In a Sunday feature 14 months ago, I made a pretty big deal out of the necessity of downsizing your fishing lures when the going gets tough. The column dealt primarily with bass, but the idea of stepping down on the sizes of artificial lures when catches are hard to come by actually can be applied to many fish species.
At the time, the column was accompanied by photos of a crappie, a sunfish and a largemouth bass - all three caught on a 2-inch-long little marvel made by the Berkley division of the Pure Fishing tackle company. It’s known as a PowerBait minnow, and anything carrying the PowerBait label contains a substance that activates the olfactory senses of fish.
The diminutive fake minnow is fed onto a 1/16-ounce jig hook with the hook point emerging from the lure’s back. The eyelet of the jig is tied to a 14-pound-test microfiber line that has the diameter of regular 4-pound-test monofilament line. The reason for the strong line becomes evident the moment the tiny lure finds itself snagged on a waterlogged branch or root and must be pulled free. Good luck to you if 4-pound nylon is spooled onto a spinning reel. You’ll need it.
I’ve done so well using a black shad-color, 2-inch PowerBait minnow that among all the rods, reels and lures in my inventory, there always is a small spinning outfit with the fragrant little plastic bait on the hook.
That out of the way, I recently chatted with four fishermen standing on a small wooden pier along Charles County’s Nanjemoy Creek. They asked if I was still as excited about the imitation baitfish as I was a year ago. I plucked the aforementioned spinning rod from the back of my truck and looked to the heavens, whispering, “Don’t fail me now.” The cast was aimed to an adjacent shoreline that I knew had fair water depth. The phony minnow landed, danced about a bit as I reeled in some line, lifting and lowering the rod tip all the while, when - “Bang!” - a fat redbreasted sunfish struck.
Just like that.
The guys were agog and of course wanted an encore performance, but having played enough poker in my youth to know that the odds of something good happening again in the same spot were slim, I declined. Instead, I got back into my vehicle and drove home, where an overgrown lawn awaited me.
A few days later, inside the tidal Potomac’s Chicamuxen Creek, a black shad and a yellow perch-color PowerBait were responsible for a number of largemouth bass, several sunfish, white and yellow perch, even a juvenile rockfish. At a friend’s farm pond, more than one of my fishing pals put down heavy bait-casting outfits and 1/2-ounce spinnerbaits or snakelike plastic worms to exchange the bigger gear for the 2-inch, rubbery minnow.
When I fish from a boat, I prefer seeing a downed tree in 3 to 6 feet of water or the edge of a tidal marsh bank. A quick cast, followed by the closing of the spinning reel’s bail and the gentle lifting and lowering of the rod while reeling in small portions of line, is all that’s required. In the case of fallen tree trunks and massive branches, I don’t mind putting the bow of the boat directly into a maze of potential snags. Always aware of the need to be quiet, I strip off eight or 10 feet of line and with the reel closed, will flick - some call it “pitch” - the lure a few feet in front of me, a good bit of the line held in my left hand, the rod in the right.
I jig the lure up and down or try to hop it over the sunken wood. Sooner or later, a bass or other species will charge out from its lair and attack what looks like an easy snack.
In the case of marsh banks in tidal creeks or a freshwater pond or lake shore, simply cast the lure to the shallow edges and reel-hop-reel-hop it back through deeper layers until it comes back to you.
I can practically guarantee that you’ll catch fish using this method.
This is not to suggest that you should throw out most of the contents in your tackle box. You don’t have to, but think small when times get tough. That also means you can use a 4-inch plastic worm instead of one that measures 9 inches. You can still cast a crankbait or spinnerbait, but downsize it to 1/4-ounce, even a 1/8-ounce model, instead of one that weighs a half ounce or more.
• Look for Gene Mueller’s Outdoors column Sunday and Wednesday and his Fishing Report on Thursday, only in The Washington Times. E-mail: gmueller@washingtontimes.com. Also check out Mueller’s weekend fishing report and his Inside Outside blog at washingtontimes.com/sports.
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