About 20 years ago, I was one of a group of anglers participating in an annual fishing night staged by Kansas City boat dealer and sporting goods store owner, "Fishing Frank" Fensom. Most of the others presenting seminars were southern bass fishermen.
I was the token "Yankee walleye guy."
I listened to the bass pros whose advice consisted of gems such as. "Just pitch it over by that little ol’ bush," on up to instructions so complicated that it would have taken the National Academy of Science to unravel them. Finally, longtime television fishing star, Jerry McKinnis, restored some sense to it all.
"I think we all take this fishing too seriously," he told them.
I’ve often thought the same. Some days they bite and some, they don’t, and what are you going to do about the latter? It’s neither life nor death, and in view of some of the events since last September, it seems rather pale. And contrary to what you read in the In Fishermen and other such "how to" magazines, on many days, even the top anglers get blanked. I know because I’ve fished with many of them and have seen more of the tough than easy days. It’s kind of like the guy I knew from Omaha who used to hire Bob Propst as his guide. On a tough day, mostly to get under Propst’s skin, he ask, "Wonder what Al Lindner would do on a day like this?"
To prove there is justice, there was the day Al and I were experiencing an especially difficult spring pike bite on Oahe and ran into Propst and that same client. Course, Al’s one of the most recognizable guys in fishing and as we traded greetings, the guy couldn’t help but ask, "Al, on a tough day like this, what do you do?" Without hesitation, Al responded, "Oh, I just keep moving around until I run into Bob Propst and ask him what I should do."
And that’s the point of it all. In this day of high technology and space age equipment, most of the best fishermen, the two just mentioned being a couple of prominent examples, usually fish in the simplest ways. If there’s a difference, it’s that Propst always fishes simply while Al, who greets all new technology with open arms, can usually make the gadgets work because he fishes so confidently and usually manages to fish in all the right places.
The older I get, the more importance I attach to the way I catch fish. I am now starting to understand why some fly fishermen would rather catch a single trout on a dry fly, than a bushel full of them on a nymph, even though I don’t necessarily agree with them because I’d rather catch a bunch. But understanding the rationale might explain why I’ve been so unimpressed by spring goose seasons and electronic calls. I admire those who spent the time and effort to become good callers and isn’t it almost a management-directed slap to replace that with a box of batteries, wire, diodes and recorded sounds of real geese? And if you don’t understand my concern about electronic calls and what they might do to hunters, well, nothing I can add will make that much difference. It’s like a few others and I have seen the light and the others haven’t.
I guess that with age also comes the realization that what so many have written about fish over the years is pretty much true. The fish does have a pea-sized brain, which might explain why it would strike a chartreuse-colored bait when nothing in its world comes in that color. The fish doesn’t know any better. That funny colored thing looks like it might eat pretty well so the fish tries it.
So, if all of this is true, how is it fishermen worry about color and things that tend to fall into varying degrees of meaninglessness, when the simple act of putting the bait where the fish is, is what’s really important? Maybe it’s because fishermen want to believe in something, even if it is meaningless.
Those who sell baits have long known this. The fisherman goes into the baitshop and learns that the previous groups all caught their fish on yellow-spotted Mud Bugs. So he buys every Mud Bug on the shelf, not once asking how deep or fast they were fishing them, or for that matter, on what kind of structure. What those fishing lure salesmen have mastered is the art of selling lots of sizzle and not a whole lot of steak. If it sounds good, buy it. And here’s another dirty little secret. The reason bait makers offer their baits in that rainbow of colors are that they know most of us think that’s pretty important. So, they offer 18 stunning colors and most of us carry at least a dozen. The latest little trick bait makers are employing on color is two tones that fade into each other. Add those two tone fade jobs into the mix and you now choose from, say, several dozen. Devious but devastatingly effective and I’m not talking about on the fish. Nor am I saying that I’m smarter than the rest. You see, even though I say color is one of the least important factors, look in my box and you’ll discover I carry all of them. That’s another way of saying, even though I don’t think color is much of a factor, I’m not absolutely sure I’m right.
