A lesson from Mother Nature

Years ago, there was a commercial with the tag line “Don’t Fool with Mother Nature.” This weekend, I was reminded of such. After weeks of catching fish, seemingly at will, Mother Nature reminded me who the boss really is. Unusually warm weather and full moon tides confuse fish and anglers alike. All weekend long, the things that were biting the most were gnats.

It was not particularly difficult to locate fish, especially trout. Using the depth sounder, we could clearly see the trout holding on channel ledges in 15 to 20 feet of water. Getting them to bite was the real challenge. Each time we located a school, we would get a couple trout to bite. However, the bulk of the fish were not eating. Downsizing our lures and slowing our retrieve cadence helped to get more strikes. Z-Man TRD TubeZ (PB&J) and TRD (Bubblegum) were the most productive lures. Given the strong full moon tides, we fished the lures on 1/5 ounce NedlockZ jigs. At times, when the current was really strong, we resorted to quarter ounce jigs. I never use quarter ounce jigs. Thankfully, we found one pack in the bottom of my tackle box.

After a tough day on Saturday, I called several friends. All reported similar results. We thought we would easily catch 50 to 100 fish and struggled to release 20. I keep telling myself that catching 20 fish is not bad. But, after the hot bite we have enjoyed for the past several weeks, it sure feels like it.

Hopefully, Mother Nature is done teaching me a lesson.

Contact Captain Greg Peralta at captgregp@gmail.com or call (843) 224-0099.