For some anglers, fishing is enough. Getting up and making it to the ramp just as the sun starts to rise and untying from the dock to try a new spot, is just enough to keep them reeling. But in my own mind, what's the bother if you don't tell about it? Well, maybe not everything but enough to brag... or in my case complain about falling short.
Some get after me about writing. I divulge to much about the proprietorship of "secret" spots or techniques. My simple opinion is, if it's not the day before a tournament then there is no conflict. If I am telling other competitors where I am going to fish the in the days prior to competition, that's just stupid. But if I talk about an area totally unrelated to an event or after the event is over, no damage done. Guys can be stingy that way. They don't share any information, anytime. My stance is that if I throw a bone once in a while, I'll get one back when I really need it. I notice a lot of anglers make the mistake of thinking they can just do it all on their own. Nothing I have ever accomplished has been done solely off of a hunch. All done by educated decisions made from things I have learned from other people in some form or another. For those who keep tight lips sealed, my secrets will stay just that... a secret (from you).
I also write because it helps me remember things I have done. Things that worked, and all the stuff that didn't work. All of it is so very important to keep for later reference. If you are fishing to do what I am trying to do, then you are fishing enough to forget plenty of what you have done wrong in the past, to make the same mistake twice; or pass up a great opportunity to use a killer technique you stumbled upon. Don't forget about bragging rights too. I can tell you from personal experience that getting my tail whipped at the scales leaves me wishing I could repay the favor someday. Retribution does happen on the rare occasion and when it does, I let the world know it by posting it here. I guess you could say it lifts my spirits to keep me fishing. Otherwise I would have curled up in some corner of my house and quit by now. So as for good advice for the mediocre anglers among truly skilled anglers getting the short end more often than not; don't give in, keep on pressing. And when you get the goods on tournament day, you need to reward yourself. It's okay to brag about yourself, especially when you have managed to fare well or even win in an event you know you are the underdog in. Rewarding yourself in these situations, to me, is imperative to future success in a mental capacity.
Don't go overboard with it. If you know my columns well, then you know I am moderate with my writing and I never bash others. Talking smack in writing can sometimes be taken the wrong way, and if you aim to be vindictive, you may find yourself a target out on the water later down the road. Say enough to talk yourself up and gain confidence in you and that's as far as you need to go. Extra banter about how bad Joe Bragger did, does absolutely nothing but start battles. You are already battling the fish. Why create yet another opposing force?
In this sport, you are your own coach, which is unique to bass fishing. You have to be supportive of yourself at the same time being realistic with a good sense of sportsmanship. If you boil it down, this is what writing is all about for me. It reminds me of dos and do nots. So I guess you could say it's more for me that it is for the people that read. Although I suppose others could gather from what I know or think. But don't take my writing for it. Try it yourself.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Nanticoke Fishing Reprort for the Week of 11/1/2009
Well everybody, here is what I promised you. A weekly Nanticoke fishing report. As long as my guys keep giving me updates every week, I will post this info (though general) on this here blog on Mondays. Enjoy!
Weather Forecast: http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=38.633868836177584&lon=-75.61675071716308&site=phi&smap=1&marine=1&unit=0&lg=en
Tides:
Tides.Info: Tide Predictions for Sharptown, Nanticoke River, Maryland
Current Water Temperatures: Upper stretches of both branches hovering in the low 60's while cooling at night. Main portions of the river in the high 50's and falling daily with consistent rain and wind. Broad Creek temps around 63 degrees with temps in Marshy Hope slightly higher at 64.
The catching seems a little tough lately with the windy and rainy conditions, however the fishing has not slacked off at least until Saturday. I went out with my son last Monday and the bass seemed to like a TX rigged ribbontail, but the bite was light. You had to really be paying attention. I was also scrounging around for some spots for a few hours on Saturday and I noticed the boat traffic had slowed down a lot since Monday. I tried my luck up-river and found some fish stuck on wood and playing very close submerged solids that you could not see with the water so high like it was. Crankbaits have helped me find this kind of stuff, though the fish don't want to take it. So I follow up with a soft plastic on the structure I find with the crankbait. I predict with all the precip we will be getting, the water temps will continue to fall and presentations will need to become slower and slower. But the feed bag will stay on. We'll see!
Others I chatted with who had fished this week claimed success with shakeyheads in skinny creeks and metallic colored lipless crankbaits on your steeper drops, when the current let off a little.
Weather Forecast: http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=38.633868836177584&lon=-75.61675071716308&site=phi&smap=1&marine=1&unit=0&lg=en
Tides:
Tides.Info: Tide Predictions for Sharptown, Nanticoke River, Maryland
Current Water Temperatures: Upper stretches of both branches hovering in the low 60's while cooling at night. Main portions of the river in the high 50's and falling daily with consistent rain and wind. Broad Creek temps around 63 degrees with temps in Marshy Hope slightly higher at 64.
