Not that it always has to be fish on the fire. Almost anything tastes better cooked over an open fire when you’re good and hungry, as anyone knows, and especially after some serious exercise and fresh air. But fish caught that day, harvested selectively then cooked over a campfire, somehow perfectly complete the circle of life we’re living out there.

There’s an important connect for kids, here, too. Taking kids outdoors and introducing them to fishing is one thing — a big thing. Further guiding them towards the ancestral experience, a part of being outdoors for as long as humans have been humans, is quite another. Food was the original reason for being outdoors — fishing, hunting, and gathering. Even for most of our grandparents, time spent outdoors wasn’t leisure time but meant serious harvesting for the table and the winter pantry. Many families still count on fish and game to grace the freezer each season, are still harvesting from the wild, though most sport fishermen are content harvesting and consuming just that day’s catch around a good fire with friends and family.

When you’re planning your next trip, don’t forget those old timers — shut-ins a little past their prime outdoor days, or disabled friends of any age. Is there a way you and a few friends could get them out fishing and around a fire at least once yet, this year? Spending time out in nature is a treat in itself and, for the oldsters, even a fresh meal of fish might make their day, generating memories (probably some good stories, too) about fishing adventures in their younger days.

For campfires, we just have to take time, an hour away from some other activity, even one hour less of fishing. We just have to make time, though our fire be no more than a campstove on a picnic table at a busy state park site. Let’s gather there again around that fire and bring along a few others, while we’re at it.

Good fishing, a friendly fire, the finest of times. Gracious and simple things to share.

Doug Stange: The swimbaits work well for bass in some instances. They’re particularly good fished on a 1/2-ounce jighead when you’re searching new territory, because they can be cast far and retrieved quickly. Cast one out, let it sink to the bottom, or to the intended depth, then retrieve it, using a combination of lift-fall and straight retrieve. Sometimes, in other words, you let it fall to the bottom, then move it along again for 10 feet or so before letting it fall again. And so on. Other times, move it along steadily until you contact weeds, snap your rod tip to break free, then move it along again. Bass eat it on the fall, or as you make a steady retrieve. As you become more proficient with the baits, add further swimming motion to the jig by flexing your wrists to nod the rod tip as you swim the jig along. Bass like it, pike love it, walleyes eat it, and occasionally I get a muskie to bite.

I fished a new lake last year that had a big sunken island in it. I positioned the boat at about 20 feet, off the drop-off, and made long casts with the swimbaits, along the edge of the drop off, and up onto the shallow part of the edge, bringing the jig back to me. Having consulted a lake map before beginning, I knew the general layout of the island. In 30 minutes I had probed all the way around the big island, finding two distinct points that each had a lot of weedgrowth on them. Along the way, I caught four or five bass and a half-dozen pike.

The next pass I picked up a Texas-rigged plastic worm and just fished the two points with the heavy weedgrowth. I was able to catch another bass from each of the points, probing with a lure combo that allowed me to fish slower and get deeper into the weeds.

Some of my best bass catches have been during early summer, but the bait works all season long. The designation “saltwater,” by the way, is mostly about marketing, not where the bait can necessarily be used. A variety of swimbaits are available, from the multispecies smaller (4- and 5-inch) kinds I’m talking about, to the huge baits used in the South and West for giant bass. You’ll note in our February 2004 issue an article on using the larger baits.

Lord knows Toad used to poke the fire. Lord knows too that Zacker used to pretend he hated it. “Quit with the fire already,” Zacker, ninety-something, one of the few remaining real old-school commercial catmen would cackle as he squinted at Toad. Through a mostly toothless smile he’d then immediately continue, “Hot diggittity dang, but you always was and still is a pain in the arse.”

All part of the ritual, Toad would always begin to reply, “Well now, listen you arthritic old bird . . .” At which point Zacker, timing it just so, would always interrupt, “Arthritis, shmitus. If I weren’t 10 years older I’d whup your no good big butt.” Toad then would also, timing it just so and just as predictably, threaten, “Yeah, I suppose maybe after I dump your skinny little carcass in the river.”

“Lard butt.”

“Prune lips.”

And more.

