With fishing finding fish always comes before catching them!  Sometimes it’s fan casting over a flat area.  Other times drifting a leech or crawler across a rocky point.  Maybe trolling a crankbait will produce or casting a buzzbait across weeds early in the day is the trigger.  Watching a lighted bobber with a Red Tail swimming on the end of a weighted line might be too tempting to resist too.  Whatever the species or technique the question can still be asked.  Was that biting fish simply an accident or the result of angling skill?  Whatever your answer mine would be sometimes a bit of both.  There’s a phrase I’ve heard too often that says “I’d rather be lucky than good!”  That philosophy won’t cash many tournament checks or consistently put fish in the pan either.

Late last week Chad, my son and I headed to a lake we’d fished a few times before but not since last year.  My goal was to catch some deep weedline bass but his much more noble to simply go fishing.  We idled to a submerged point gps marked from the previous year.  Standing in the Ranger’s bow I probed the deep weed edge with an exposed hook tube bait on 6 lb line.  The Humminbird drew a precise picture below showing a clean edge at 16 feet.  Chad casted baits he could reel over the weed tops which is a great idea to see which might produce on this day.  About 30 minutes later I had weight on the tube.  With a wrist-snapping hookset the first fish fought to free itself of the meal that bit back.  It wasn’t big about 12-13 inches but a start.  Chad fooled a small Northern on a spinnerbait and following the edge I boated 2 or 3 more small fish on the tube but the bites were subtle at best.  Looking over my shoulder I asked “time for a change?”  His response “Yes and about time!”  He knows my preference is to spend the day on a deep weed edge and although he never complains his would be to pitch or cast in shallower water.  I said “how bout we go flip the bog where we got ‘em last year?”  Without hesitation he was ready and a moment later sitting behind the wheel.  Exchanging spinning tackle and light line for baitcasters, braid and jigs we began again.  The first pitch produced a thump and a 4 pounder.  Hmmmm maybe we’ve hit the motherload I thought!  About 5 minutes later Chad connected too.  Down the bog’s edge we went boating ‘n releasing 5 or 6 more decent Largemouth but none as big as the first.  The fish seemed to be where there were old rushes mixed in with the floating bogs growning fresh green ones so we decided to make another pass.  Heading back to where we began I noticed some reeds a bit further away.  Remembering that my brother-in-law Rod could never resist checking reeds just to see if bass might be there stuck in my mind.  With water temps in the 80’s there was absolutely no reason they should be using them but Rod had won a tournament in similar cover in Alex when nobody else gave it a thought so we kept motoring to them.  Picking up a spinning rod with 30 lb P-Line braid I rigged it with a 7” Senko that was lying on top of some tackle used with no success a few days earlier on docks.  I’ve been carrying those baits around for years ever since a guy told me he caught ‘em good on Whitefish wacky-rigging those giant pieces of plastic, or so he said.  Truth be known I’d never caught a fish on one but this Senko was handy and I doubted there’d be any fish anyway.  In 4 feet of water, middle of the day, bright sun and hot water it didn’t make any sense but we’d spend a few minutes remembering Rod.  With the first underhanded pitch that heavy huge piece of plastic splashed just inside the reeds.  Bail still open I turned to say something (I’ve forgotten what now) to Chad and the line began racing from the spool.  In a frantic motion I closed the bail yanking back on the rod.  Horsing the bass from the reeds it was well over 4 pounds.  Releasing it the next pitch produced the same result.  Two pitches and two fish later Chad was scrambling for another braid-spooled spinning reel and looking for the giant Senko plastics.  We caught about 20 dandy largies before wearing out those reeds and I’ve gotta tell you it was a blast!  I also broke the line on one well over 5 too.

So now back to the question was finding and catching those fish an accident or more to do with experience and angling skill?  I know my answer but what’s yours?  Send it along to fanoutdoors@kfan.com .  I’m goin’ back tomorrow to see if it’ll work again and if it does there’ll be an order to Gary Yamamato for more 7 inch Senkos by the end of the day because I can’t find ‘em on store shelves!

Give it a try you might be pleasantly surprised like we were and maybe put another tool in your own box!  Good luck and good fishin’!

Capt’n