There is always tons of discussion on where to fish, what to fish with, and what gear to fish it on. However, a factor that is key to your success and one of the most overlooked by anglers is their direction of retrieve!
While you can certainly fan cast an area and hit the most promising ambush points you're not likely to get a bite unless the fish are looking at your lure as it goes by them. Bringing the lure from behind them or parallel with them is not going to get it done; especially if they are in a picky or less active state! In a number of situations it may be predictable how the fish will position and how you should present your lure. Take a tree in the water along shore for example; fish hiding under the tree will be using it as an ambush point and be facing outward. Anglers can cast their lure to shore and bring it along each side or cast parallel to shore along the deep end of the tree and always be presenting it in front of the way fish are looking. But what if that tree is away from shore? Now you can cast all sides and from different directions. The fish has a lot more potential ways it can face and becomes a lot more difficult to figure out! Take a much larger piece of cover or structure like a giant weedflat and it becomes even more difficult. Sometimes the majority of fish will be facing one way and only bite a retrieve in a certain direction. It could be driven by wind direction, currents, or just a tendency in the given body of water for another reason.
In a recent muskie outing the New Wave team had an incredible 10 fish day. The interesting thing is all the bites came when the bait was travelling in the west to east direction. This was a very strange observation as the wind had shifted directions multiple times throughout the day so it was not as simple as casting into the wind. To add to the matter it made no difference if we were on the east or west side of a piece of structure or shoreline. Not one bite came from any other direction! You may be thinking there are currents in play here! While there are currents in this area they ran from north to south; for the most part anyways. We picked up on this from previous trips to the area and pretty early in the day had more evidence of the behaviour. We were able to adjust our tactics and boat positioning to force this scenario to happen which resulted in the 10 fish we boated.
To experience a day of fishing on the water with us be sure to check out our YouTube channel at the link below. This 10 fish day will be up in the coming weeks:
If you or someone you know is looking to get into fishing or you just want to become a more successful angler be sure to check out our "Zero To Hero Fishing Masterclass" for courses on everything fishing! The masterclass is built to help you learn how to find and catch fish like the pro's by providing all the information you need and a clear development path! Don't miss out check it out now at www.newwavefishingacademy.com/zero-to-hero
Have you ever wondered why lures don't come with instructions and wanted to know how to fish them? Look no further than our "How To Fish" series where you will learn what each bait is, how to use it, when and where it excels over other baits, our preferred setup to use it on, and the common mistakes anglers make when using it. www.newwavefishingacademy.com/how-to-fish