That was them. The two of them, though, loved each other every bit as much as I loved them, and we all loved Camp Catfish.

Camp Catfish. In a world full of gizmos and gadgets, high-ticket this and thats, and enough advertising smaltz to stunt one’s intellect, Camp Catfish remained a nifty get-away-from-it-all get-back-to-the-wilderness-on-the-nearest-river retreat. Forget which river. It was the one nearest us, just as it is the one nearest you. That’s whether you live in what’s left of small-town rural America or in big-city Cincinnati or Kansas City or even Ottawa, Ontario.

Kansas City for example. Wilderness retreat on a river? Kansas City? The home of fine barbecue and some of the best deep-fried catfish in the universe? Well yes. Park yourself on the Missouri or on the Kansas river minutes from downtown Kansas City, particularly after dark, and you’re absolutely alone although almost a million people surround you. That’s as good as the wilderness gets for lots of people on short notice, and it isn’t just too bad when you factor in enough channel cats to feed a portion of the neighborhood, plus a chance at flatheads and blues big enough to chew the leg off a rottweiler.

Costwise, Camp Catfish isn’t exactly a trip to Alaska. Cheap? Well, go figure. Ok, you gotta eat. But then how much do homegrown vegetables–green beans and peas and beets and carrots and new potatoes–cost? Add plenty of butter, of course, and cayenne pepper, which always brings out the best in fresh buttered veggies.

Oh, Toad was a fast one, but always fair. He’d trade a few catfish fillets or a deer roast from the freezer for the veggies and maybe a couple young farm chickens, birds with flesh that looked like flesh instead of those pasty-pale birds that pass for chickens on most meat counters these days. Those “free range” chickens, as folks in the big city call ‘em today, led the good life until their time was up with Toad.

“Fast chickens,” Toad called ‘em. But not fast enough. A few of the chickens, as I came to expect over the years, would have a 22 caliber bullet hole placed just so. “No time to be chasin’ chickens,” Toad would say. What he meant, of course, was that he’d slowed some over the years. “You double ding-dang betcha,” Zacker would have agreed, cackling like the old rooster he was. Add to this larder of fresh veggies and fast chickens a few of the small cats we’d catch from the river. Call ‘em fast cats if you want. But not fast enough.

This uni-knot system enables you to learn just one simple knot and adapt it to virtually any need–everything from tying a hook to attaching line to your reel.

Not only is this system the first and only unified approach to knot tying, but it also provides excellent knot strength in most applications. Moreover, the strength of the uni-knot isn’t diminished when the line is pulled with a jerk, rather than with steady pressure. Some knots, which test at more than 90 percent on a steady pull, will break at 50 or 60 percent if subjected to severe and sudden jolts–such as might be administered by a big fish surging boatside.

The knot-tying expert will simply add the uni-knot system to his inventory, using elements of it for particular applications, and other knots, at times, for certain specialties. For fishermen looking for the easiest way to handle their knot needs, though, the uni-knot system is the only knot they really need to learn.

The uni system works well with braided lines as well as with monofilament, and it’s by far the best way to tie high-strength and small-diameter braided lines.

Learning The System

The one knot requirement basic to all fishing is tying a line to the eye of a hook or swivel. Familiarize yourself with the simple procedure of using the uni-knot for this purpose, and other uni-knot applications are easy.

First, run the line through the eye of the hook for several inches. Turn the end back toward the eye to form a circle as shown in illustration #1. With thumb and finger of the left hand, grasp both strands of line and the crossing strand in a single grip at the point marked just forward of the hook. Now, make six turns with the end around both strands of line and through the circle, as in illustration #2.

Maintaining the same grip with the left hand, pull on the end of the line in the direction shown by the arrow until all the wraps are snugged tight and close together. Snugging down tightly at this stage is essential for maximum knot strength. If you make six turns and snug the knot tightly, you’ll get most of the line strength.

Finally, slide the finished knot tight against the eye of the hook by dropping the tag end and pulling solely on the standing part of the line as shown by the arrow in illustration #3. The excess end can be trimmed flush with the knot after final positioning, as shown in illustration #4.

End Loop

It takes just one slight variation to transform the hook tie into a loop arrangement, which provides more bait movement, especially with livebaits.

