When fishing, trust your instincts

One of the biggest mistakes a fishing enthusiast can make is getting locked into something because of something they heard or were told rather than learning it themselves.

As fishermen and women, we tend to use the opinions of people we know rather than using our own knowledge or personal instincts.

I remember a trip to Canada I took with some fairly regular fishing partners a number of years ago. I love Canada and its tremendous fishing opportunities, but sometimes it is not the land of milk and honey it is always pictured as. There are times the fishing can be difficult, and this was one of those trips.

Four of us shared two boats and neither boat was having success. One of the guys in the other boat was having no luck, but he kept doing the same thing over and over again, and fishing in the same places repeatedly. I think he felt he was going to outwait the fish.

I asked him what the heck he was doing. He said, “I’ve been to Canada plenty of times. You always find walleyes in ten-to-fifteen feet of water with plenty of weeds and they always hit on minnows that we back troll. It works every time I’ve been here and there’s no reason to think it won’t work now.”

Well, it wasn’t working and there was no reason to think things were going to change. I spent four full days back trolling minnows in ten-to-fifteen feet of weedy water and only getting sunburned.

I decided to let my intellect and instincts take over. I was trying everything I could to put fish in the boat. I tried throwing every darned lure I had in my tackle box, and some night crawlers and leeches to boot. Still nothing.

I wasn’t going to give up. I finally found the mother lode of walleyes in a completely surprising location. The fish were holding tight to downed timber in five feet of water. The trick was they were only in areas the wind was blowing directly into. The conditions had to line up perfectly. My flexibility saved my vacation.

Now I’ll tell you when listening to someone came back to bite me. I live in a near western suburb of Chicago. I moved there eight years ago. I looked at the map and found the closest pond to my home. It was within walking distance, and I was ecstatic. A pond close to home is about as good as it gets for me.

I walked to the pond and a senior gent approached me before I made my first cast. He pulled out a handful of pictures from his pocket. Every photo showed him holding up a nice carp. I told him I didn’t fish for carp. He told me the only fish in my new fishing spot were carp. There were no other fish in this water. I’ve spent eight years avoiding the closest water to my home.

I met a new neighbor this week and saw him putting rods in his vehicle. I introduced myself and told him I was the fishing columnist for the Daily Herald. We started chatting and he told me the best place in the area was the pond I had been avoiding for eight years. He pulled out pictures of his son holding up nice largemouth bass and good crappies. He asked me why I didn’t fish there. I can’t tell you how stupid I felt to explain I didn’t fish there because an old guy told me there were no fish in the pond.

Keep an open mind, folks!