hit the throttle.
Presentation is another huge factor in triggering the bite. What worked yesterday, may not work today or tomorrow. So you have to be flexible and willing to try different things.
Fish will move based on a number of things, including water temperature, sea state, barometric pressure, day versus night, tidal state, current, forage, and even the amount of pressure they are getting from other anglers. It’s amazing how little changes in the weather can cause a school of redfish to move hundreds of yards, or even miles away. Fish can really sense barometric changes or slight changes in water temperature, and they will move up or down in the water column to find their “Comfort Zone”. As fish deal with all these changes, they can become lethargic or they can become exceptionally frisky. So you should consider slowing down your retrieve… or perhaps switch from a crankbait to a jigging spoon. When the sea trout bite quits, I’ll let the lure literally sit on the bottom for 30 seconds before I move it, and then it’s very slight movements on the retrieve. This would be in stark contrast to my normal ‘buggy whip’ style of working a Project X swimbait. And yep, sometimes that change- up is exactly the ticket to catch another fish. If I’m throwing topwater plugs, instead of the typical twitch-twitch-twitch, walk-the-dog retrieve, I’ll just let it sit there when it lands on the water. And I let it sit for a long time, waiting for all the ripples to dissipate, until I move the plug. Mountain trout anglers have known for decades the key to success is not only matching the hatch, but they have put the bug in the right place (relative to the fish) in order to get a strike. So changing your speed, the cadence of the rod movement, the
depth where the lure runs, and even adding a longer fluorocarbon leader can all contribute to enticing the bite.
The third piece of the puzzle is Bait Choice. I know this sounds silly, because you already think you’re throwing exactly what the fish want, right? This is the age-old question… what will they bite today? OK, we all know fish, except for a few stupid sharks, don’t normally eat plastic or balsa wood or rubber. So why would they want to slam a piece of painted plastic with a couple hooks dangling from it? Figure out the answer to that question and you can quit your day job, by the way. Most folks agree that the artificial lures we use are meant to mimic the natural forage. And with artificials you can ‘work’ the lure in ways that you could never convince an actual live bait to do. Also artificials allow you to cover a lot more work both horizontally and vertically. So there’s distinct benefits to spinnerbaits, trolled plugs, finesse worms, jigs and the like. I use them at some point on nearly every fishing trip. But when these man-made creations cease to be effective, try serving up a different menu. Provided it’s legal, switch out to live bait, or natural bait (like frozen baitfish or squid), or even cut bait. Putting a tasty morsel in front of a big grouper will usually get your drag singing again, after the jig bite has stopped. And a live herring will often get inhaled on the way down after the bucktails quit being effective. Sometimes even changing the color, shape or overall size will cause the magic to happen again.
The point to all this is simple. There are going to be days that fish won’t bite, no matter what you do. But don’t give up too easily. Try thinking outside the tackle box. Fish have to eat to survive. But they can go a long time between meals. You have to give them a reason to eat what you’re offering and eat it now. And often times, changing it up can definitely change your luck.