Instead of sliding the finished knot all the way to the eye, just slide it to the size loop desired. Then, gripping the loop just forward of the hook eye, take hold of the tag end with pliers, as shown in illustration #5, and pull firmly. This locks the uni-knot around the standing line or leader. If it slides down at all, it will be under heavy pressure.

Line To Line

Attaching lines is done the same way as tying line to hook. Compare illustrations #1 and #6 . Notice that you handle things the same way, even though the two parallel strands involved are from different pieces of line, rather than from the same piece doubled back.

The procedure is simply to form the uni-knot circle with line A around line B, going through six times and pulling down as in illustration #7. Once the knot is formed and tightened (illustration #8), reverse the lines and tie another uni-knot with line B around line A. After the two knots are finished, pull on the two main strands of line, as indicated by arrows in illustration #9, to slide the two knots together. Trim excess ends.

This application replaces the blood knot, which is one of the most unwieldy knots to handle. Breaking strength of this tie is less than 100 percent, but over 90 percent and consistently stronger than the blood knot. It can be increased to 100 percent if you double both strands of line before tying the pair of uni-knots, but the single tie is strong enough for most applications.

Snelling A Hook

Snelling is a snap with the uni-knot. Thread line through the hook eye, pulling through at least six inches. Form the familiar uni circle and hold it tight against the hook shank with thumb and finger. Make several turns (four or five are enough) around the shank and through the circle. Pull on the tag end to draw the knot roughly closed. Finish by holding the standing line in one hand, the hook in the other, and pulling in opposite directions.

Spooling Line

To affix line to a baitcasting reel, pass the end of the line around the spool, grasp the tag end and the standing line with thumb and finger of left hand, and tie a uni-knot. Trim the knot close, then pull gently on the standing line to snug the loop tight to the spool.

For a spinning reel spool, simply make a large loop in the end the line with a uni-knot, drop the loop over the spool, and draw up by pulling on the standing line. In either case, use only two or three wraps to form the uni-knot.

The only modification necessary is to replace the treble hook with a single hook. This makes it easier to tip the hook, which is necessary to trigger fish. I use the Eagle Claw 210, a short-shank design that has an open hook eye. Slip it on the split ring and pinch it shut with pliers. A #8 couples well with smaller spoons and a #6 with larger spoons.
Tip the hook with either a tiny soft plastic like a 1-inch tube or curly tail or with something from the Berkley Gulp! lineup. On our TV shoot the fish were all over the 1-inch Gulp! Minnow. Never had to experiment farther; but other good Gulp! shapes I’ve fished include the 1-inch Fish Fry and 1-inch Cricket. Have on hand brighter colors like white and chartreuse and neutral colors like Pumpkinseed.
Go ultra light with the rod, but it needs to be at least 6 feet long and better 6.5 or 7 feet. I want to make long casts when necessary and a long rod helps to poke stuff out there.
Another key to longer casts and smoother retrieves is coupling the rod with a bigger reel. My favorite spinning reel of all time is the Pflueger Supreme. Most panfish anglers would pick up the 25-class model, which is the ultra-light version. At a minimum go at least one step larger with a 30-class reel typically considered a smallmouth- or a walleye-sized option. I step it up even one more notch with a 35-class reel. The wider spool allows the line to slip off the reel easier on the cast and wind back on the reel more smoothly on the retrieve. A smoother retrieve increases sensitivity because you’re not making so many quick movements with the reel handle.
Given that I often want to make long casts it also helps to fish with a superline like 4- or 6-pound Sufix 832, the smoothest-casting superline that I’ve found so far. These lines don’t stretch, so it’s easy to feel what’s happening at the end of your line, even at long distance. Rigged with the right rod, reel, and line, even tiny spoons can be almost cast out of sight.
Watch your electronics and you can see how high some of the fish are holding off bottom. Typically, if you keep the lure running within about 2 feet of bottom you’re into fish holding in deeper water. On our TV shoot I made several passes over the fish, dropped a waypoint on a group of them, then anchored up wind so I could cast back to them.
Make the cast and let the lure sink to the bottom. Raise your rod tip to about 11 o’clock and start slowly reeling. Stop the retrieve about every 5 feet and drop the rod tip to 10 o’clock to let the spoon fall back. Sometimes they eat the spoon on the drop back, other times they’re all over it on the straight retrieve. At times it helps to shake the rod just a bit to add a dancing action to the spoon. Experiment.
Many times you feel fish attacking the spoon but they’re not quite getting the hook in their mouth. Keep reeling slowly and they often follow right along, keep pecking away, and eventually hook up. Don’t set the hook until you feel the weight of a fish on the line.
When I can use two rods, I make casts with each of them. When one lure hits bottom, I start retrieving with that rod. Finished retrieving, I make another cast, and set that rod down and pick up the other rod. It’s just a matter of alternating rods.
It’s that simple—and the results for me have been beautiful fish. Bluegills are great on the table, but harvest selectively, keeping some of the medium fish, letting the big grunts go. The idea that big gills are still out there to be caught is its own biggest reward. They aren’t worth nearly as much in the pan as back in the water.
Still plenty time left in the season for spoon-time gills. For me, learning this technique has been a fishing-life-changing event. But then that’s what each article in each issue of In-Fisherman magazine has always been about—helping you change the way you fish for the better. Good fishing to you!

