Sunday, March 18, 2001

Catching Confidence

David Sikes/Caller-Times

Sunset over Panther Reef in southern San Antonio Bay was a fitting cap to an afternoon of enlightenment in Panther Reef with Jay Watkins.

If fish were completely predictable, they'd be extinct.
   I, for one, am glad they are not. Predictable, that is. Or extinct, for that matter.
   In our optimism, we dream of forecasting with certainty the whereabouts of the biggest and brightest of our favorite game fish. And sometimes the dream evolves into delusions that the odds are skewed heavily in our favor. That's a fool's wager.
   Angling geniuses are about as rare as rich gamblers. Most of us, admittedly or not, rely on those fleeting moments when luck and enlightenment converge. Few of us notice all the natural factors that contributed to those successes. Sometimes we don't even know what we did right. We're too busy enjoying the moment and patting ourselves on the back.
   Who among us is without pictures of our angling prowess, albeit short lived? Or maybe you have a piece of three-dimensional evidence on the wall or mantel.
   Imagine if we photographed each empty stringer, depicting the times we were outsmarted by our prey, times we don't talk so much about. Picture in your mind the scores of fish-less snapshots lined up alongside the triumphant shots. They'd fill a refrigerator door at least. Maybe even a bookcase.
   Humbling, isn't it?
   So why do we do it? Why risk repeated disappointment for a shot at fleeting glory?
   Fish or no fish
   To ask this question is to not understand the soul of many anglers, who don't consider fishing a game of winning and losing. Fishing to some is for its own sake, such as art.
   Other anglers, no less noble, fish because the highs outshine the lows and the wins make up for the losses. It helps when memories are selective, and we can rationalize a fish-less day as a process of elimination, as part of the hunt. How else would we know where the fish are not located, or discover which baits they're not biting?
   Are you guys buying this? I'm talking to the people with bumper stickers that proclaim the worst day fishing is better than the best day at work.
   Lord knows each of us has enjoyed eliminating fish-less water during our angling careers. If only the fish would stay put, so we could return the next week and not have to eliminate the same water. But then again, if not for empty casts and light stringers, our catches wouldn't be nearly as sweet.
   Panther Lake
   I was overdue for a bit of the latter when Jay Watkins called last week.
   "I'm onto some pretty good fish, Dave. You want to go with me to Panther Lake tomorrow?" Watkins asked.
   My answer was more predictable than fishing has ever been.
   Panther Lake is on the backside of Matagorda Island, in southeastern San Antonio Bay. It's marked by a weathered old wooden dock, once used for loading and unloading cattle, Watkins said.
   It's not a big lake, maybe the size of four or five football fields. There's only one way in. The old dock is at the mouth.
   It's just north of Panther reef.
   Jutting out from Matagorda Island into Panther Lake is an oyster reef that's usually underwater, except during extreme low tide. Much of the shell guarding Panther Lake has been dry lately. Paralleling the main reef is a secondary reef, roughly on a north-west line, then curving east-west. We would be concentrating our efforts in a gut between these two reefs. This tidal-fueled gut feeds the lake with water and baitfish.
   Fish highway
   It's a fish highway and popular eatery, which Watkins likened to a busy intersection such as Five Points.
   I'm talking about a strip of water that's maybe 30 or 40 feet wide and 150 yards long. Narrowing our prospects further, Watkins told me the fish are only there during tide movement. We arrived at 2 p.m., just in time for the incoming push.
   Adding to my optimism, the moon was full. Watkins had explained that these conditions could trigger the instinct in larger trout to stage near the gut in the evenings, when baitfishes swept by current are easy pickings during the incoming tide.
   Slow-sinking lure
   "I've been doing pretty well using that MirrOlure Catch 2000," Watkins said. "The bigger fish seem to prefer the slow-sinker over soft plastics. You have much luck with those type baits?"
   I had not.
   Truth be told, I'd pretty much eliminated this lure from my arsenal after several empty experiences. I was taught to use them in cold conditions, when conventional wisdom tells us to retrieve lures agonizingly slow. I just couldn't do it. I didn't have the patience.
   Which brings me to one of the intangibles of angling: confidence.
   The level of patience we maintain when fishing is directly linked to the level of confidence we have in the lure we're using. Location, water conditions and weather also contribute to confidence. I ooze patience when I'm using an 808 or bone/silver Top Dog in Yarborough, Nueces Bay and Baffin's south shore, or when I'm throwing a pumpkinseed/chartreuse Bass Assassin most anywhere.
   And why not? Not only have I caught fish using these lures in those waters, I've watched other anglers do the same.
   I'm not saying fish can sense confidence the way a dog senses fear. But I believe confidence begets focus and concentration, which catches fish and makes us better fishermen. It's a visceral thing.
   Vicarious confidence
   Fortunately for all of us, confidence can be achieved vicariously. At first, I'd have to piggyback on Watkins' confidence this day, but not for long.
   I caught the first fish on my second cast. A bigger trout followed this. Watkins caught it. The action that followed has resulted in a trip to the tackle shop for me. I now own an impressive array of Catch 2000s.
   The ones with white bellies worked best for us.
   Suspending lure
   This lure is generally referred to as a slow-sinker. But it might be better described as a suspending lure, because its density just barely exceeds that of water.
   You can throw a Catch 2000 into four feet of water, count slowly to 10 and it still won't have reached the bottom. That's the way I learned to use it.
   But it also works as a jerk bait, which twitches just below the surface. It rattles, too, but more subtly than a Top Dog.
   Barely a cast was retrieved without a strike or a fish. Two casts without a bump was worthy of mention. About one third of the fish we caught were keepers. A handful of chunky specks reached the 18- to 20-inch range. This went on for 2 1/2hours, as we worked our way along the gut.
   We found firm footing atop the mound of shell, which sloped into the gut's mud bottom. And casting was easy in an east wind. During a normal southeast breeze, throwing into the gut should be just as easy.
   Fishing this gut during a north or northwest wind could be difficult.
   A slower pace
   By the time we ran out of reef, the water had turned off-color and our catch rate had slowed. But at the same time the average size of our trout had gotten progressively larger as tide movement quickened. Again, confidence came into play. The slower pace was enough to maintain my interest, based on my newfound confidence.
   But something was eating at Watkins. Short strikes had become more frequent the farther we ventured into Panther Lake.
   "I'm going to switch to a soft plastic just to see what we're missing down there," he said, tying on a plum Bass Assassin.
   His first cast produced a rat red. His second resulted in a 7-pound trout.
   "Darn," he said as the fight ensued. "Why couldn't I have caught this fish on a Catch 2000? That'd been more fun."
   This is the first time I've seen a 7-pound trout result in disappointment.
   But he did switch back to a MirrOlure after releasing our biggest trout of the afternoon. Now that's confidence.
   Switching to plugs
   Something still wasn't right in Watkins' mind, though. The sun was low now and our strikes were coming higher in the water column. After each of us had fish break the surface to strike our lures, our next tactic was clear.
   We switched to topwater plugs.
   One cast of a fire tiger Top Dog resulted in an impressive surface smack. But I missed it.
   Next cast, same spot, different result: a 4 ½-pound trout.
   A couple more topwater trout later and the sun was half-obscured by the horizon. Even in the dark the day's lesson was clear.
   Conditions determine technique and nothing fosters confidence like results.