To Switch or Not To Switch

In various angling endeavors, a "bait and switch" philosophy drives some decisions. The concept revolves around a central premise―some things work better to attract the attention of fish, while others more effectively entice them to strike. For instance, people targeting billfish sometimes troll hookless teasers to pull fish into the spread, then drop live baits in front of them to try and make them bite. I accept the truth inherent to the foundational tenets of such behaviors, but I also believe some people rely on them too strongly.

The bait and switch debate comes up regularly for me when someone watches a big trout blow up on a topwater without getting hooked. Often, the angler who missed the fish begins elaborating a familiar concept. "I wish I had a Fat Boy," they say. "I could throw it back in there right now and catch that fish."

Some folks devise a plan of attack based on this idea of "switching down" to present a lure closer to the bottom after fish blows up and misses. When wading, they carry two rigs into the water, one with a floating plug tied on the end of the line, the other with a slow-sinking twitchbait. They throw the topwater first, but keep the second rig riding in a rod holder on their backs, ready for deployment when the magic moment arrives.

I've heard it many times. "If I miss a big fish on a topwater, I just switch rods and throw the slow-sinker back in there. Works every time." Some substitute a soft plastic or spoon for the twitchbait, but this doesn't change the basic facts, for me.

I believe these people falsely rely on selective memory, forgetting the occasions when the plan doesn't work. Almost nothing works every time; claiming something does is almost always hyperbole. Many reasons urge me to disagree with this type of bait and switch plan, some of which involve what I perceive as misguided assumptions made by anglers who switch lures immediately after earning a strike.

Most importantly, these people assume they've attracted the attention of a solitary fish when one strikes and misses. When we can't see what's under and around our lure, we don't know how many fish might swim within its reach, but many different kinds of experiences lead me to believe multiple fish often swim within striking distance of a lure when one chooses to attack. I'd argue a competitive instinct compels a fish to strike more readily when it finds itself in the presence of other fish.

I've witnessed this many times when wading in clear water in places like the Laguna Madre and Baffin Bay. I also saw it regularly when I lived in Bayou Vista, beside a canal in which submerged lights began to burn at dusk every evening, illuminating the trout and other fish for us to see. A fish swimming in a pod or school proves much easier to entice into taking a strike than a fish far removed from others.

Perhaps the most salient memory I have to emphasize this point involves the loss of the biggest trout I've ever seen. On the cast prior to hooking the monster, I'd coaxed a fish about 23 inches long to blast off on my Skitter Walk forcefully enough to do a complete forward flip in the air. When it missed, I reeled my plug back in as fast as I could and cast it beyond the site, then worked it through the space again. The big one pulled the lure under without making a splash, but when she felt the hook, she panicked and made a long series of jumps, looking more like King Kong than the girl in the movie.

To this day, I believe the fish was a three-footer. We'll never know, because she succeeded in spitting the hook. Some will say I would have caught her if I'd thrown a Fat Boy at her after the small fish struck and missed. We'll never know if they're right or wrong. But this much I do know―at least two trout were aware of my lure when the first one struck.

More often than not, earning a strike means coaxing one fish to attempt to keep its schoolmates from getting what they all can hear and see. Importantly, when a fish does strike, the angler knows for certain the fish has a legitimate interest in eating what was offered. The angler cannot say the same about any other lure in the quiver with such confidence. Assuming a fish interested enough in one lure to strike will automatically show the same (or greater) interest in another is delusional thinking.

People who switch down after they see a big fish strike and miss apparently assume all fish are less likely to strike a lure riding on the surface than one moving under the waves, regardless of the situation. This runs counter to many of my experiences. I've seen plenty of days when topwaters earned strikes at a faster rate than anything else we threw. On some of those days, when low hook-up rates frustrated us, we tried everything else in our boxes, hoping to find something the fish would strike more aggressively, so we'd catch more. On many of those occasions, we learned none of the other lures worked at all; we stopped getting bites once we took our topwaters off the ends of our lines.

An angler earning lots of empty blow ups should first adjust by changing the cadence and rhythm of the presentation. Fish willing to take weak swipes at floating plugs sometimes become much more aggressive when speed bursts, pauses, and erratic movements enhance the presentations of the lures. If these kinds of changes don't generate an acceptable change in the catch-rate, the angler should next consider changing the size and type of topwater deployed. This kind of methodical experimentation certainly becomes justified if and when the bite-rate on topwaters runs high while the catch-rate stays low. But an aggressive blow up from a big fish should not lead to experimentation.

Because a blow up from a big fish clearly indicates at least one of the fish within the lure's reach is willing to strike something on top, the angler earning the blow up should NOT change the lure on the next cast. Immediately reeling the lure in and casting it so it lands a few feet beyond where the strike occurred, then moving it through the strike zone the same way makes better sense. This will allow another fish an opportunity to strike the lure, also give the original fish a chance to strike again.

Fish can and will sometimes strike the same lure repeatedly within a short span of time. This truth runs counter to a third false assumption made by people who regularly change lures immediately after earning a strike. I and others I know have caught the same fish on the same lure multiple times in one day, and I've observed individual fish repeatedly striking and missing lures many times when fishing in situations where I can see the fish I'm targeting. In these situations, the readiness of a fish to strike at the offered lure becomes indisputable.

An angler who misses a big fish on a topwater and who believes the same fish will ALWAYS bite a slow-sinking twitchbait on the next cast should be throwing the twitchbait in the first place. At all times, any angler with a serious purpose in mind should throw the lure they truly believe gives them the best chance to catch the targeted fish. Doing anything else is frivolous, at best.

Certainly, I'd rather catch a fish on a floating plug than on any other type of lure, and I believe many other anglers would say the same. But I won't consciously reduce my chances at catching fish just to satisfy my urge to catch them my favorite way. I surely don't want to consciously tease a giant trout into striking a topwater and missing; making a fish blow up and miss often does mean not catching it, at least not today.

Throwing a Fat Boy at a trout after it has blasted off on a One Knocker might or might not result in catching the fish. In some cases, the same fish will certainly take the twitchbait; in others, it won't. In some cases, the twitchbait will earn a strike from another fish which watched the first take a swipe at the One Knocker; in other cases, nearby fish will show no interest in the twitchbait. Strike-and-miss scenarios vary with the vagaries of time and place.

In clear water, if I see a fish strike and miss what I'm offering, I do advocate switching lures after I make a couple more failed attempts to urge it to take another bite. Also, if I begin earning strikes at a fast enough pace in cold water, or in situations when I started off thinking the bite would be tough for other reasons, I often replace a soft plastic with something which looks more like a fish and moves higher in the water column if the bites come regularly enough. I call this "switching up."

This strategy worked perfectly for me on a bitter cold day in February of 2014. When I started the wade with one customer beside me, I instructed him to tie on a worm and drag it slowly along the bottom, anticipating a tough bite in water temperatures stuck around 50 degrees. But I told him, "If I start getting bites easily enough, I'll switch up to a twitchbait." Within the first hour, I earned about ten strikes on my Provoker, the last one a violent attack which sent shock waves into my hands. In response to the vibrations, I bit off the worm and tied on a Catch 5. When I threw it back into the spot, I caught a true ten.

I have no idea whether the fish I caught had bitten my Provoker on the previous cast, or whether I enticed one of its schoolmates to snatch my Catch 5. I also have no way of knowing if I'd have caught the ten if I'd cast my Provoker back into the spot. But I stand behind my beliefs about how to respond when fish strike and miss. A vast majority of the time, I play the percentages correctly by casting the same lure back into the space. In a limited number of special situations, I make a bolder play and switch up, hoping to improve my chances of catching a bigger fish.