Color plays a role, too. Two patterns work consistently well, Hot Chub and Emerald Shiner. We also catch some fish on the Perch pattern, seemingly the best representation of the prey the fish are feeding on, along with the occasional goby. We can't catch a fish on Silver, Blue, or Shad. Over three days of fishing, Hot Chub is easily the best color pattern, although we have one period on a cloudy morning in which Emerald Shiner produces many fish, while Hot Chub can't scratch a one.

The lesson there for those of us who often try to match the baitfish hatch is that matching isn't just an in-hand visual thing based only on our perspective. The experiment has to go beyond that to include the fish, which often tell us, as was the case here, that they think something else looks a lot better than what we think they should be eating. But you have to work through the puzzle to find out. Often as not, color is one of the key final factors in making a great catch.

That's the sort of account of how we work through the ongoing puzzle that is a day or two of fishing for a given species at a given time that strikes many uninitiated anglers as lunatic raving from someone looking way too hard for something to write about. Yet this is the sort of in-the-field fine-tuning that's always at the heart of finally getting in on great fishing -- even when fishing's easy. It might be easy, but there's always a way to catch more and bigger fish. That's just as true when fishing's tough.

For me and for most of you, this is the essence of what's challenging and fun about fishing. It's all about the puzzle and working through the variables to find an answer.

In another series of memorable situations last season, to offer just one more quick example, I learned that one should never go for pike in Canada without a contingency of 1-ounce Bill Lewis Rattle Traps. It wasn't just one of the most productive baits of all in one situation, but on three different overall trips over the course of a month -- this after the water had warmed sufficiently to move pike out of the shallows into deeper weedbeds. I often fished the lure for bass, but never carried it for pike. Big mistake.

This is why we spend so much time in the field; and it's why this staff of seasoned editors and field editors, plus so many of the other folks who write for us, can offer such detailed advice about so many specific situations in fishing. In this issue, each article illustrates that fishing success is all about fine-tuning -- that the difference is in the details. It took me 40 years of fishing to arrive at the conclusions I offer about fishing spoons for walleyes. It's way too much for most anglers, which is fine, because the relatively small group of total anglers that are In-Fishermen much prefer catching most of the fish, most of the time.