Lessons from gear fishers #1 "Matching The Hatch"
Contrary to the views that many fly fishers hold on the subject, there is much that we can learn from the few really good gear fishers that ply Southern California inshore waters. A good gear fisher, as I define the term, is one who catches significant numbers of fish on artificial lures.
One of these things is that "matching the hatch" isn't a
very important key to success in this kind of fishing. All the proof that
you need with respect to the truth of that statement is found in the little
one-quarter ounce, chartreuse, single-tailed, soft plastic swim bait that the
really good gear fishers use with such dramatic effect, catching scores of
spotted sand bass, halibut, and even barred surf perch, in spite of the fact
that their "go to" lure looks nothing like a sand crab or an anchovy,
or anything else in the natural world. Most of the time, the hatch that I
seek to match is the gear fisher's "go-to" bait. Whatever that
bait happens to be.....
This point was driven home to me several months ago, as I watched a float tubing
gear fisher repeatedly catch and release halibut from the waters of Dana Point
Harbor, on what I thought was one of the most unlikely lures possible. This
fisher was having success using four inch long, purple-colored, soft-plastic
"finesse worms". Weird? Yes! Effective? I'd say so.
Upon seeing this, I made my way back to the shore, and searched
the trunk of the car for my fresh water bass box, clipped off my Salt Bugger,
slid a small tungsten bead on the leader, and tied on one of Andy Burk's "Vee
Worms", in olive with a chartreuse tipped tail. When I made my way
back to the break-wall where the gear fisher was doing all of the catching, I
started catching, too. All dinks, but fun, none the less.
Does a "Vee Worm" look anything like natural food in a halibut's
world? It might look like some kind of aquatic worm, I suppose, but
chances are that it just looks tasty to eat.
Since this first initial experience fishing Vee Worms in saltwater, I've
had the opportunity to duplicate the results in Dana Point Harbor, and in
Mission Bay. Sometimes, it works when nothing else seems to.
The moral is that matching the hatch can reap dividends, provided that you are
willing to bend the definition of hatch matching a bit, to include matching the
lures that good gear fishers do well with.
-Jerrold