Staying in The Zone

By Gene Bourque

When I was a kid, my buddies and I spent many days fishing off the docks in our hometown, Mystic, Connecticut. Today those docks are lined with multi-million dollar condominiums but back then they were home to a small commercial fishing fleet. The docks were funky, smelly places where we prided ourselves on knowing which planks were safe to stand on and which ones weren't. I wish I could say we caught a variety of big fish but that wasn't the case. There were really only two fish that cooperated with any regularity: flounder (which we called flatfish or just "flats"), the desirable species, and the much more common cunners that were always waiting to steal the sandworm baits intended for the flats. It was something you had to just resign yourself to, or so it seemed to most of us anyway. However, one of my friends was inevitably the High Hook. He would always catch the wily flats while the rest of us would feed the cunners the sandworms we purchased with dearly earned paper route or allowance money, much to our dismay, disgust and not a little envy. We chalked it up to just luck of course. How else could you explain Vinny's success? It took quite a few years to figure out what he was doing that we weren't. While we sat there with lines dangling in the water, talking about Mantle and Marris and Whitey Ford, Vinny took a place down the dock from us, cast out a little farther, kept a tight line to his bait, and immediately reacted to taps at his offerings that we couldn't perceive. He was fishing while we were just hoping to catch a fish - as long as it didn't intrude on our debates about Mickey and Roger.

As the decades have passed I've come to know many Vinnys and they all had one thing in common. They were in "the zone" - constantly aware of everything that might affect their success. Now, for many of us this is not easy. Fishing is exciting but it's also supposed to be relaxing. It's easy to drift away and not pay attention to where that cast is landing, how much slack is in the line or how long ago we checked our knots.  I'm guilty of leaving the zone from time to time, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that I've paid the price more than once. Probably will again, too. But those rude reminders yank me back into the zone, at least for a while. Here are as few of my mistakes. They're easy to make but also very easy to correct. See if you recognize any of them.

First and foremost, the most common "zone violation" I make is repetition. Cast, retrieve, cast and retrieve again, never varying how fast I turn the reel handle, always with the rod tip at the same angle to the water. Sometimes I can go for dozens and dozens of casts without realizing I've fallen into a pattern like this, all the while wondering why I'm not getting any hits when I'm pretty sure there are fish around. Then the light bulb will go on over my head and I'll speed up or slow down the retrieve, or maybe lower the rod tip and give the lure a little action. Sometimes that's all it takes to get some response from a fish. Even if it's only a short hit and I don't connect, the message is clear. Whatever I was doing before just didn't look right. I'll then try to repeat that particular productive retrieve but if I don't get any further results, I'll be sure to vary the retrieve even more, sometimes even stopping my offering all together for long seconds before going back to a normal retrieve. Even if I don't catch anything, I'm certain I'm doing everything I can, retrieve-wise. In other words, I'm paying attention.

Then there are the times I'll cast over and over to the same small piece of water, a bad habit but oh, so easy to fall in to. If I'm working a seam in a rip, a bend in a stream or river, or around structure, this makes a certain amount of sense. Just don't be guilty of it when fishing a fairly large, featureless area. I think one of the reasons fishermen get into this habit when fishing along a fairly featureless beach is that the expanse of water in front of them can be intimidating. It's a natural inclination to cast straight out, over and over again, as far as possible - the idea being that somehow you're covering more water that way. While that may be true in terms of water depth, remember that water depth alone is not the only factor in guessing where a gamefish will most likely be found. Bottom structure - even very subtle things like slight depressions in a sandy bottom - and of course where the bait/forage hang out are also big parts of the equation. Savvy casters work their casts in a semi-circular pattern, covering the water from directly along the shore on one side, to straight out and then at an angles that will eventually make their baits land along the shore in shallow water on the opposite side of the half circle.  Then they'll move down the beach and use the same casting pattern.

Sometimes I even think I'm in the zone but I'm really not. Example: I catch a fish or two on a particular lure right off the bat. Bingo, dialed in, this is going to be easy. I cast another few times but there are no hits. A few more casts, still nothing. Come on - I know the fish like this lure! In spite of my New England stubbornness I finally figured out that the right course of action is to make a change, but I've since come to believe that the change should be definite but fairly subtle. Earlier this season I was catching some nice stripers on our 10-inch amber Hogys one morning when suddenly the fish decided they'd had enough. I knew they were still there, I could see them occasionally crashing bait around the rocks. So I changed to a bubblegum 10-inch Hogy and immediately started getting hits again. After three or four more fish, the bubblegum lost its magic. Back to the amber, and the bite was on again for a few fish. I knew I was doing something right so I kept changing baits every few fish and the result was pretty steady action for almost two hours. I've seen the more radical examples of this "bait and switch" strategy too, one of which happened during a worm spawn event when the stripers turned off to my never-fail worm fly but were surprisingly willing to take a chartreuse Clouser, which looks nothing like the worms that were in the water. The Clouser worked for a while, until the worm event began to dissipate, then I switched back to my worm fly and caught a few more fish.  

Out in a boat it can be very easy to slip out of the zone. It's a beautiful day; you're trolling along and gently rocking as you jig a big lure. Jigging is never exactly exciting and it's easy to slip into a steady rhythm of rod movements of the same length and duration. Sometimes you catch a few fish, sometimes not. While I don't claim to be a great expert on this technique, I am sure hits are missed when this repetition becomes monotonous. In other words, staying focused is just as important while trolling as it is when you're casting. The way I do that is to force myself to vary the cadence of the jigging motion. Does it lead to more hits than doing the same motion over and over? I have no idea - but I do know I'm ready when I do get a hit.

That's what being in the zone is really all about. If you are focused and expect that your next cast will result in a hit, you won't whiff when it does happen. Simple as that. Sure, relax, enjoy all the sensory pleasures that fishing offers. Just be ready.

Gene Bourque