Eyes Open

One day in 2003 my son and I were fishing and I was telling him stories about fishing with my father, his grandfather. I had told him several crappie fishing stories and something I said in one of the stories open my eyes, and changed my fishing, for life. I was telling my son Jason how my mother always came out of the house and ask my father "Well did you catch anything". My father would answer more times as not " No they wasn't biten ". When I told my son that, all of a sudden something hit me. My father lied to my mother every time he told her that. What he should have said to her was " No honey, we were not fishing in the right place, with the right bait". Fish eat all the time, less in water 60 degrees and below, but they still eat. Some days they eat more than others, but in water 65 degrees and above they have no choice but to eat, it is a matter of life and death to them. So from now on, don't blame the fish, it is your fault and your fault alone, if you don't catch fish, so admit it, don't lie. If you just like to ride around the lake at 60-65 MPH burning $3.00 a gallon gas and looking at the wildlife on the bank, more power to you, but if you want to catch fish, you will have to work at it. I see people put their boat in at a landing race 12-15 miles up the lake at the speed of sound before they ever drop a line in the water. I would love to know how many fish they ran by to get to that spot. I catch 90 percent of my fish within 2 miles of my dock. In that 2 miles I have 2 foot water and 80 foot water all I need to catch fish 365 days a year. I do understand that fish migrate, but just as far as they need to so they can find the two things that they need in life. Those two things are, the most comfortable water temperature and food. If you have from 0-80 feet of water and shad, you have fish that are catchable year around. But not on the bank. I firmly believe in the saying that 90 percent of the fish, at any season, are in 10 percent of the water. You just have to find the 10 percent.