Old fishermen must keep trying new tricks to outwit novices

By Collins Doughtie CONTRIBUTOR

More and more I have found that when I lay out a game plan for a day of fishing it doesn’t always go the way I planned. For example, just last week I had my whole day mapped out. At low tide, I was going to go to this spot and, as the tide began to rise, I would go to another spot, and so on.

The problem with this way of fishing is you get to your spot and there sits another boat. With more and more boats fishing these waters, this frustrating start to the day has been happening to me more and more, and every year it just gets worse.

Quite honestly, I try my best to hide fish from other anglers that might be riding pass me as I am hooked up. Two of my favorite ways of doing this is to either put my reel in free spool and let the fish swim around until the other boat is out of sight or secondly, to ease the fish in the boat over the side farthest away from the prying eyes of anglers on the passing boat.

These old tricks aren’t working like they used to, so what now?

I don’t do it all the time but more and more I have gone to exploring new areas. All you have to do is look at a nautical chart of the area and you will instantly realize there are large and small estuaries absolutely everywhere. Even after living here for so long, I’ll bet I haven’t explored 80% of these tributaries.

In my mind at least, there just have to be fish in most all of them. They might not be there at low tide nor mid tide, but if you put the time in and pay attention, chances are you’ll learn that the fish will be there at some time during the tide cycle. All it takes is patience and a logbook where you record what time in the tide the fish show up in that particular place.

I think about exploring new areas more than I actually do it, but lately I have noticed that the majority of boats that I see out there regularly are almost always at a handful of spots, and these spots are hit hard day after day.

Because there always seems to be a boat at this handful of places, newcomers to our waters figure if that boat is always at that spot, then there must be something there. Before long it becomes a battle of who can get up the earliest, or get their bait first, and camp out on the spot. Then they tell a friend, and that friend tells another friend, and before you know it, it’s like winning the Mega Millions Jackpot when you get there first. Sadly though, after a while these productive spots are fished out and the whole process starts over in another place.

On a recent weekend, I decided to take my 16-foot skiff, the Marsh Monkey, out. With all the wind and rain we have had recently, it was the first day in quite some time that called for bright sunny skies and 0% chance of rain.

Quite frankly, I avoid fishing on weekends, especially inshore, because so many jet ski hot dogs and weekend boaters haven’t a lick of courtesy. But this time, I decided “what the heck.” My wife, Karen, was going to spend the day with a girlfriend so I was looking forward to getting out by myself and trying new places and new techniques.

Armed with a tackle box full of artificial lures, a small cast net, a can of sardines, an orange and jug of water, I headed out. The tide was low, which is the best time to catch live bait with my cast net, and I ran to a tried and true bait catching spot. Usually, I can catch enough shrimp and finger mullet, but this time all I caught was small croakers around four inches long.

Moving from spot to spot while avoiding heavily trafficked areas, I cast a variety of artificial lures for an hour or two and managed to catch four flounder. All were undersized so I released them.

In a new spot, I anchored and changed to nothing but a small circle hook and a split shot about a foot up from the hook. I nosed hooked a croaker and drifted it back in the current. Not expecting much, I set my rod down and ate my lunch.

Suddenly my rod darn near went overboard but my cat-like reflexes caught it just in time. Thinking it had to be a redfish, I was stunned when, after two nice runs, up came a stud trout – easily more than 20 inches long. I was elated.

Down went another croaker and wham! another huge trout! For the next hour I caught two dozen monster trout, all on croakers.

Weekend or not, this exploring trip taught me that by gum, you CAN teach new tricks to an old dog like me!

Collins Doughtie, a 60-year resident of the Lowcountry, is a sportsman, graphic artist, and lover of nature. collinsdoughtie@icloud. com