A friend and I were ice fishing the other morning without much luck at first. After about 30 minutes, my friend poked his head into my portable shanty and said, “I switched to orange and BAM… two good crappies instantly.” I switched from a red Whip to an orange one and within a minute or two, I had a few 11″ crappies falling into the bucket. Then it went cold for 1/2 hour and then I caught a few more. On…off…on …off until we left.On the way home I started to think that I probably shouldn’t have changed colors.did the school pass us about the same time we changed the lures or did they really prefer orange that morning?
What makes fishing challenging (and also frustrating at times when you can’t buy a bite) is the number of variables that affect the bite. We all remember from algebra how hard it was to find x, y, and z. You cannot solve for z until you know x and y. I hate to put something I love, like fishing, in terms of something dreaded like algebra, but the equation an angler has to solve to understand fish feeding habits has about 20 variables – and they change by the minute! Light, time of day, air temperature, water temperature, water depth, weed cover, bottom composition, location, time of year, wind speed, wind direction, water clarity, barometric pressure, forage, pressure fishing season, spawning cycle, fish competition/density, and moon phase (if you believe that), are some conditions to consider. The bad news is that you cannot solve this equation. No one knows for sure the complex interplay of all these variables and how they affect and ultimately determine when or where a fish will feed, if at all that day. There will be days when they should be biting, but they just won’t. The good news is that we don’t have to predict when or where will bite or even why they bit
We just need to go out and fish, and when we’re successful, try different things, and then document as much as possible about the conditions. Never ever, just remember “this spot is a good walleye spot” because 9 times out of 10 if the conditions are different it won’t be. It’s hard to remember “on Dec 20, in 12′ of water, after 3 days of clear skies, walleye were feeding heavily at this point for about 1 hour before sunset” so try to note it in a log book . It’s important to remember the exact date of success, but seasonal tracks are the most important thing to write down. A season can be a week or two early or late, depending on the weather, especially in the spring. The peak of the spring walleye run is not always March 23, for example. But I’m sure the smallmouth bass will bite in the rivers here when the cottony seeds of the cottonwoods blow in the wind. Pay more attention to the terms than to the brand or color of the lure you were using that day.
The key to catching more fish is to remember only the things that are actually true and to do your best to ignore false anecdotal conclusions. I’m not saying color doesn’t matter, but the next time you hear “they’d only bite yellow”, translate that as “we tried a few colors, but the first fish caught yellow and no other colors were tried after that”. “. Unfortunately, you can’t really learn anything from this information. Anecdotal evidence is the opposite of science and often dead wrong. For example, fishermen always talk about barometric pressure, moon phase, the color of the lure on cloudy days. The funny thing is, no one can agree on how these things affect fish, not even the experts. Search the forums and articles online and you’ll find that about 50 percent say to fish when the The barometer is going down is better and the other half say fishing when the barometer is going up is better. Half say using bright colors on bright days and the other half say bright colors on dark days. Why such a disparity? The reason is this : Someone had a great day fishing and made a mental note of some condition or color of the lure and chalked it up to the reason they caught so many fish, you’ll never change your mind about it.
We are the same way with our pick-up trucks. Some are used by Ford, Chevy, or Dodge. Either you had a good experience with one or a bad experience with the other two, and no one is going to change your mind. One has to be statistically more reliable, but which one? I don’t know, but I bet it’s changed since I made up my mind. The point is that anecdotal evidence may be wrong. However, statistics are only reliable when there are thousands of data points. Furthermore, the scientific method requires that only one factor be varied, and that all other factors be strictly controlled and kept the same. When you go fishing during the day, numerous factors (remember the 20 factors mentioned above) are constantly changing throughout the day.
There is a method I’ve used that seems to remove changing conditions and test only one factor at a time. That method is to present the same fish with two bait/lure options and see which one is preferred. I call it a “side by side” test and it’s easier to ice fish or troll than cast. When testing new ice fishing plastics, I fish with two lines in the same hole (Wisconsin allows three lines per person) about 5″ apart. I use the same line and jig fished at the same depth, but two colors. or different styles of the same color. After catching 30-40 fish this way, a preference may become apparent. 30 red and 5 white is a clear preference.
You can use the same technique with tip-ups or tip-downs a foot apart or trolling different colors of the same lure at the same depth about 2′ apart. Side by side tests also work during bobber fishing. Do leeches work better than minnows? Find out by casting two exactly the same bobber setups as close together as possible, one with a leach and one with a minnow. What about the red hooks? They’re all the rage right now, but do they beat silver hooks? Try some tests in parallel and let me know the results.