Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
I’ll soon be returning to Delmarva after my annual three month stint of working as a flats fishing guide down in the Florida Keys, a place I know and love as one of the best places on the planet for a huge variety of fishing opportunities. Whether your passion is big fish, little fish, offshore or inshore fishing its all happening in the Keys.
One reason I enjoy “flats” fishing so much is that it’s so very different from any type of fishing we have here on Delmarva. It’s sort of a combination of hunting and fishing (what could be better?). Using an electric motor or push-pole, flats fishermen prowl their way across the 1 to 4 foot shallows looking for fish. Notice I said, “looking for fish” not “fishing for fish.” This is known as “sight fishing” in that the angler must often first spot the fish before they cast their bait or lure to it. In the clean, clear waters of the Florida Keys, as long as the sun is out, the boat is quiet and the wind is not blowing too hard, it’s not too difficult to see fish hovering around the edges of mangrove islands, hanging-out near coral growths or rooting about the grass beds.
What often strikes me down there is the inconsistency of encountering fish in the same place twice. One day we might work a flat that’s loaded with fish and the next day return under what seem to be identical water clarity, wind and tide conditions and yet the area might seem almost totally devoid of life, leaving us to ponder “where’d they all go?”
No matter where you fish, we all know that there are always going to be days when no matter how much you try, the fish just don’t respond. Sometimes they bite, sometimes they don’t - that’s fishing and a simple but important lesson to remember anytime and any place someone is fishing when the action just isn’t what they expect.
So often fishermen have good luck one day and then return 24 hours later expecting a repeat performance but are surprised and disappointed when they experience little or no action. Such circumstances will likely prompt anglers to “fish harder” by switching baits or lures, changing techniques and trying anything they can think of to get the fish that were so hungry yesterday to bite their line today. When such efforts fail anglers may conclude that the fish just aren’t hungry, too much fishing pressure has turned them off, something’s wrong with today’s bait, the tide is different, the moon is fuller, the fish are suffering from lock-jaw or any of a multitude of reasons why they left the fish snapping yesterday but returned today and can’t get a bite. The fact is, for whatever reason, the fish may have just simply moved out of the area, and no matter how much effort someone puts into it they aren’t going to be able to catch nonexistent fish.
The dilemma so often arises because almost anyone who has a great day somewhere is only naturally going to return to the same place the next day. After all, it only makes sense for fishermen to assume that the fish are still there. The important thing for anglers to remember is that where they left the fish yesterday should only be considered a “starting point” for today. If the fish aren’t encountered within a reasonable time, then anglers had better start thinking about searching for them in a new place. Putting a full day’s effort into the same location may be akin to “beating a dead horse” in that it’s just a lot of wasted time and energy if the fish have moved out.
A few years ago, I slipped down to the Ocean City Inlet one morning and experienced a few hours of the best inshore fishing I’ve ever had. It was early May and I was hoping to find some rockfish feeding on the incoming tide. As it was the fish were more than cooperative. I was working the tip of the South Jetty and literally had fish on every cast. In fact, the bite was so good that if I pulled the hook on one fish another would be right behind it and snatch up the lure before I could get it in for another cast! It was all so easy that after a while I actually got tired of catching stripers and ran to the Rt. 50 Bridge to look for bluefish. Again, I wasn’t disappointed. Bluefish were chasing bait all over the sandbars and, like before, every cast produced a fish! Unless the fish actually started jumping in the boat the action could not possibly have been any better. After 4 hours of the mayhem I was tired and just had to quit. The fish were still feeding in my wake as I left for home.
Of course the next day I was back. Same place, same tide, same weather conditions, everything that I could tell was identical, so I expected yesterday’s results – NOT! In two hours of fishing I never had a bite. It was as if every fish in the area skipped town without notice! A few days later I started picking away at some fish again, but to this day I don’t know what could have shut those fish down so dramatically from one day to the next, unless, like what we experienced last month in the Keys, the fish just evacuated the area.
Anyone who fishes a lot should know that just because they catch fish one day never guarantees that they’ll have the same, or even any, luck the next. There are just too many variables involved that govern when and where fish will be and whether or not they will respond to our angling efforts. Trying to figure out where the fish are today and where they’ll be tomorrow is just another of the many great mysteries and challenges that keeps so many of us totally captivated by the sport of fishing.
Looking ahead to this new season we should all be cheerfully optimistic that this will be our best one ever. But in the same breath, we also need to be realistic about the fact that between our first and last trip of the year all of us will have days when things simply don’t go our way, and for one reason or the other we won’t find or catch any fish. It makes no difference how “good” of a fisherman we are; there will be days when things just won’t click, and even though we’re making what we think are all the right moves, we’ll never end up seeing good results on the end of our line. But “that’s fishing”, which is something we all know going in.
I guess if we knew all the answers and caught fish all the time fishing would become too routine, too easy and certainly lose a lot of it’s appeal in the translation. As much as some folks might wish they could, no angler can honestly guarantee that from one day to the next that they’ll catch fish. Only the “Man Upstairs” can do that, and as best as I can figure, He’s not in the business of guaranteeing fish either!
Capt. Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and Captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.