Fish Like a GIRL

With only one week left to the opening of fishing season, I realized the other day that I need to get to work on my tackle bag, reels and everything else I need to kick off the season.

For some, prep for the first fishing trip of the season consists only of casually grabbing a couple rods and a container of worms. For me, though, part of the fun of being a tournament angler is not only the competition and camaraderie, but also figuring out what to bring and what to leave behind. 

Part of the issue with all tournament anglers is that we think we need more than we will ever possibly throw in a day. 

I have brought a full tackle bag, a few extra trays in a compartment and eight rods as a non-boater (the issues were much bigger when I was running my own boat), only to catch a good fish or two on a particular bait first thing in the morning and then continue to use only that setup for almost the rest of the day. 

It is a confidence thing. That can be said for most anglers, and certainly all tournament anglers. If we are confident in a certain bait’s ability to catch fish, you can be assured that bait will be on the deck at takeoff in the morning. It will be the first rod we grab at our first stop.

That said, when my “go to” bait is not producing early in the day, you will almost certainly find me changing it up every 15 minutes or so. 

The first few times Chet fished a tournament with me, I remember him commenting that he had never seen such a big pile of plastic (soft plastic baits) on the bottom of the boat. 

I tend to gather up quite a pile when things aren’t going well.

“You will be up next, so hang out here,” is something you might hear a lot in the boat with me when things aren’t going as planned. 

Not only am I changing up my bait, but I am prepping another bait in case the one I am about to put on also fails to produce.

It is just a habit I fell into over the years. 

It could be argued that if I had more faith in the bait I was about to put on, I might not need that “back-up” bait that I just told to hang out and wait for its turn at-bat, so to speak.

When I start getting my tackle bag stocked up,  I take a look at the schedule for the year. I like to be totally ready for the first couple of tournaments at least. 

This year that will be Lake Mohawksin, which I will be fishing for the series Chet and I run in May and then the UMBCS tournament, run by Gregg Kizewski from St. Germain. 

What is fun about a tournament on that body of water so early in the year is the decision-making that might play into it for some teams. Because smallmouth season is not open yet in the Northwoods, that means anyone going into the Somo or Tomahawk rivers cannot have any smallmouth in the box, and may keep only largemouth in those two rivers. 

The lake itself, from above Highway 51 to below Highway 86, is actually under “river rules,” meaning smallmouth season will be open there. 

From past experience, most teams will just stay on the lake rather than “wasting time” going up one of the rivers in search of green fish (largemouth). 

The Willow Flowage and Lake Nokomis will be the next two stops. What is nice about that is the Mohawksin tournaments might help to inform about what to expect at the next two. 

Of course, there is no substitute for time on the water, and the first couple of tournaments can be a bit of a struggle with limited pre-fishing opportunities and just general rustiness from the offseason.

With that said, I guarantee the first “pack” of the tackle bag is going to include a lot of my favorite baits. I will always have a swim jig, a skirted twin tail grub, and beaver-style crayfish imitation tied on. Those are go-to baits. I will also likely have either a ned bait or maybe even a drop shot ready to go.

Both the ned and drop shot (which I will explain further as the season goes on) are very finesse-style baits. And I am not a finesse angler, oddly. I would much rather crack a big largemouth on a half-ounce jig with a hookset the angler in the next boat can feel. 

But that is not really the way things are trending these days. The guys that are catching them consistently are downsizing. They are going smaller with quieter presentations. So that leaves me little choice but to follow suit or fall behind.

That said, one of the first trays I will set up will be a finesse tray. I will have ned worms and ned craws, probably some gobies for drop-shotting, and a few finesse worms — smaller ones to start the year and I’ll move into the 7-inch variety as the year goes on.

One tray will be all terminal tackle. That one will not change much as the year goes on. It will just need to be restocked. 

Glass beads and brass sinkers for Carolina rigs will get stocked, even if I am not using them right away. 

Limestone drop shot sinkers and swivel sinkers for Jika rigs will always be in that box as well. I always have a bunch of tungsten worm weights in various sizes as well as extra wide gap hooks and worm hooks. 

I have blades for MJ rigs, weighted swim bait hooks, Scrounger head jigs, worm weights and skirted worm weights. Tube jigs, stupid rigs, Neko rig set-ups. They will all fit in one tray, which makes that kind of organization easy. For those who are unsure what some of those techniques are, stay tuned! I will go over most of them throughout the summer here.

I will have to save organization of soft plastics for next week, as that is fairly extensive for me. The same thing with jigs. I will get to those later. 

But I will cover my “you’re next” trays. These usually consist of hard top water baits — both cigar style and poppers, hard jerk baits, spinner baits and buzz baits, and sometimes even a crankbait or two. 

I have gotten away from crank baits, as they are not easy to throw out of the back of the boat with Talon shallow water anchors in the way and whatnot. For me, it’s just easier to throw something else than struggling with back boater issues.

My “You’re next” boxes also include things such as frogs, that I only use at certain lakes, but I want to have handy and ready to go. 

The Up Next boxes are compilations. I will go through all of my hard jerk baits, for instance, and take some out of each of the three or four trays full that I have. 

I think about the lake coming up that I am most likely to want them on, and sort by color accordingly. 

A standard rule is more natural colors for clear lakes and bolder colors for stained or tannic water. The one exception is a color called clown. That seems to work everywhere, and I have no idea why. But I digress.

I do this same thing with all of the baits listed above. When I put my frog box together, I will mix regular hollow bodied frogs with “popper” frogs. Popper frogs have an indented mouth cavity that will scoop and shoot water as I twitch it along.

 Sometimes that is the deal. Sometimes they want something a little more subtle. 

But if I have both, I am covered.

Beckie Gaskill may be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].