So you’ve read a million “X mark’s the spot” type of articles on fish location. Well the good news is, this is not one of them! What I’m sharing here is one tool to improve your fish finding skills. It might be one tool, however it’s a powerful one (as long as you use it😉).
If you accept the fact that a small amount of available water contains the majority of feeding fish, then there is a lot of water, in which fishing is pointless at any one time! Learning areas where fish are more likely to be caught can be speeded up and made much more fun/interesting by water watching. When you see a fish move, ask yourself “why is that fish there?“. Continually ask this question whenever you are waterside, it will rapidly develop your fish location skills!
Now the catch. If you are fishing infrequently/irregularly, this process can take more time. This is no bad thing, just a fact. The good news, you can develop the thinking process away from the water, making the execution habitual when you do fish. How? Checkout this example I do at home below: –
While eating breakfast, the above image is part of what we see. Many birds are often active in the garden and Andrea will typically mention spotting a robin or wren, they are her favourite garden visitors. If you are wondering where I’m going with this, stick with me. It’s another crazy example to make skill development more doable and hence more likely to be done.
When Andrea mentions “oh, there’s the robin!”, it’s not helping me that much in seeing it. At least, not initially. Over time I noted that this comment from my wife coincided with a robin appearing on the little retaining wall beneath the hedge. Similarly, when she spots a wren it is most often scurrying around the base of the bay tree to the front right.
Learning this, means I rapidly spot the birds even when they don’t hang around for long. Simply because I know where they are most likely to show up when entering the garden. I simply look in the most likely place and most of the time, it’s correct.
Why not develop your own off-water game to develop this skill? Then apply it every time you go fishing to consistently locate feeding fish.
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