Back in the days when I owned a tackle
store, one of the most common questions we were asked was "where
are the fish".
Our usual reply was "in the water." Fact
is, this admittedly smart-ass answer, may well have been enough
for many of the fishermen who asked the question. You see, many
of the questioners had absolutely no idea where fish might be
found at any one time. They might as well have been fishing "in
the water." Any water, any time, anywhere.
These fishermen are likely to be the ones that turn
up in a well known fishing area, park the boat in the vicinity
of the other boats and chuck a line over the side. When they get
back home they complain about the lack of fish in the area, and
how no one really knows where the fish are.
Or they drive down to a river that ‘is really firing’
and spend a fruitless couple of days chucking Glo-bugs at the
river, but nowhere near fish.
I know the frustration of this – did it for way
too long myself, years too long. My success rate started to climb
rapidly once a learned the very simple factor that separates good
fishermen from the rest of us.
I believe that one prime difference that separates
the good fishermen from the not-so-good is that good fishermen
fish where the fish are more often. These fishermen have taken
the time to study the factors in fish behaviour that will help
them identify where fish are likely to be at any one time.
Having built up that knowledge, they then search
out the areas where these behaviour factors will coincide with
bottom features, currents, food, and the myriad other things that
go toward finding fish.
There is no difference between the good fresh-water
and good salt-water fishermen. The good trout fisherman will know
where fish are likely to be on any day, just as the good
snapper fisherman, kingi fisherman, marlin fisherman and all the
rest will know.
This does not of course mean that the good fisherman
gets it right every time. I have been out with some good, and
great, fishermen and we have not had a hook-up. But most often
when I am out with the good and great, we get into fish.
So just how do the good fisherman learn about their
prey? There is no trick to it. They learn in the same way as we
all can learn.
They read all the books and magazines on the fish
they seeking that they get their hands on. They watch the videos
and TV programmes. Reading books and watching how-to videos is
a great way to build up a good background of knowledge. But information,
no matter its source is just that, data. Information has no benefit
at all unless it is put to use, or used to build experience. If
you use information to frame questions you can ask, yourself or
others when on the water, you begin to build putting the information
to use – building experience. Turning what happens on the water
into an experience that teaches you something is one of the most
powerful learning tools. Good fishermen listen to other good fishermen
and they ask questions, lots of questions.
Asking questions is one of the most direct ways
of gaining useful information. Yet too often many of us refrain
from asking questions because we are reluctant to show a lack
of knowledge. In my experience asking well thought-out questions
of good fishermen invariably gets a positive response. I reckon
that any ‘good fisherman’ who brushes off a question does not
know the answer.
Good fishermen go out on reputable charters and
with well-known guides. They ask these highly skilled guides,
skippers and crew, lots of questions.
"Why are we going here?" "What makes
this place fire?" "What bottom features are holding
the fish here." "Why do trout lie in this lie."
Good charters and guides rely on their ability to put their clients
over fish to maintain and build their business. Their knowledge
of their ‘patch’ is often encyclopedic.
Asking questions can provide wonderful knowledge
and experience to use when fishing on your own, or in your more
usual fishing haunts.
Besides there is one occasion where not asking the
questions of local charter skippers and guides is sheer folly
and could cost you a great deal of time and money. Let’s say you
have saved up for the trip to an area you have dreamed about fishing
for some time. You get a week off work and away you go. You spend
the first day traveling, and the first night in eager anticipation.
The first four days you blunder about trying to get a handle on
the place and find some fish. On day five you finally blunder
over some fish and have a good day. The next day you spend traveling
home. What a waste.
If you had spent the first fishing day out with
a guide or on a charter you would most likely have gained enough
insight to use for planning your own fishing days in that same
ar ea.
When they get home from a successful trip, (and
unsuccessful trip), good fishermen note down what they learned.
They will also get out the charts of the areas and study them
to see what bottom structure they were fishing over. Not only
does this tell them what was going on under them while they were
fishing, it also gives them some more clues to gaining an overall
picture of the habits of the fish they seek. They can then add
this information to their overall knowledge to be used when they
fish a not so well known area.
Learning all you can about the fish you seek, its
habits and habitat, is not an easy task and cannot be learned
quickly. It can take years. It is not hard to gain information,
pure data. Watching videos and reading books and magazines will
build up a data bank relatively quickly. Turning that data into
hands-on experience is what takes time. But an interesting thing
happens once you start gaining experience based on the data bank,
your overall knowledge starts to build up very rapidly – at an
ever accelerating rate.
So asking the question "where are the fish,"
might even gain you an answer of the rough area where people have
caught fish recently, but it will not tell you why the fish were
there then, and that is the really important bit of information.
Sure gaining the answer of the rough area where fish have been
caught may give you enough info to ‘luck out’ and actually land
a few fish, but you will be in the same quandary the next time
you want to go out.
Getting a bit biblical for a moment, perhaps excusable
with my surname, the old admonishment, ‘seek and ye shall find’
is as true today as it was when it was written. To consistently
find fish, you have to put in the time on land and on the water,
asking questions of your self and others to build up the full
picture. A picture you can use to consistently find fish.