Playing the Optimism Card

Most of the time, an angler abandons a lure, presentation or location when the object, technique or place fails to produce desired results. Altering ineffective tactics and/or leaving an unproductive place makes perfectly logical sense, in most cases. And, when lures and tactics do produce well somewhere, staying put and repeating them seems obviously prudent.  

A general life mantra readily applies here―if it ain't broke, don't fix it. A more angling-specific one also bears repeating―don't leave fish to find fish. Anyone who's spent more than a few days on the water has likely uttered both these truths. But, some truths carry more value than others, and only a few meet the ultimate threshold of absolutes.  

In some cases, usually when narrowly defined priorities motivate the angler, fixing a thing that ain't broke or leaving fish to find fish does make sense. As a guide focused on helping my customers catch the biggest trout of their lives on artificial lures, I can verify this. Early in my career, I recognized the positive potential inherent to changing things when they're working, when I explored the utility of switching lures during a hot bite.  

Then and now, the goal of catching bigger trout motivates this seemingly ironic decision. If plenty of undersized or even solid keeper trout readily bite a soft plastic or small topwater, switching to a larger lure sometimes dissuades the majority of fish within reach and increases the likelihood bigger ones will have an opportunity to strike. So, the concept of "bigger bait, bigger fish" justifies switching lures when the bite-rate runs high but the size of fish runs small.   

Conversely, wise anglers also recognize the necessity of remaining committed to lures, presentations and locations in conditions which cause the bite-rate to run extremely low.  Usually during winter, with negative, cold weather in play, standing mostly still and repeatedly dragging a soft plastic slowly across the bottom often provides the only realistic chance of catching a fish. Doing so in a relatively small place with a proven track record of producing big trout in those specific conditions elevates the chances for success.  

Frequently changing lures, tactics and locations in really tough conditions might make the angler feel empowered, but doing so often sabotages the chances for success, but switching things up when signals indicate epic potential can make a good thing great. I recall three instances from the past when I decided to leave a situation many would deem productive enough to justify staying put, and reaping the benefits of playing the optimism card.  

Shortly after Valentine's Day, in 2006, under a blanket of dense fog, four clients and I employed topwaters and slow-sinking twitch baits to catch several dozen trout tight to the shoreline of Texas' most famous ranch as the light of day turned a black world gray. I'd chosen to start on the specific stretch after receiving an encouraging report from my old Troutmasters partner Ari Schwartz the previous evening. He did well during the early-morning wade too, working at first within earshot, later right with us. We shared plenty of laughs and relished the joy of the easy catching, but our biggest trout weighed "only" about six pounds.  

Predictably, the bite began to wane when the sun climbed high enough to punch through the pea soup and allow bright shafts to penetrate the stupid-clear shallows. Once the clouds burned off for good, the bite slowed to a crawl, and we all went to the boats. I decided to make a move then, to another stretch of the same shoreline, one with a better layout for the impending bright conditions. Ari stayed put, saying he would give the place a little time to settle down, then make another wade.  

"Makes sense," I said. "But I'm gonna roll the dice, hope for bigger fish. As good as that was, it feels like we can do better. Now I want a stretch with big potholes a bit farther from the bank." A couple miles to the south, we embarked on our next wade. Within minutes, we all started catching trout again. I caught at the fastest rate, probing every nook and cranny in a long set of belly-deep potholes breaking up the dark green bottom with a red shad Bass Assassin, pulling fat trout to hand over and over again. Closer to shore, throwing topwaters and twitch baits, my customers caught fewer, but bigger trout, within a few feet of the rotting strands of grass piled up along the bank.  When the laughter subsided around noon, we'd managed to land over 50 trout measuring at least five pounds, with several stretching the tape to around 28 inches.    

Though we failed to catch a monster, we did turn a fine start into an unforgettable day, by leaving one productive spot to try a mostly similar one with slightly different features. When I encountered Ari at the boat ramp, he reported grinding out a few more fish at the spot where we'd started the day, verifying the wisdom of leaving fish to find fish, at least on that specific day. During April of the next year, similar events unfolded, though the two spots in play shared fewer of the same basic attributes.  