I began fly fishing in 1990 and I thank that experience for teaching me a lot more about fishing with baitcasting and spinning tackle. Because you start small, emulating insects as well as the stages in their lives before they become full-blown insects, you learn much about food chains and eventually come to realize that there’s a time when a 22-inch brown trout will suck in one tiny midge larvae after another. That such a large fish would spend much time looking for a critter that’s about a sixteenth of an inch long, shoots the big fish, big bait theory all to hell, doesn’t it? And if you start fly fishing, sooner or later, you take up fly-tying, and though you might tout the money-saving aspect of it as a means of justification to your wife, you might as well admit you really don’t save money but do learn to do something that’s pretty satisfying. Truth be told, you’d have to fly fish for a hundred years to justify the cost of a fairly decent vise.
But, that misses the point and sort of brings us back to why that largemouth bass or walleye will hit chartreuse bait. If you tie enough flies, you come to realize that some tiers spend all of their time trying to emulate the real thing right down to the last vein on a mayfly wing. These are the perfectionists, and in my experience, most of them don’t catch many fish. Then you start reading about people like Dave Whitlock who ties flies that look buggy but don’t precisely imitate much of anything. They just look like something that’s good to eat. So you fish the buggy looking flies and you catch more fish. My pal Dave Zentner is a good example. He might be the worst fly tier I know. His flies are, indeed, very ugly, but he always seems to know exactly where to put them. It goes without saying that he’s a good bet to catch most of the trout on any outing.
If you’ve come around to realize that exact imitation isn’t nearly as important as coming up with something that sorta looks like the real thing and putting it where it should go, you’ve pretty much figured out what you need to know to be called a good fisherman. You’re now about a step and a half ahead of the rest and have qualified to go around mumbling things about creatures with pea-sized brains.
"We give them far too much credit," the previously mentioned Al Lindner once said to me. There was a time when I didn’t know if he was talking about fishermen or the fish, but actually, he’s probably right in both cases. To think otherwise is to hurt tackle and gadget sales. So let’s look at those things and give them an honest rating in the scale of things useful to fishermen.
The sonar, more than any other piece of equipment in my fishing lifetime, has helped most of us catch more fish. It helps us find the drops, the rock piles, the depth changes, and all those little places that enough experience teaches us, usually hold fish. And, when all else fails, it also shows us baitfish and even individual fish. Yet, it cannot make them bite. Still, it does far more to help you catch fish than all the fast boats, magnum motors, steer themselves trolling motors, Global Positioning Systems, planer boards and underwater cameras combined.
Here’s what you need to know about sonars. They all work the same way, sending an electronic sound wave to a target at a constant rate of speed. If anything else happens to be between the transducer and the target, it’ll be seen too. If you fish mostly walleyes, flashers will work as well as the most expensive graph. Graphs of any kind are easier for most fishermen to read but be sure to disqualify all automatic functions and learn to operate it manually. If the chart speed is adjustable, runs it as fast as it can display information. There’s no good reason to run it on a slow chart speed because you want a look at what’s happening now, not 5 or 10 seconds ago. Then, believe what it tells you.
It seems like every walleye fisherman these days wants a 20-foot fiberglass boat powered by a 225 HP outboard. I wonder why. For one thing, I’ve caught a lot of walleyes but never caught one going faster than about 4 mph. I’ve sure heard a lot of fisheries biologists get all worked up about technology, especially these big, fast boats that enable an angler to cover more water than he needs to cover. Truth is, in many cases, they are a hindrance. They’re harder to control in the wind and on those really rough days when you can stay out in such a rig, you quickly learn that if you can’t control the boat, you can’t catch fish. Consider a fisherman like Propst, who nearly always favors 16 to 17 foot simple boats and motors of moderate horsepower and nearly always catches five or six times what others catch. What fast boats really do is let you travel farther, faster, at greater cost. They are sort of like the 4-wheel drive vehicle that’ll get you stuck a lot worse than you could with any 2-wheel drive vehicle. The big difference is; of course, the 4-wheeler usually gets you stuck a lot farther back where it costs much more to get you unstuck. And those fisheries biologists mentioned at the start of this paragraph? They do blame technology but do so too often to explain why they haven’t stayed ahead of the curve.