On any river running high and a bit dirty once summer sets in you want to go big and bold. You can always catch river smallmouths on jigs, but it just isn’t high percentage in high water. Too small. Show the fish something more distinctive. Make it easy for them to find it and bite it.
Big crankbaits can be good, but one of the best options is a spinnerbait like a 1/2-ounce Terminator T-1. Ya mon, titanium. I usually begin with gold blades in stained water—and I like a bit of chartreuse in the skirt. Then I notice that I’ve forgotten to put the spinnerbait box in the boat. From a previous trip for Nebraska walleyes holding in flooded trees, I have on a spinnerbait with silver blades and a white skirt. One spinnerbait in the boat. Let’s see what happens.
The next step is to step this package up yet another notch. Berkley recently introduced a lineup of Havoc softbaits. One of my favorites is the Grass Pig, which was designed for fishing in heavy grass cover.

I use it in other situations. I consider the Pig a hybrid swimbait. It has a thumper tail at the end of a 5-inch tubular body. Run a Pig on a rubberlegged jig with a cone head and it gives the package a swimming motion on a straight retrieve or as it dives to the bottom after you kill the retrieve. Dynomite! That’s also my objective in this situation—bulk up the body of the spinnerbait and add even more vibration. Big and bold.
Then it’s just chunk and wind and grind. Country singer Jerry Reed loved to fish a spinnerbait. Smoky and the Bandit was a decent movie. “West bound and down, 18 wheels a rollin’.” Or was it East bound? Pretty good song, too. The first cast is for Jerry.
I spend most weekends in the office writing and planning. Often I take a break and walk out back and sit on the picnic table by the river. Over the years dozens and dozens of anglers have drifted by. Most are doing it wrong, casting to cover elements just down river of their position and bringing the lure back up river.
Lures need to be moving with the current to get consistent action. Drift past cover elements and cast back upriver to them. Run the spinnerbait along the back edge of timber cover. Run it down the current seem created by something sticking out from the shoreline. Just slow roll it so the blades turn. I position with a trolling motor while working from the bow.
In high water most of the fish get pushed to the bank, but at times even a one foot drop in water level moves fish to rocky breaks farther out in the river. Try both options and it won’t take long to learn where the fish are. Everything begins to change as the water continues to drop. At the opposite end of the spectrum in low, clear water it’s easy for the fish see what’s happening above them. Time to get precise with topwaters—another story.

There are other tricks to this trade, but this might get you going. And get going you should. That day on the river we saw one other boat. Peaceful—almost no fishing pressure, a result I suppose of the river looking dirty and running high. But the fish have to eat. And they’re crazy wild once you connect with them.

One silver spinnerbait, a few hours of bliss, and a bunch of feisty river bass, the biggest about 4 pounds.

Righteous stuff, man.

For now, as in the past, we’re left to believe or not believe, based on the application of our own logic to the question and the results of our own experiments in the field as we note our success, or lack of it, during solunar periods.