The day started with predictably fast and furious catching, on the flat adjacent to the ICW, at the northern end of the Land Cut, at Summer House. I and my clients had been catching and handling lots of trout there for the better part of a month, some meeting or exceeding the seven pound mark. In the week or so prior to the memorable day, the numbers of trout had remained as high as ever, but the percentage of big ones had started to decline.    

When eleven o'clock came, and we'd already caught well over 100 trout, with none measuring more than 23 inches, I decided to pull the plug and try a new place. On the way to Yarbrough Flats, one of my clients mentioned he'd like to try a spoil bank lying adjacent to the ditch.  Without any obviously superior, specific plan, I headed that way. We jumped out and started working north to south, casting our Paul Brown Lures into a steady southeast wind. At an east-facing point on the island, I watched two of my guys catch and measure a pair of big trout, then continue on around the bend.  

"That was a mistake," I told the two guys fishing closer to me. "They should've planted their feet longer, after catching those fish." We walked over to the point and soon caught a couple more trout measuring between 26 and 28 inches. In the end, the five of us caught 15 trout over 25 inches, with several stretching over 28, casting upwind from the rocky spoil and working our twitch baits in from the depths toward the shallows. Those events verified the potential wisdom of playing the optimism card to improve a productive day, also the role luck sometimes plays when good evolves into great.    

Serendipity played a less significant role in early-December of 2013, when my friend Jason King and I managed to catch a bunch of big trout around Cathead, at the tail end of a bitter cold snap. With water temperatures climbing in the low-50s, after dipping a few degrees lower, we started at the western tip of the bar, throwing soft plastics around rocks studding the sandy, grassy bottom, where we often find plenty of jumbo trout in such conditions. Predictably, we started catching, but at a fairly slow rate.  

The size of the fish concerned me more than the bite-rate; the biggest we caught in the first hour and a half measured just 24 inches. With a brisk north wind still blowing, and scant signs of bait moving around us, I began to wonder if we hadn't missed the mark when choosing the precise location to make our effort. About then, I caught a faint whiff of watermelon. When I turned to look for the source of the scent, I saw the sheen of two slicks spreading on the surface of the water covering the muddy flat between the rocky bar and the north shoreline of Baffin Bay.  

"I'm going to circle around upwind of those slicks," I told Jason, who nodded while admiring another solid trout he'd just brought to hand. Within minutes of making my way onto the flat, I began earning strikes on my soft plastic. Almost all the fish measured 20 inches or more, but none really met the standards we'd expect to achieve on a day with such ripe potential in a place so famous for producing wall-hanger specks in similar conditions. Once I reached a point on the flat where I could cast to the area from which the slicks originated, I replaced my soft plastic with a black/chartreuse Paul Brown Fat Boy, a lure I've always liked working through off-colored water under a thick canopy of clouds.    

Almost immediately, I hooked and landed a trout measuring at least 26 inches. I summoned Jason, who soon joined me, and we spent the next two hours or so hooking, landing, measuring and admiring about 20 big trout, one of which stretched the tape to 29 inches. We caught several others nearly as big. One thing kept the day from stepping across the epic threshold, at least for me―ten other big fish pulled off after I hooked and fought them long enough to perceive the considerable heft of their proportions.  

That December day signaled the beginning of the best run of big trout catching I've ever experienced, lasting well into 2014. In all three of these cases, I and others reaped the benefits of making a move away from something good, motivated by a search for something great, employing a hopeful mindset. In the last case, we made a relatively short move, on foot, to another part of a spot we had chosen, knowing the prevailing conditions limited our choices significantly. In the first two cases, we made longer moves, using the boat, and changing the patterns and tactics in play more dramatically.    

The desire to catch bigger trout motivated all three moves, as did a recognition of the high potential inherent to each of the days. Ironically, these examples verify the positive potential of leaving something good to find something better. Investing in these kinds of decisions doesn't always work, but playing the optimism card with high expectations and clearly defined goals does sometimes pay handsome dividends.