Graphite rods? Listen, if you can’t feel a fish hit a jig with a limp glass rod, you probably aren’t going to feel it on graphite, even if you’re using no-stretch Fireline. And Fireline’s so sensitive that some fishermen swear by it, even to the point of using it in situations where monofilament works a lot better.
Today’s tournament-influenced walleye fisherman also has a GPS. I can understand using one out on Lake Superior where an instant fog can develop on even a nice day. And I guess I can see where it would make it easier to find an offshore, sunken island. But catch more fish because of it? Some fishermen might believe you can, but I believe that if you can figure out how to read a sonar or operate a GPS, you should surely have no trouble seeing the connection between clean water and good fishing. The fisherman who can’t make that connection is also the guy, who having learned to operate his sonar and GPS, complains about slot limits because they're too complicated.
A few years back, I wrote that there would come a time when underwater cameras would join the Color-C-Lector as an item that won’t bring much money at the annual yard sale. We may not be there quite yet. There are still enough TV fishermen and tournament pros hawking them as per their contracts to assure a few sales. And maybe it is fun to go around, look at places you fish, maybe even watch some fish in their world, but almost everyone I know who bought one, rarely uses it these days. Why? Well, they’re hard to use if you’re trolling or if the wind is blowing. Tell me when it isn’t here on the Dakota prairies. But the truth is, most that own them aren’t using them all that often because they’ve discovered it’s more fun to fish.
There’s little doubt planer boards really do work but you’ll have to go some to convince me that they’re fun to use. I’ve done just enough planer board trolling to learn that even big walleyes, by the time you reel in enough line to remove the planer board, are all done fighting. But what I like least about them is that you need so much water in order to use them. In that respect, they bear a remarkable similarity to jet skis. .
I remember coming up over the face of Oahe Dam a few years back when at least half the salmon fishermen thought that you could only catch Chinooks by trolling around the intake structure. It was comical, really, watching a couple dozen boats play Ring-Around-The-Rosie for hours on end. I went through that too, but quit after losing the biggest salmon I’ve ever had on when it surfaced way back there behind two boats that were following mine. But later that day, I saw a guy running four downriggers, four planer boards and a pair of outriggers. He did show all of us how to quickly clear out a crowded fishing area.
And if years pass before I ever spend another day trolling with lead core line, it won’t be too soon. In contrast with a walleye on a crank behind a planer board, you feel every wiggle when it’s tied to you via lead core line. That’s because with lead core line, there’s no stretch…or fun. Lord, even the reel wound with the stuff weighs more than most fish we catch.
So someone says, "Wait a minute," and reminds us that Tom Backer won the Chamberlain PWT earlier this year by trolling cranks on lead core in the old Missouri River channel. They miss the point too. In tournaments, the premium isn’t as much on fun as on catching fish. If trawl nets were legal, you can bet someone would be using them and that pretty soon, you’d see some tournament pros endorsing them.
This isn’t meant to blast tournaments but only to point out that there’s a huge difference between competitive fishing and what most of us do on weekends. In a tournament, if the bite's 125 miles away, the entrants go there regardless of weather conditions and a practice that will kill or injure someone sooner or later. Course, under the same conditions, we can much more easily trailer our boat and put in at a ramp close to the action. So, why do we need a boat that looks more like a race car than a fishing boat?
As long as we’re on the subject of tournaments, let me offer some real and meaningful criticism. They convince many fishermen that they actually need a boat that travels 65 mph, that they also need planer boards, lead core, GPS, and other such devices. In doing so, they’ve substantially raised the cost of walleye fishing and doubtlessly scared some fishermen with thin billfolds, out of the sport. And in spite of the fact that the same Jerry McKinnis spent time in recent years pimping tournaments on ESPN, he had it right the first time.
We take this stuff too seriously. Most walleye fishermen are over-boated and, as tourney pro Jim Randash told me last spring, would be better served with a 16 or 17-foot boat and an outboard of moderate horsepower. Boat control is a lot easier with a tiller though you might get a bit wetter. You probably do need sonar but other than an electric trolling motor, you need little else.
Now, if you still feel like spending about $40,000 for a walleye boat, another $40,000 for a vehicle to pull it, go for it. Then be sure to add the GPS, planer boards, line counter reels and the rest.
With luck, you’ll be able to keep some of it in the divorce settlement.