The catching seems a little tough lately with the windy and rainy conditions, however the fishing has not slacked off at least until Saturday. I went out with my son last Monday and the bass seemed to like a TX rigged ribbontail, but the bite was light. You had to really be paying attention. I was also scrounging around for some spots for a few hours on Saturday and I noticed the boat traffic had slowed down a lot since Monday. I tried my luck up-river and found some fish stuck on wood and playing very close submerged solids that you could not see with the water so high like it was. Crankbaits have helped me find this kind of stuff, though the fish don't want to take it. So I follow up with a soft plastic on the structure I find with the crankbait. I predict with all the precip we will be getting, the water temps will continue to fall and presentations will need to become slower and slower. But the feed bag will stay on. We'll see!
Others I chatted with who had fished this week claimed success with shakeyheads in skinny creeks and metallic colored lipless crankbaits on your steeper drops, when the current let off a little.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Season's End
I have to say, not a bad finish for my first full season on the ESB trail. I finished 4th overall in points and fished the State Championship Tournament, pulling 40th in my first as a co-angler. Now that it is all said and done, I can think back on different things that could use some change, and the other things that worked out for me and build on that to improve for the 2010 season which is already well under way.
Starting with the State Championships, I had no idea. I'll just say that. When you are so used to being in control of your own boat. Having first shot on new water and fishing at your pace, and then all that is taken away and you are no longer in control, you have to adjust to a different pace. Quite possibly, you may end up changing your entire style. All this on tournament day; for me it spelled total disaster. I did what I could to hold on and not zero each day, which I didn't. But I think mentally, that was the goal I eventually set for myself. "Just don't zero. Whatever you do." And that attitude was not going to get me anywhere beyond 40th place.
Things I would do differently now: For one, I would be out there learning the ropes of being a co-angler before tournament day. If you have never really fished in the back, you better learn how it works way before you go out with money on the line. Essentially, you are competing, knowing you have a distinct handicap from all the other anglers out on the water on the front of a boat. These are learning experiences only learned through trial and error. So for those of you that are new to the sport, my advice to you is this. Expose yourself to as many situations you can present to yourself. Get the experience of being in different scenarios so that when it occurs again, you be ready to answer the call by using the last experience as a gauge.
Having already kicked off the 2010 season at Chesapeake Bay, the struggle to get and stay on top is unrelenting. Out of the old and right into the new. No break yet, not until January. The tournament last Saturday [a complete train wreck on my part] and again, another learning experience. Knowledge of this fishery is key to any kind of success. You just can't go there and slay the bass without pre-meditated planning of your game plan. I had a game plan, but too much of it depended on game time decisions that were more like guesses than sound, educated decisions. The weather for the day was snotty. Gale winds up to 30 mph, rain on and off and high water all day. The bay was inaccessible and dangerous so I opted not to attempt a cross over to the Susquehanna river. It was off limits anyway due to the weather. My game time [guess] was made and I B lined it to Lloyd's Creek. Within, there was a grassy cove with a wooded shoreline and it was heavily shielded from the high wind by way of a towering cliff. I thought to myself "At some point in the day, the fish here will bite." I would run the shore line with a ribbon-tail worm and a lipless crankbait, then at the end, switch sides and cover the edge of the grass bed with a beaver tail pegged to a 1 ounce weight to punch it through the grass. I had the whole area to myself all day long; and all day long I went back and forth stubbornly with the same tactic waiting for the bait switch to activate. Never even had a bite!
On an even more horrible note, as the wind picked up more and more, the gusting bursts of wind started to penetrate my area intermittently. Just fishing, minding my own business I just happened to look over an witness on of my $650 rod/reel combos get inched a little to far off the side of my gunwale and it went in. My heart instantly shattered to pieces and I leaped back to the driver's seat to set a man-overboard marker. For the next hour and a half or more, I would try to no avail to hook up on my sunken treasure. Surely lost forever I gave up on it and returned to the the ramp hopelessly defeated by those Chesapeake bass. My fellow club members can tell you, I was about as angry as a man can get. No fish and down 1 $650 rod plus the cost of gas. Total LOSS all around on the day not to mention the 2 $10 crankbaits I will have to replace. I vowed never to return to fish and events of any kind on this particular body of water. An unrealistic threat, but at the time felt good to say. Obviously that was a threat I can't keep as that is one of the most popular tournament waters in this area.
On my way back home I began to contemplate the possibilities of getting my combo back out of the water. At the time, I had not had enough weight to keep a hook plastered to the bottom, so I never had a real chance of getting back that day. I could go back the next day, but if the current moves it I'll never find it. I concluded that for $650 it was worth going back with the right tools to try and get it back. My ramp pass was good for the next day so why not give it a shot.