I believe. But I also have watched enough over the years, calculated and recalculated enough to know that the effect isn’t overwhelming and probably usually means little or nothing at all. Still, from my empirical perspective, get the solunar timing right for the right species on the right body of water, during the right yearly period — then get the right weather — and odds increase for big fish. Of course, the angler also must have a seasoned clue about presentation options in order to be successful.

I think I have success tying in solunar effects during late summer and throughout fall, beginning with the first full moon of August — especially when the full moon occurs later in the month, which is the case this season. I like that full-moon period if I’m to begin fishing at night for walleyes. I also like a late August or early September new moon to begin a serious hunt for large muskies.

I’ve had little success trying to time my fishing to supposed peaking periods during days when the moon is overhead or directly below. Instead, I heed monthly periods, especially days leading into the new- and full-moon periods. On the fishing calendars and solunar charts we run in each magazine, we focus on the days before and after these moon periods. But I generally haven’t seen increased activity on waning moons. Give me the three or four days leading into a new or full moon, for walleyes and muskies. Then give me another few days after the full moon, for walleyes.

The connection for me and walleyes has been fishing during the period coming into the full moon, beginning at and after dark. August can be good, but the best bites are during September and October — and November (when the weather allows). I’ve also done well for walleyes on ice during the full moon period in December.

On the other hand, I have done best on the days coming into the dark of the moon for muskies, where my fishing almost always takes place during the day. One might suggest that some of this supposed success for both fish is a matter of light; that walleyes feed best at night when there’s more light present, and feed less effectively when much light isn’t present; and that when muskies don’t have the light required to feed effectively at night, they’re likely to feed more heavily during the day.

Other anglers see other things relative to the moon. One of the most practical discourses on fishing at this time of year was suggested by Mille Lacs Lake Area Guide Ivan Burandt some years ago. “I begin fishing for walleyes at night during the August full moon, so long as it doesn’t occur during the first part of the month,” he says. “I get on the water a couple hours before dark, fish through the sunset bite, then fish until about midnight, for those couple days before and maybe a day or so after the full moon.

“On the night of the full moon, the sun sets just as the moon rises. Then the moon rises about 40 minutes to an hour later each evening following. The moon needs to be up to stimulate good fishing after dark. Two days after the full moon, you have to wait almost two hours after sunset before moonrise. That period has always been a dead time.

“At that point, I begin fishing midnight through sunrise. This lets me get in some night-fishing when the moon’s up and also allows me to fish through the most consistent bite period at this time of year, the sunrise period. If I weren’t guiding and had only three or four hours to fish on a given night,” he continued, “I’d time my fishing to begin with moonrise, get a few hours in, then get enough rest to work the next day. Anytime I could fish through a sunrise period without wasting a lot of dead time waiting on the moon, I’d do it. The sunrise bite is by far the hottest bite this time of year — mid-August through October.

“The only times I fish during dark-of-moon periods are during a few midnight to sunrise runs. In this case, the bite usually begins just as light barely touches the eastern sky. Oftentimes, a really good bite goes for about two hours.”

Across the ages, the sun and moon have been markers for many of our outdoor activities. Sometimes we probably see what we hope to see. Other times, perhaps we can’t see what we don’t have the willingness to imagine. Observations like Burandt’s point to a practical and calculable fishing logic related to some solunar events. My experience is based on countless hours in the field using other solunar events as markers, for what I believe is a potential increase in the overall chance for catching larger fish.

Even though I have seen it so often over so many years, I still find it remarkable that seemingly small things can be so critical in finally getting fish to bite. One moment there are no fish (for all practical purposes), the next, with just a lure tweak here, a lure change there, or a modest technique modification like a slight change in retrieve, the fish are all over you—they’re everywhere and they’re big to boot. It’s calculated magic—but, as we all know, until it falls into place, it’s a puzzle.

I recently mentioned experimenting for two years with casting spoons for smallmouth bass, before finally getting it right, during at least one yearly period. Now it remains for me (and perhaps you) to try it during seasons besides fall. I’m thinking the method probably works at times all summer, too, when smallmouths are holding in water about 8 to 30 feet deep.

