Learning curve

I’m looking to learn from my weekend and wonder if any of you have input based on similar experiences. I fished the same small lake both Saturday (11/29) and Sunday (11/30) at the same time of day with hugely different results. I don’t know if it could be simply summed up as totally weather related, or if there may be more to it. Saturday was one of those perfect days where I couldn’t keep them off my line. Caught many, many gills, crappie, a perch, and even 3 largemouth bass! All varieties of baits worked, spoons, plastics, bare jigs, live bait and not. The flasher looked like the commercials when you drop the line and the fish rise immediately off the bottom to hit the bait. The bass came on a size 14 hook gold tungsten with a 1″ TriggerX red wax tail, they seemed to be mixed with the school of sunnies and crappie that were hitting it on each drop (thank goodness for James’s suggestion to always re-loosen the drag and check it every cast, you never know when it will pay off). I was writing my letter of resignation and ready to start my guiding business.
Sunday, totally different. I was set up only a few hundred feet away from the day before and marked fish periodically moving through, a few on the bottom sniffed the presentations, and I had one fish all day actually try to eat my jig. Other than that, nothing. I switched sizes, colors, styles, throwing everything at them and they had totally shut down. Tore up my letter and tried to forget about going to work tomorrow.
Did anyone else experience this over the weekend? Thanks!

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BIG weather change…. Was there some reason you didn’t go back to the same holes as previous day?

What were the weather differences specific to pressure?

smokinbobo wrote:

BIG weather change…. Was there some reason you didn’t go back to the same holes as previous day?

X2

Two biggest variables I see here are weather and location change. Maybe you had the spot on the spot on Saturday? Maybe the big north wind was the only difference? Maybe both?

Without testing the same location with the same presentation on Sunday it’s hard to say exactly why you’re back at the day job.

Best of luck on your future thoughts of resigning

From Ben Putnam about Saturday:

Looking at the weather forecast across Minnesota I’m seeing some patterns coming together that should kick some fish into biting! With the temperatures warming overnight a waxing moon phase directly under foot tied to a dropping barometer all just before sun down with south winds changing into west, coming right before a cold front. This looks like a dream forecast for a holiday weekend! If there isn’t a smashing evening bite on Saturday, I will be deleting all my weather apps for good! If you can get out and safely fish tomorrow; grab your Marcum, gas up the auger and pray your bait shop isn’t dry when you get there!

http://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/community/forums/topic/get-out-and-fish-saturday/

Ben put the call out for exceptional fishing/hunting on that day and in particular that afternoon!!! I am wondering why a change in location other than a bunch of people may have been on the previous spot… And Sunday if the front moved through along with the previous day’s great bite and the moon being off a bit, all three of those factors probably kept the fish off.

Mark

Mark pretty much nailed it… All the factors mentioned for Saturday didn’t apply to Sunday unfortunately. Sunday was smack dab in the face of this cold front, something the fish could feel coming, so they fed good and hard in order to rest this weather out! Sometimes there’s nothing you can do wrong and other times there’s nothing you did wrong. Be glad for the former, and don’t hang your head from the latter!