Alternatives to matching the hatch

[unipsychofishman]

I was reading over a few threads on individuals striving to best "match the hatch" in their given lakes especially in the spring with the onslaught of new and smaller fish and minnows and was reminded of a time in which it didnt serve me well at all to try to directly mimic the targeted forage.
I was fishing for pike in the late spring-early summer and found fish of all sizes to be congregating in large groups herding schools of small 1"-1.5" spot-tailed minnows into the shallows against the rocks and a small wall which together formed a 90 degree barrier at thier backs. The pike were taking swipes at the schooling minnows causing them to panic and teem along the surface only to provoke a surface strike from an adjacent pike. at first I was thrilled to think that fishing was going to be simple and that I could easily catch many fish. I proceeded by tossing a small silver flat rap and a silver black husky jerk into the school of minnows and continued for maybe as long as an hour with only one slashing take which didnt hook up. I went to silver spoons, white and silver spinnerbaits, and spinners also without sucess. I also realized that, due to my downsizing, if I did manage to hook up with a decent pike the hooks were too small and would likely be bent straight. Then I had an idea which I will not soon forget. I went for the exact opposite strategy; instead of downsizing to match the target forage I tied on my largest olive minnow profile x-rap and tossed it to the far side of the minnows. I let it pause and then suddenly started ripping it side to side and then pausing abruptly. I was attempting to mimic a small pike taking swipes at the small minnows and I knew I was getting it right because, while I couldnt see my lure, I knew exactly where it was due to the fleeing minnows on the surface. By doing this for the remainder of the outing I caught many pike by taking the idea of matching the hatch or forage one step further. I feel that this strategy would work for walleye and bass as well as other predatory game fish.
Has anyone else deliberatly experimented with this technique and met with any sucess?

[redbohica42812]

That's an excellent tactic! Thanks for sharing!!

Mike

[omigosh]

Given the description of the pike chasing the bait to the surface, I probably would have taken the opportunity to try a skitter pop and try for some topwater action. I love to see a good strike on the surface. In that situation I would have used the skitter pop to "skitter" across the surface, as if fleeing from predators. It is a tactic that has served me well in the past. Yea the pop and pause technique works also but in this senario it screams for mimicing the fleeing baitfish. Pike really have dramatic surface strikes that are really fun to see.
Excellent job observing & identifying what the pike and baitfish were doing!

[unipsychofishman]

Mike, Thank you. I wanted to share the experience and knowledge I gained from that trip but the explaination came out fairly wordy. Thanks for taking the time to read it and give feedback.
Omigosh, Thank you as well. I hadn't tried the skitter pop specifically and maybe I should have but had spent the better part of an afternoon trying spoons, buzzbaits, spinnerbaits, spinners, and crankbaits of all depths with minimal success (I think I got one or two small ones). The thing was that there were just so many potential targets for the pike so actually getting one to take your lure was kind of like winning a lottery even if you did try to make it stand out as a good target. The strikes also seldom led to a good hookset because the pike were often just taking swipes at groups of minnows rather than deliberatly selecting a specific minnow. This method really focused them on one potential, and more substantial, meal.

[redbohica42812]

I'm new here, but I thought this would be a good place to tell about this one.....

A few years ago I was fishing a stretch of water on a large stream (I'm in northcentral Pennsylvania) that was quite deep and wasn't catching anything on anything. I switched to a slow-sinking soft plastic, which is an absolute last resort on something like this! What I was able to see (I was wearing sunglasses with polarized lenses, and since it was early morning, the lenses were in amber) was that bass would come right up to the soft plastic, and just drift along with it. As soon as I twitched the lure, the bass would bolt off in the other direction!

I recounted the incident to a fellow co-worker (who fishes the local bass tournaments) the following Monday. He told me of a situation he was in recently that involved locust activity along a stretch of river he was fishing. He said that when a locust fell in the water, as many as 6 bass would come right up to the locust, then stand off. They would drift right along with the locust watching it. As soon as the locust would flutter, the bass would bolt off to all four corners of the compass (my phraseology, not his! )!!!! BUT, after a locust has floated several hundred feet down the river, a bass would finally grab it!

After watching this scenerio repeat itself several times, my fellow co-worker switched over to a Rebel Pop-R and fished it on a dead drift. Said he did quite well that day using that tactic!

In this area of our beloved Commonwealth during the summer months, the water gets very low and very clear. I then run Rapala F-5's on ultralight. I used this "dead-drift" tactic, fishing that F-5 like a dry fly. I would say that 80% of the strikes I got were off that dead-drift! I couldn't believe it!!!!!

But...now fast forward to early autumn (on the same stream that the dead-drift tactic worked!)......I was using an F-5 in silver flourescent/chartreuse in pre-dawn hours and was doing quite well as it appeared that the bass were hitting something with a little motion! I somehow managed to break-off that Rapala, but several minutes later, it surfaced and was floating downstream!!! That chartreuse back was very easy to see!!

I went downstream about 100 yards and waded back in to shallower water to try to intercept & retreive the Rapala, which I successfully did. What surprised me was that the Rapala was on a dead-drift for 300 feet and NOTHING hit it!!!!!

What worked two weeks ago may not work two weeks from now; even in the same waterway! I think those fish pull something like that on purpose, just to keep us anglers in a state of confusion!

If any of you manage to read all the way through this without falling asleep.....thank you!!!!

Mike

[unipsychofishman]

Yes Thank-you Mike; certainly some things to think about and apply to our fishing arsenals.