Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
I was fishing with a friend down in the Florida Keys last month and we were looking for redfish. I was poling the boat from the stern and my partner was on the bow ready to cast, or so I thought. We had been working a shallow flat for about ten minutes and suddenly a fish appeared at the ten o’clock position, a short cast away. It should have been a slam-dunk hookup, but before my friend could cast he had to first get ready by stripping fly line off his reel and onto the deck of the boat. He hadn’t done this ahead of time because it was kind of breezy and he didn’t want his line blowing around the deck. But not being set-up for a quick cast ended up being a bad mistake. The fish didn’t wait around for him to get prepared. Once it sensed the boat - it was gone, and so were our chances of landing the best fish of the day!
The ability to react quickly to opportunities as they come along is one of the greatest assets an angler can use to bolster their success, and it all starts with considering what opportunities might possibly come along in the course of the day, and then having rigs and tackle set and ready to deploy at a moments notice. Say for instance, you’re flounder fishing in the bay and suddenly birds start diving and fish start breaking all around. Instead of wasting time fumbling through your tackle box looking for some sort of small bucktail or jig, then rigging it on a little light wire leader before finally tying on your line and taking a cast, if you already have a couple rigs made up and ready to fish, you’ll have a shot at nailing a few nice bluefish before they go back down or move off. Even better, if you have a rod rigged for bluefish it’s just a matter of picking it up and casting. The difference in catching or not catching fish can be just that simple.
When heading offshore to troll for billfish, tuna and dolphin, it’s a common practice to leave the dock with a bait cooler filled with rigged ballyhoo and mullet and chances are those baits will be all that’s needed through the course of the day, unless of course a chunk of floating debris is discovered that happens to be holding a whole school of small dolphin that require chunk baits on small hooks that can be cast from spinning tackle. If the crew must take the time to cut bait, rig hooks on leaders and attach it all to light tackle, the window of opportunity to catch a bunch of those fish might very well slam shut before the first hook hits the water. Or what if you suddenly encounter a trophy shark but don’t have time to twist wire and put together a proper shark rig before the monster departs. Time wasted doing things on the water that could have been done at the dock translates to missed opportunities.
Of course being prepared for “anything” can sometimes be easier said than done, particularly for offshore anglers. It’s a big ocean, and from minnows to monsters, quite literally, anything could pop up on any given day. A couple years ago I had tarpon swimming around the boat five miles off Ocean City, and “no” I was not ready for them! Fortunately, there are some basic products available these days that can help us be ready at a moments notice for at least most of whatever might come along.
No matter what type of fishing you’re doing, spinning tackle is a must to have available because it’s so versatile and can reach out and hook fish that would otherwise just cruise right on past. It used to be that light, medium and heavy spinners were needed to cover all the possibilities. But now, by using the new breed of strong, thin, braided lines, anglers are often able to get away with using just medium tackle which can handle big tuna-size fish but still be able to cast small bucktails or jigs to little fish.
Keeping a simple selection of soft and hard-body lures and jigs aboard can have a boat prepared to hook most of what they might encounter on any given day. Surface poppers can tempt tuna, dolphin, bluefish and just about anything else with fins and floater/diver type plugs will nail everything else. Jigs can fish the entire water column and can be cast, trolled or just dropped straight down to the bottom. The new breed of scented artificial baits, such as the Gulp! and Fish-Bites, have been proven to sometimes be equal to, if not better than, natural bait and allows anglers the opportunity to always have a form of bait aboard for whatever situation arises, no matter what type of fishing they originally set out to do.
Particularly if it’s been a slow day for hooking the targeted species, being able to take advantage of anything that comes along can be a real trip saver and the whole process starts with the consideration of what “could happen” and then preparing as much as possible so that if something unplanned, but not totally unexpected comes along, you can jump right on it. Do whatever it takes to be able to put a bait in the face of a fish just as soon as it first appears by having a variety of baits available, tying up extra hooks and leaders, and having the right lures and correct tackle rigged and ready.
You’ll never kick yourself at the end of the day for missing a great opportunity.
Captain Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
