When The Going Gets Tough, Lighten Up

Contributed by:  Murf
There are so many conditions in which fishing gets tough on your favorite lake, pond or river. There’s bad weather, bad moon, bad tide, bad water temperature, bad hangover… and so on.

For those with sophisticated electronic equipment, finding where the fish are holding under difficult conditions is the easy part. For many of us who fish regularly from personal watercraft and don’t have the luxury of sonar to locate fish, we have to rely more on our instincts and knowledge of the water body and bass behavior. Either way, once you’re confident about where the fish are, enticing those reluctant fish to react to your offering is the real challenge in most cases.

One thing you might consider next time you’re up against long odds for success is to let go of that instinct to fish big tackle and big baits for big fish, and lighten up.

Lighten up your line, that is. If you regularly toss swimbaits or 1oz jigs on 20lb+ line, consider the fact that spooky fish can see, and feel through vibration, big line moving through the water.

Let the lure’s design do the work for you. Take the very best of “strike on the fall” lures as examples. A Senko, or a Colorado Blade Spinnerbait, both can be very productive offerings when pitched to a strategic spot and allowed to fall on slack line. The design of these lures provides for a very realistic appearance when the fall is not impeded by taught line. Line drag is another factor that can negatively affect their presentation, and since 10lb mono has a lot less drag than 20lb mono, you’ll be offering a much more enticing bait with the smaller line.

Sure, bigger line gives you the ability to horse in lunkers without worry. But if you never hook those lunkers due to compromised presentation, you’ll never have the opportunity to take advantage of the power that the larger line provides.

You can fish the same 5 or 6 inch Senko on 10lb mono with a 1/0 wide gap hook much more effectively under difficult conditions than you can with 20lb line and a 3/0 hook. Unless you’re fishing heavy mats or docks, with a good hookset, a well set drag, and some patience, and you can land any size bass on 10lb line. And you’re much more likely to get that hookup in the first place.

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