Fishing Articles
Fishing Pressured Water
Fishermen teach fish what "not" to bite
Timothy Kusherets
Lots and lots of fishermen love to fish in buckets and to do that means
combat fishing. Anglers that have been around carry a negative association
with the term combat fishing but I don’t. I love it, especially
when there’s a lot of fish in the area. Look, there’s nothing
you can do to stop fish from feeling the pressure of fishermen but you
can use the other fishermen to your advantage when the bite goes off.
It’s called “fishing pressured water”, and it works.
 These anglers know there’s fish in the
slot directly in front of them, hundreds of them. When fish are pressured
they will move to the deepest and farthest recesses of a river to get
away from fishermen. When you see a situation like this fish above or
below the glut of fishermen and you’re sure to garner strikes
from fish. The foremost fisherman in the photograph is in a great position
for getting those strikes with the two anglers on the bank upriver in
the next best positions. Remember; think about the water being pressured.
It's not only possible to find holding fish but it's equally reasonable
to get them on the hook once you know how to entice them. In many cases
it means smaller test, from the four to eight-pound range, and smaller
hooks from the No. 6 to No. 2 sizes. Combining small lines and hooks
with unique scents will put fish back on the bite within seconds to
minutes.
The edification fish receive during any season where many
fishermen are involved teach fish what “not” to bite. It
doesn’t matter what angler’s use when there are a lot of
them. Fish will go off the bite when the see the same things over and
over again. It doesn’t even matter if it’s the same offering
or a similar scent, pressure will put fish off the bite; but for the
very reason that puts fish off the bite is the same thing that can put
them back on.
Not every fish is going to get caught that gets hooked. Anglers lose
fish all the time, but once a fish has been stung it has learned what
not to bite. Not many fishermen know it but salmon and steelhead communicate
with auditory (sound) and olfaction (scent) triggers. When an alarm
from a hooked fish has been sent out fish will scatter and they “will
remember” and stay off the bite. It is the motion of the hooked
fish and the scent secreted through the skin, fish slime, which alarm
fish; this is where the really important stuff comes into play. New
offerings and scents introduced the water will trigger those same panicked
fish into biting. I’ve seen it happen thousands of times over
the course of the last two decades. In the presence of anglers fishing
from the crack of dawn until noon when someone heads to the bank and
almost immediately hooks into fish. I do it all the time; especially
when I want to fish in those buckets too. All you have to do is watch
the other fishermen and make sure not to use whatever they’re
using. I don’t mean to use a different color corkie (lil' corky)when
corkies are used or different kinds of spoons when spoons are used.
I mean something different entirely. If corkies are being used put on
some bait. If bobber-jigs are being used try a spinner. Make sure to
adjust casting tactics as well. Watch combat fishermen, more often than
not, they tend to fish the same slots, seams, and tail-outs. Fish further
out or closer in towards the bank. If the fish have been pressured enough
it is reasonable to assume that getting a strike within a few casts
will happen. Knowing how fish behave given certain stimuli has aided
me in catching, and releasing, many fish.
 Here’s
a very bright salmon I hooked into while fishing this last fall run, which
was released the moment after the picture was taken. I happened to be
out on recon when I saw this river being pounded by fishermen. From the
bank I stood and watched what was being thrown out, heavy test and large
offerings, and decided to fish with an extra light test, a long leader,
and a “tiny” size ten corkie (Lil' Corky). I hooked into this
honey in four casts. I put it back into the water and continued to fish
for some time. By nightfall I had hooked and landed 9 fish, releasing
them all. I didn’t get to that river until 4:30 pm! That’s
a whole bunch of fish in a very short period of time! It’s interesting
to note that I was the only angler to get fish while I was there. I didn’t
horde any information from the others that were there but they refused
to change their tackle and I prospered from it and you can too.
Fish pressured water and get fish hand-over-fist by observing two things.
Make sure that there are plenty of fish in the bucket you’re trying
to fish and be willing to adjust your fishing tactics. One of the greatest
things about fishing pressured water is that you can actually fish banker’s
hours…now that’s fishing.
This kind of fishing pressure is about as intense as
any stretch of water can get. Initially, when two or three fishermen
had occupied the area it should have occurred to other anglers that
it was too crowded for such a small stretch of water and that the
right thing to do was to find other spots that could produce without
bumping into each other and risk snagging both fish and each other’s
fishing line, but that didn't happen. These anglers literally “squeezed”
in a tiny slot to bombard fish attempting to migrate up the river.
In this particular slot where they're fishing Steelhead and Salmon
have no recourse of where they can swim. They have to pass through
the slot because the width of the river flows too shallow and fast
for them to traverse it anywhere else. It's barely deep enough for
boats to drift down it and sleds to motor up it.
While it’s amiable that these fishermen have figured out to
fish in a small spot without getting in the way of each other too
much, the glut looks both unsavory and unsportsmanlike with more lines
in the water than there were fish, and the gear was not much better.
Every fisherman here was using fishing line no weaker than fifty-pound
test with some of them keeping fish that were snagged reeling them
in backwards indicating fish unwilling to bite into their large offerings
on even larger hooks. Some of the hooks were so large that the tines
could not be sharpened to a point.
The pressure exerted here puts fish off the bite for the duration
of the day and many of these fishermen proved it by using a technique
known infamously as “flossing”. It’s a technique
that uses heavy weights and long leaders where the fishing line passes
through the opening and closing mouths of struggling fish trying to
breathe due to the presence of anxieties exerted by this type of intense
pressure. When they feel the resistance on the line they pull back
with a looping motion to snag fish on the outside of the mouth and
near the gill plate. While this kind of fishing is subjective to interpretations
of law as to the legality of it, this method of fishing is clearly
unethical and should be avoided by all “true” outdoorsman.
Boaters fishing above and below this gang of fish snaggers are the
true sportsman here, and with the fish biting where they’re
at prove it time and again. Fishing pressured water like this can
produce above and below the glut.
Don’t misunderstand. Shoulder-to-shoulder fishing is widely
referred to as combat fishing, and is truly a remarkable way to learn
how to fish with the trading of knowledge from one angler to another.
In most cases combat fishing is done in wide open water where fish
and fishermen both have sporting chance to succeed. Combat fishing
is not “flossing” and should be looked upon as a great
resource for beginning fishermen, but there are unspoken rules of
etiquette and law, which should be followed.
The day I caught this fish I landed 19 salmon and 4 steelhead within
a five-hour period. The significance of the event was that it was done
in the presence of about a thousand fishermen. Many of them came to
me to find out how I was hooking into fish when the vast majority weren’t.
Right there on the river I held a clinic to teach them what gear was
needed and what it would take to convince pressured fish to bite. After
changing their fishing tactics many of them started hooking into fish
almost immediately upon hitting the water.
© Timothy Kusherets 2007/09
|
