Fishing can be one of the most relaxing and reflective hobbies ever. But the tranquility can be quickly altered by numerous circumstances while on the water. Slipping on a rock and
falling in a stream past your waders, discovering someone found your “secret”
spot, or trying to combat the winds in your canoe can all make for a
frustrating day. But what is the
ultimate annoyance on the water? What
can happen that may ruin an otherwise successful day? Answer: Losing the hot bait/lure/fly that had been working all day.
What follows is a short story in order to prove this point.
I am always eager to jump at the opportunity to fish new
bodies of water. This especially holds true when those locations are historic
and/or in a different part of the country.
This past month my father and I took a trip down to Florida to fish the
Suwannee River for the river species specific Suwannee Bass. Yes, the same river that has been featured in the television program AX MEN. The Suwannee River begins in south eastern Georgia and snakes through the northern top of Florida, flowing to the west before it inters into the Gulf of Mexico. A perfect location to spend a week during the month of December if your a northerner. With temperatures in the mid to high 70's each day, it was hard to complain about anything.
Of course, for us Pennsylvanian’s, the temperatures felt extremely warm. We were
dealing with what felt like early to mid May conditions. The first few hours on the water of our trip was tough. Your mind would play tricks on you. Each time I reached for a jerk bait
I had to remind myself that it was December, and these fish were in their winter conditions. Low and slow was the ticket
during our time on the water. Working the bottom of the rocky shoreline with grubs, craws, and worms would be critical for any success. My golden ticket for the week was a June Bug colored Jackall craw on a blue and black skirted football head
jig. I would have the most action on this rig until my serenity changed as swiftly as the change in the wind.
For those of you who understood that Axe Men reference you
should know that the Suwannee River is littered with submerged logs. Mostly due to the float logging practice that took
place over a hundred years ago in the forests that surrounded the Suwannee
River. A large number of these logs that were floated to mills would be lost during the float trips and would settle to the bottom of the river. Today, these logs present great cover for a plethora
of different species of fish, but these logs also present a big challenge for
fishermen. The submerged logs, coupled
with the very dark low visibility water, create the perfect hook snagging
environment as well as fish structure. Throwing anything that is
not rigged to be weedless or snagless will easily result in a hook up with a
log every 15 casts on average.
The snagging of baits was a huge annoyance for my father and
I as we floated the river in our canoe.
Baits, hooks, and jigs, were lost at a rate that we were not happy
with. Not because we were too lazy to
paddle back upstream, but rather due to the water depth and
the threat of alligators.
Needless to say, it was not very long before my Jackall craw and only blue and black skirted football jig was lost to the Suwannee River gods. My 12 lbs test line was cut clean after what
I thought was a bite as I jigged around some rocks.
Lost either as a result of a sharp edge of a rock or a gar… What was I to do now?
I attempted other rigging techniques with the same
craw. Nothing seemed to be as
successful, Until I reached for a dark
skirted Chatterbait that I had laying in the bottom of my tackle box. Sometimes the unconventional works so I
figured I would give this the old college try.
I rigged my craw in a weedless fashion on the end of the Chatterbait and
gave it a cast. Instead of fishing the Chatterbait the way it was intended, with a strait retrieval, I used the Chatterbait as a jig. I continued to fish the same way as I had before with the previous jig, allowing the bait to
fall to the bottom, and slowly twitching the bait with a very slow retrieval. I also left the metal chatter lip on the
bait to add an additional little flash in the water as it caught the sunlight. Within a few casts I had a fish on the end of
my line. I can’t say that I was
completely surprised, but I was happily surprised that my intuition paid off.
My efforts proved that sometimes you got to think outside of the boat and try
something new, quirky, or a bit unconventional in order to have success.
