Anyone who has fished with me knows that I can be stubborn.
Today, Kevin and I went kokanee fishing and caught a healthy limit of tasty kokanee (of course which ones aren’t tasty?). We arrived in a timely fashion, before the sun had completely rose.
The “bite” was a typical early morning bite which lasted only long enough to get the blood flowing. The morning came and went with only a few other missed bites that I should have connected with. There were many other bites, but the kokanee seemed to only be bumping my jig.
I tried a wide variety of bait/scent combinations. I tried: my mealworms, garlic plus corn, garlic bloody tuna corn, anise corn, shrimp corn and my slam-ola corn. I managed to land two fish on my own bait, but the bite was not what I have been used to. The fish seemed to be taunting me and bumping my jig just to let me know they were there. I also tried many different flasher and jig combinations and I adjusted leader lengths often, but with minimal success in triggering interest. I felt like I had pulled every trick out of my hat. One thing remained to try. Kevin had offered to let me try some of his bait. It was working well for him, but I was still determined to make my bait work. My stubbornness kept holding me back. Another fisherman had arrived late and he took Kevin’s offer and tried some of his corn. He was getting bit almost immediately. Then, he left with his limit almost as soon as he came.
The time frame between my first fish and second fish was at least 4 hours. I had lots of time to eat lunch and get settled in for the afternoon bite which was quickly approaching. I tried more of my mealworms and corn in varying combinations but with no success. I even found kokanee right below the ice but they were not interested in my offerings. Some of them seemed very curious, but spooky and others simply swam by without paying attention to my efforts to entice them.
The time had come, I broke down and asked Kevin for some of his corn. I had exhausted all my efforts trying to make my corn and mealworms work, so I did what most people should do when not getting bit; change something.
I got a bite on the first drop with my newly acquired orange corn. Then, nothing. I was concerned that I had missed the window of opportunity to fill a limit. I then realized that I had not tried a smaller flasher. I put on a half pink and half silver William’s W50 with a pink jig (and Kevin’s corn of course). Within a half an hour I had 3 more kokanee on the ice and my day was done.
When I got home, I did what I always do; I checked stomach contents while cleaning my kokanee. I found some interesting food selections in their stomachs. One kokanee had a half a mealworm, a synthetic white waxy maggot and regular zooplankton in its stomach. Another kokanee had a huge amount of blood worms in its stomach and it’s stomach was full. I’m surprised it felt the need to take one more bite.
Today, I learned that my stubbornness got the best of me again. I was set on trying to catch kokanee with “my” bait. I was too focused on trying to find “the one” combination that the kokanee wanted and I continued to disregard my bait selection options.
Thankfully, I was able to realize what part of the equation was missing, Kevin’s bait that he had offered. It had a different smell than the bait I was using. Next time, will I be stubborn? Or, will I realize that I should be using the combination that is working for someone else?