I went back first thing in the morning with a big 3 oz. sinker and a big treble hook. I tied it on and affixed the sinker/barge anchor about an inch up the line from the hook. My MOB marker was still active leading me straight to the site of my lost crew member. On arrival I used the little bit of current and wind to drag the rig across the bottom. It only took about 10 or 11 passes and I could tell I had snagged an object of some kind. I noticed I was about 12 feet from my marker so I was not all that excited but when it surfaced, sure enough I was rewarded with one recovered rod and reel. Definition of near disaster.
Starting with the State Championships, I had no idea. I'll just say that. When you are so used to being in control of your own boat. Having first shot on new water and fishing at your pace, and then all that is taken away and you are no longer in control, you have to adjust to a different pace. Quite possibly, you may end up changing your entire style. All this on tournament day; for me it spelled total disaster. I did what I could to hold on and not zero each day, which I didn't. But I think mentally, that was the goal I eventually set for myself. "Just don't zero. Whatever you do." And that attitude was not going to get me anywhere beyond 40th place.
Things I would do differently now: For one, I would be out there learning the ropes of being a co-angler before tournament day. If you have never really fished in the back, you better learn how it works way before you go out with money on the line. Essentially, you are competing, knowing you have a distinct handicap from all the other anglers out on the water on the front of a boat. These are learning experiences only learned through trial and error. So for those of you that are new to the sport, my advice to you is this. Expose yourself to as many situations you can present to yourself. Get the experience of being in different scenarios so that when it occurs again, you be ready to answer the call by using the last experience as a gauge.
Having already kicked off the 2010 season at Chesapeake Bay, the struggle to get and stay on top is unrelenting. Out of the old and right into the new. No break yet, not until January. The tournament last Saturday [a complete train wreck on my part] and again, another learning experience. Knowledge of this fishery is key to any kind of success. You just can't go there and slay the bass without pre-meditated planning of your game plan. I had a game plan, but too much of it depended on game time decisions that were more like guesses than sound, educated decisions. The weather for the day was snotty. Gale winds up to 30 mph, rain on and off and high water all day. The bay was inaccessible and dangerous so I opted not to attempt a cross over to the Susquehanna river. It was off limits anyway due to the weather. My game time [guess] was made and I B lined it to Lloyd's Creek. Within, there was a grassy cove with a wooded shoreline and it was heavily shielded from the high wind by way of a towering cliff. I thought to myself "At some point in the day, the fish here will bite." I would run the shore line with a ribbon-tail worm and a lipless crankbait, then at the end, switch sides and cover the edge of the grass bed with a beaver tail pegged to a 1 ounce weight to punch it through the grass. I had the whole area to myself all day long; and all day long I went back and forth stubbornly with the same tactic waiting for the bait switch to activate. Never even had a bite!
On an even more horrible note, as the wind picked up more and more, the gusting bursts of wind started to penetrate my area intermittently. Just fishing, minding my own business I just happened to look over an witness on of my $650 rod/reel combos get inched a little to far off the side of my gunwale and it went in. My heart instantly shattered to pieces and I leaped back to the driver's seat to set a man-overboard marker. For the next hour and a half or more, I would try to no avail to hook up on my sunken treasure. Surely lost forever I gave up on it and returned to the the ramp hopelessly defeated by those Chesapeake bass. My fellow club members can tell you, I was about as angry as a man can get. No fish and down 1 $650 rod plus the cost of gas. Total LOSS all around on the day not to mention the 2 $10 crankbaits I will have to replace. I vowed never to return to fish and events of any kind on this particular body of water. An unrealistic threat, but at the time felt good to say. Obviously that was a threat I can't keep as that is one of the most popular tournament waters in this area.
On my way back home I began to contemplate the possibilities of getting my combo back out of the water. At the time, I had not had enough weight to keep a hook plastered to the bottom, so I never had a real chance of getting back that day. I could go back the next day, but if the current moves it I'll never find it. I concluded that for $650 it was worth going back with the right tools to try and get it back. My ramp pass was good for the next day so why not give it a shot.
I went back first thing in the morning with a big 3 oz. sinker and a big treble hook. I tied it on and affixed the sinker/barge anchor about an inch up the line from the hook. My MOB marker was still active leading me straight to the site of my lost crew member. On arrival I used the little bit of current and wind to drag the rig across the bottom. It only took about 10 or 11 passes and I could tell I had snagged an object of some kind. I noticed I was about 12 feet from my marker so I was not all that excited but when it surfaced, sure enough I was rewarded with one recovered rod and reel. Definition of near disaster.
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