I’ve mostly been using the 5/8-ounce Luhr-Jensen Tony Spoon, which I call a paranormal smallmouth spoon because it looks more like a traditional option for pike. Slab spoon and vertical jigging this isn’t. I’m casting and retrieving, which calls for a bit of a different spoon design.

Coupled with a 10- or 14-pound fused line and a medium-action 7-foot casting or spinning outfit I can make gigantic casts, so this is a method that covers a lot of water. Let the spoon drop on a semi-slack line. Once it hits bottom, the line goes slack and you give the rod tip a sharp upward lift of about 3 feet, then let the spoon fall again on a semi-slack line back to the bottom, following it with your rod tip and reeling as it drops.

This gives the spoon an intense wobble-flash action on the upswing, and an erratic knuckle-ball-like action on the fall, as you can’t control exactly how the spoon moves as it drops back. The retrieve is a constant rip-fall, rip-fall, with the angler watching line on the drop back for a telltale tic. Other times the fish is just there on the next up-stroke and you don’t see or feel your line move.

You catch a lot of pike, walleyes, and largemouths fishing spoons like this too. With those fish, you often see or feel a tic in the line as they take, because much of the time they’re hitting the spoon on the drop. Smaller smallmouths do that a lot too. And that was the trouble with my experimentation. I was catching decent smallmouths, but never anything exceptional.

The transformation came in reconsidering the nature of the smallmouth and in changing the retrieve process. As we have long taught, understanding the nature of the fish species being pursued is fundamental to finding and catching fish, but the presentation process—finding just the right combination of rod, reel, and line, and then just the right lure for the situation, working it in just the right way, is what finally puts fish in the boat or on the bank.

The smallmouth is one of the most discriminating and discerning and intelligent of all our fish—and, perhaps as a matter of having such street smarts, it’s also perhaps the single most curious fish in freshwater. Those characteristics intensify in older, often larger smallmouths. They’ve been around a long time. As I said: street smarts.

Where smallmouths are concerned, retrieves often need to be just erratic enough to be highly curious—yet still just barely catchable. Said another way: The retrieve shouldn’t be so predictable that it’s identifiable. Curious. Not quite identifiable—yet at the same time at some point barely catchable.

So instead of slowing down in that cold-water situation I did the opposite. As soon as the spoon touched down, I ripped it back up as hard as I could. I concentrated entirely on ripping the spoon up again within a nanosecond of it touching down, time after time after time, all the way through the retrieve until it was about 50 feet from the boat, which is about when the retrieve becomes too vertical to work well.

Time after time the fish were just there on the up-rip. And big fish, not just run of the mill fish, although smaller fish were biting too. So it was the retrieve coupled with the nature of the fish that got them going. The fish were chasing, chasing, chasing, never quite able to get a handle on what the thing was, until finally—finally—they took a shot at pinning the thing on the bottom. The key was driving them crazy with the retrieve until they couldn’t stand it. I don’t know how far some of the fish might follow before they take a crack at the spoon. After several days on the water I could at times begin to tell I’d soon get hit, because I could feel fish swimming by and missing—or just touching the line as they swam by, trying to get a handle on what this thing was.

This is part of what each In‑Fisherman issue is about—lessons in the process I just outlined. Many of the strategies we write about step far beyond current tradition. Other times, the strategies are but a slight modification of current trends—or an attempt to capture a trend as it unfolds. Whatever it takes. It’s calculated magic.

The trip with Guide Jason Schultz up the Snake River into the head of Hell’s Canyon in a search for giant white sturgeon is one of the most spectacular adventures I’ve been on in over 30 years in this business. It’s 3 hours by jet boat up the river through white-water chutes as the canyon rises magnificently on each side. The spot where we finally fish is in the deepest gorge in North America—the surrounding canyon rims are at more than 9,200 feet, while you fish some 8,000 feet below. The word “epic” comes to mind over and over as we spend the day filming—epic country, epic fish.

The day before we catch spring-run king salmon on another portion of the Snake; so we have fresh salmon belly for bait. The fish isn’t this fresh at Nobu in New York or Las Vegas. I have to keep from cutting off a piece for myself as I rig my line.

