Figure-8 Adjustments

[Red Childress]

I will try to find find the diagram later today that shows the ratio of peripheral/vertical vision vs. the depth of the fish in the water column. To summarize, every fish has a 3D column of vision depending on their depth and eye position on their head. To a fish, it appears they live in a mirrored world created by the reflection within their own field of view. This basically means the deeper they are, the wider vertical view they have above water so by keeping the bait away from the boat, the mirror created inside this cylinder allows our movements to remain undetected. Confused yet? If I can find the diagram to post, it will be easier to understand.

Regarding clothing, I have been trying to wear clothes that break up my outline against the prevailing sky. For instance, on sunny days I have been wearing the blue/white broken cammo and on cloudy/drizzle days I have a few grayish/off-white cammo shirts. Personnally, I think the temperature of the fish has the most influence on how stealthy we must be at boatside.

Some fish just want caught....see yesterday's results. Some fish really have no intentions of eating but their curiosity gets the best of them as they half-ass follow to the boat. THESE fish CAN be caught but things have to go just right at boatside. After watching hundreds of following fish over the years, the 3 things that seem to negatively effect fish the most are: too much noise created by the rod tip, bringing the fish too tight to the boat (therefore increasing her cylindrical/vertical vision) so she sees your movements overhead and collapsing the oval when making the turns during the fig-8. The biggest reason for the collapse is poor execution with inferior equipment. Shorter rods with longer leaders really makes it tough to be stealthy due to the amount of body movement required to keep the oval smooth and wide.....especially when dealing with the short, stubby fisherperson. Again, some fish make you look like a boatside pro when encountering the 'Kamikaze' fish BUT our ultimate goal is to catch them all.

Obviously, the prop wash fish are getting caught somewhere on a fairly regular basis. Other than the fish being fairly active, speed and direction change are likely the 2 main triggers (very similar to a fig-8 response). Some of these trolling fish will follow for several hundred yards or even a mile or more before peeling off or eating the bait. Guys who use direction and speed changes with their spreads are likely getting the most action.

Regarding boat hulls or even braid colors, the main thing we have to understand is that the fish are likely looking up to feed. The amount of available light will create different shadows intensities. It probably doesn't matter what color the boat hull or line is as it will always just look like a shadow. The brighter the sun, the more pronounced the shadow is. Jump in a pool with goggles and look up at the person floating on a cushion. That is the fish's point of view. Anytime something is between the fish and the sun (other than a tranparent object....fluorocarbon), it will cast a shadow no matter the color.

Yes Jay, I agree 100% on the fish that had previously followed and then repositioning herself. It happens to us multiple times every year......a fish comes from an opposite direction at boatside and smashes our bait especially over deeper water. It happened to us 2x on LSC a couple weeks ago.

I guess until we are able to interview a musky to find out exactly what they think, we will continue to hypothesize on what the hell we think they are doing.