Finicky fish respond to 'bubble gum' lure!

Constantly changing weather keeps fishing interesting. One day, the weather is warm. The barometer is stable. The fish are ravenous. Then overnight, a cold front moves into the area. Bringing with it light rain, gale force winds and fish that refuse to eat. Lures and techniques that crushed the fish the day before are completely ineffective the next day. Has this ever happened to you? It happened to me on Saturday.

On Friday, it was sunny and warm. Trout and redfish were hungry and seemingly everywhere. Saturday, was a much different story. Light rain and a strong breeze out of the northeast made fishing tough. The change in weather moved fish into deeper water and shut the hot bite down. Rather than stick with the lures and techniques from the day before, I switched to a small profile Z-Man Slim SwimZ lure on a 1/6-ounce NedlockZ jig. After making the change, I began getting a few bites along a depth transition from 5 to 10 feet. This provided me the confidence to stay in the area and try different lures. After trying pretty much every small profile lure in my tackle box (with minimal success), I put a bubble gum-colored TRD on my NedlockZ jig. Boom! I began catching fish on almost every cast. Why the fish reacted to the bubble gum color is beyond me. However, it will now be a color that I try whenever the bite turns off.

As we transition into spring, we will experience drastic weather changes from one day to the next. This makes late February and March incredibly challenging times to fish. When the fish are not biting, anglers that are willing to experiment will often be rewarded.