Not many folks get that far up the canyon to fish for the sturgeon, but Schultz has been at it for 15 years. The fish, which can be more than 75 years old and weigh up to 400 pounds, pretty much live in the same series of holes year round. He’s caught and released some of the biggest fish more than a dozen times.

So as we fish through the first holes without a bite, it isn’t because the fish aren’t there. Schultz: “Sometimes these giants are incredibly selective. Pick up that spinning rod and catch us a little trout.”

Moments later I slide the big hook through the head of the freshly caught steelhead smolt and drop it into 40 feet of water. The bait barely touches bottom when the rod tip slams down and I am fast to my first sturgeon. That’s 1.5 hours without a pickup for the wrong presentation—20 seconds and fast to a fish with the right presentation. Like flicking a light switch. The biggest of four fish in the next three hours measures 9 feet and weighs well over 300 pounds.

This past June I film with Guide Rob Schulz out of his G & S Marina on Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan. The bay we slid into early that morning has lots of big pike. We can see them cruising. Some of them follow up the lures we are throwing. Occasionally, we catch one. The fish are tentative?

Or are they? I pick up a rod with a Glidin’ Rap, a lure that has been terrific in many similar situations. It’s a shallow-running flat-sided jerkbait that works best moved with an injured flashing wobble, first left and then right, in walk-the-dog fashion. The next three casts each produce fish over 40 inches.

The lure change lights up the fish in the bay. In the next three hours we catch 20 more pike surpassing 40 inches. They don’t just bite the lure, they explode on it, smash it, rip it, shake it. Time after time we see jaws go agape as they try to swallow this injured thing. Tentative fish? It’s more like frenzied sharks. Pike hysteria. Light switch off, light switch on.

Most often the situation isn’t quite so dramatic. Still, eventually when you get it right, you flip the switch— presentation right, fish bite; get it wrong and it seems the fish are gone.

This time I’m shooting a show segment illustrating techniques for difficult situations—smallmouths have been heavily fished and are in transition to off-shore rockpiles after spawning. Early in the day I catch fish by working a 5-inch PowerBait Hollow Belly Split Tail (fluke-style softbait) rigged on a Lazer Sharp 111 Swim Bait hook just erratically enough so it’s highly curious yet just catchable—or, said another way, I work it just unpredictably enough to be not quite identifiable. This all is a matter of sleight of hand, working mostly on the smallmouth’s sense of curiosity.

As the sun gets higher in the sky, they won’t bite the soft jerk, no matter how trickily and curiously I work it. At this point the only thing they seem willing to sample is a “soft something” suspended below a fixed float. Let the wind make it dance or cast and retrieve the float with lure hanging down 3 or 4 feet below.

Five-inch Gulp! Leeches hooked through the sucker on the butt end are pretty good. I try the new Gulp! Hellgrammite with some success. Further experimentation shows fish really want to sample a 5-inch Gulp! Wacky Worm (black’s best) rigged in wacky fashion. On most rockpiles you swear no one’s at home until you drift that past them.

We’ve long maintained that in almost every situation some of the fish are always biting something. Granted, at times, in the most difficult situations, wrong time on the right water, right time on the wrong water, getting even a few fish to bite seems improbable. But it’s almost always possible. The light switch is always waiting. There have been only one or two major tournaments that I know of in the past 20 years where everyone’s gone home skunked. Only five boats out of a hundred catching limits might not seem like magic, but . . .

At times, flipping the switch leads to the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I’ve often seen big swimbaits and crankbaits work miracles fished aggressively in situations where other anglers insist on fishing smaller lures in finesse fashion. Most times, our light-switch discoveries are subtle. It’s finding, like we did trolling on the Bay of Quinte last December, that big walleyes won’t go unless the trolling speed is a dead-on .8 mph.

Depth control remains the most important presentation variable, followed by speed and working method, followed by vibration pattern—and finally a host of lesser things like lure size, shape, and color. Even when you know you have the main part of the experiment right, as in the case of the Glidin’ Rap and pike at Last Mountain, we go farther, trying to determine just the right color, just the right retrieve method.

We generally suppose there are no magic lures or presentations, but at times some things come close. Right time, right place, right fish, right presentation, and it can be light switch on, lights out for big catches. No matter the situation, the light switch is waiting.