Years ago, there was a commercial with the tag line “Don’t Fool with Mother Nature”. This weekend, I was reminded of such. After weeks of catching fish, seemingly at will, Mother Nature reminded me who the boss really was. Unusually warm weather and full moon tides confused fish and anglers alike. All weekend long, the things that were biting the most were Gnats.
It was not particularly difficult to locate fish, especially Trout. Using the depth sounder, we could clearly see the Trout holding on channel ledges in 15 to 20 feet of water. Getting them to bite was the real challenge. Each time we located a school, we would get a couple Trout to bite. However, the bulk of the fish were not eating. Downsizing our lures and slowing our retrieve cadence helped to get more strikes. Z-Man TRD TubeZ (PB&J) and TRD (Bubblegum) were the most productive lures. Given the strong full moon tides, we fished the lures on 1/5 ounce NedlockZ jigs. At times, when the current was really strong, we resorted to quarter ounce jigs. I never use quarter ounce jigs. Thankfully, we found one pack in the bottom of my tackle box.
After a tough day on Saturday, I called several friends. All reported similar results. We thought we would easily catch 50 to 100 fish and struggled to release 20. I keep telling myself, that catching 20 fish is not bad. But, after the hot bite we have enjoyed for the past several weeks, it sure feels like it.
Hopefully, Mother Nature is done teaching me a lesson.
Hi captgregp,
Really informative and helpful post. I will try you advice my next holiday. Thanks 🙂
Had a similar experience this past weekend. I fish from a kayak and was finding that the trout were holding close to the bottom at about 6′ depth of water, had to work the lures real slow and even then the larger trout were gently picking up the lure, Thought i kept getting snagged up and was dragging oysters half the way and then BOOM! the Trout would start up and begin thrashing about 10′ from the kayak. Also, found a nice little school of Reds in front of a dock at about 5-8′ water depth all ranging from 16-25″ but these guys were slamming the lure and putting up their usual fight till the end.
Thanks for following the blog and sharing your experience. With the weather being a bit warmer for the next few days, I expect the bite to be pretty hot. Good luck fishing and have the happiest of holidays!