Refining Everything

Matt was with me today and really looking forward to fishing alone. He would have the entire boat to himself and no one to share the fish with! The main bonus today would be that I was able to concentrate on him and him alone, teaching him exactly what to do. As with every morning lately, it was cold! We began with the air temps around 28 degrees and damn near froze heading to our first location. The water hadn’t fallen much overnight but was down about a half degree. Winds were out of the N/NE and it really felt like it was closer to 20 degrees, rather than 30. The only plus to this was that the sun was actually shining and it felt nice. As soon as we arrived on our first spot, I instructed Matt with a demonstration cast and locked up immediately. I hate when that happens! The first of many fours came aboard and was released quickly after. Matt had a good handle on this technique and just needed a little refinement to increase his hookups. I think it only took a couple of casts and he too was with bent rod. He was getting the hits and hooking a pile but it seemed like there were more missed than landed. I couldn’t figure out exactly why it was happening, but I didn’t like it. The landing percentage was less than half and these bass were winning. In fact we even had several hits that ended in slack lines when some toothy critter decided to eat our offerings. It wasn’t going good! I made a few adjustments and finally brought up the numbers slightly but we were still missing fish regularly. I was hoping that things would change when the day progressed and thought that we might just have to wait them out. Despite the slow morning, Matt still managed to catch plenty of good fish on a variety of baits. So much so that there were 3 over 5 pounds and multiple high fours brought to net. Several of the areas we fished didn’t seem to have high numbers, but the fish were of quality. On a tough day, this is definitely what you want and Matt was happy with the results. He had managed to adjust and was now picking at them everywhere we stopped. Even with the N/NE winds we were warming up and I think it was all due to the action. I don’t really know how many fish were landed today but I do know that the bulk of them were big. I’ll take quality over quantity any day of the week! After today, I think Matt is on the same page, as he caught more big fish in one day than he had the entire season. By 4:00 we were ready to call it a day and after a couple more bass, headed in. At this time of year, the fishing can change overnight and by knowing when to adjust, a slow day can become great. Today was a perfect example of refining both areas as well as presentations. I can’t wait to get back again!!