Re: Meaningless Moments of Brilliance (Everyman Logic)

[Bob La Londe <none@none.com99>]

On 11/28/2022 3:00 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
> In around 1974 we were out driving around looking for fishing spots.
> (About 70 miles from home.)Â  One place we stopped was a canal bridge
> were we spotted several fish hanging out in the shade of the bridge. The
> current was moving pretty fast.  My dad said he didn't see how we could
> fish there with that fast current, and we moved on.
>
> A minute or so later I said I had an idea about how we could fish for
> those fish.  Instead of trying to rig a worm, a piece of corn, or a
> salmon egg on a hook above a sinker, or below a bobber we could use
> lures.  Cast them across the current and reel them in just fast enough
> so that the lure blade would spin, and it would move across the canal
> just inside the edge of the shade where the fish were.  If that didn't
> work we could let the current sweep the bait under the bridge and spin
> the blade for us.  Maybe even wind backwards slowly, and only reel it in
> fast if it was about to wrap around a bridge support.
>
> My dad had a couple cheap gas station inline spinners, but his tackle
> box was mostly filled with hooks, sinkers, and bobbers.  I don't even
> know if I owned a tackle box back then.  I don't recall.
>
> For the next 20 minutes we slayed them.  My dad wouldn't let me get down
> by the water or out on the bridge (it was a wash bridge), so I was
> limited to once spot there was a railing.  I still hooked several fish
> and managed to lift a few from the water well below.  Most I hooked fell
> off lifting them the distance from the water to where I could grab them.
>   My dad, mom, and my dad's buddy all caught several fish.  They were
> all doing what I said from various places.
>
> My next moment of everyman logic was not long after that.  I said we
> should drive along the canal and look for other spots like that.  When
> the canal came up to a mountain we stopped.  I said we should just drive
> around the mountain, but my dad chose to go back to the wash bridge.  He
> caught a couple more fish, but we pretty much burned the spot for the
> day. We stayed until nearly dark.
>
> In 1982 the first "trip" I took in my own car was about 20-30 miles from
> home to an largish irrigation canal.  I fished from just past dark until
> full dark that day.  I would stop at a lock or bridge.  Whether it was
> for farm or traffic I didn't care.  If it created a change int he
> current or a shade on the water I stopped and fished around it with
> in-line spinners.  I didn't have cheap gas station spinners though.  I
> had real honest to goodness Woden's Rooster Tails.  I caught fish.  None
> of the spots I stopped were as good as that wash bridge from 1974, but I
> caught 1-3 fish in almost every place I stopped.  I let the current do
> most of the work for me in much the same manner.  Over the course of the
> day I caught a lot of fish, but I never stayed in on spot long.  If I
> went 15 minutes without a bite I moved on.
>
> I had two everyman logic solutions that day in 1974.
>
> 1.  You can't make the fish be were you want.  You have to fish for them
> where they want to be.
>
> 2.  Fish are not as smart as people give them credit for.  If you find a
> spot they like you can probably find similar spots that other fish like.
>
> Anecdotal application of solution (1) above to follow.
>

I don't recall when it was exactly, but I definitely had my own tackle
box by then.  An orange plastic one my Grandfather sent me for Christmas.

In a high mountain reservoir the predominant way to fish for stocker
rainbow trout was to fish on the bottom as far out as possible with a
light sinker and a couple hooks above with bait.  Basically bottom fish
as deep as you can.

I was told when it rained to much food washed into the lake and the fish
quit biting for several days.  It didn't take me long to realize that
didn't make any sense at all.  Sure it would rain, and people would quit
catching fish, but the reason they gave indicated they most certainly
were biting.  Just not on the bottom.

After the next rain I was out on the face of the earth fill dam watching
lots of anglers not catch fish.  Fewer than before the rain because they
knew the bite was no good. I put a bobber on my rig floating my bait
just below the surface and started hammering them.  I had tried to
explain it, but nobody listened to the kid.  I wasn't catching fish
their way, so I just tried it.  I figured if the fish were not biting
"on the bottom" because there was to much fresh food washed into the
lake they must be where the food was.  Near the top.  I was limited out
before most of the people there caught on, but as I was leaving
everybody on the face of the dam had a bobber on their line, was
scrambling to put one on, or was asking to borrow one.

The next day I set my bait a couple feet deeper.  I figured the debris
drifting into the lake had to be settling.  I limited out again, so did
my dad.  He watched me and did what I did, but I don't recall him giving
me credit as he explained it to other people.  I honestly think he
thought of it.  LOL.

The next day a few feet deeper.  People who were fishing right at the
top stopped catching fish and went back to the bottom.  They were a few
feet deeper, but not yet on the bottom.  I limited out again.  Finally
after four or five days the bite seemed to be on the bottom again.  Just
the regular slow steady bite people were used to.  I wasn't.  Well not
quite.

This is more of an aside.  Just an note on an anecdote about paying
attention.

I discovered in my ever deeper bobber fishing that near the outer base
of the weedline that surround the lake just off shore there were more
active fish.  I could cast way out and catch fish off the bottom like
everybody else, but active predators were either feeding off the deep
side of the weeds or ambushing prey out of the deep side of the weeds.
That was a hard spot to fish from shore.  If you put your bait on or
near the bottom there you had to fight your fish and line through the
weeds.  I think that's why most people cast way out into the lake.  The
resistance of the water against the line caused it to rise up on
retrieve so that when you reached the weedline your fish was near the
surface and you could drag it over the submerged grasses.  They weren't
fishing in the best spot.  They were fishing in the easiest spot.  By
using a slip float I could fish in the "best" spot without my line
laying in the submerged vegetation.  I limited out and left.  I heard
people arguing about why I was still catching fish on a float faster
than anybody else, but float fishing had died for them.  I didn't bother
to explain it to anybody, but my dad limited out almost as quickly as I
did.  By the time I started picking my way up the hillside he had caught
up with me.


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