Adapting for changing conditions

Ive been out a few times just recently so thought I'd save it till i had a bit more to talk about before blogging.
Every year our fishing is dictated by the changing conditions and it seems to get worse each year with more colour in our waters. I wanted to try and build a bit of confidence for fishing in colour because usually your heart sinks when you get on the bank and faced with horrible colour. I've fished in the past allot in colour with mixed results but usually its very tough fishing. If you think about it, it shouldn't rule out much chance of catching because pike still feed in pitch black. Obviously the quality of sport is greatly reduced because your lacking the visual side of things but its not the end of a session.

So I've not had chance to go out exploring too much due to time limitations so have had to stick with venues that are probably the worse for colour than allot of other options. Thats good for trying things out but rubbish when you want to get on better venues with better chances of catching. If that's all that is accessible though its perfect fodder for getting to grips with getting better results in those worst of conditions.

I had the usual things in mind which was to fish slower, closer to the bottom, black or really flashy lures, lures with vibration, weedless lures for fishing along the bottom etc..

Results came but it was bloody hard work, often covered in mud, freezing cold and nearly blown off your feet..

I was starting to get a bit fed up as it just felt like i was putting allot of effort in with not allot of reward, and it was frustrating not being able to fish where i would have liked. I was catching the odd fish here and there, which wasn't bad given the conditions, but i wanted some better sport.

I tried bouncing lures along the bottom with weedless crays, the trouble with that is i didn't have the right weight weedless hooks that i needed to fish effectively, plus I'd prefer a much bigger lure to give a bigger more visible target. I'm thinking of making my own big weedless softplastics to try this theory out.

I caught a couple on spinnerbaits which makes sense, and i caught a few on my shads which were not the best lure for the job really, i caught on a black one though on a last cast in very cloudy water after going through many other lure types/colours which was satisfying. 

I then started to think about it a bit more, and realised there was one method i had been missing, and that was fly. In theory i can imagine fly has the potential to totally obliterate lures. The trouble with allot of lure types is that they sink so you have to keep working them to prevent them hitting bottom or snagging etc, this means often you will be working lures at a varying speed. The trouble with that is that at this time of year pike are hard on the bottom, more often than not i would think they will not be prepared to tear off and chase after something if its moving too fast. Also with the heavy colour if you work too fast your not giving the fish a chance to see, sense or catch up with your lure.

So what does fly offer? well you can fish them much slower often even pausing them and just letting them suspend, you can just imagine a pike sat on the bottom with a fly slowly undulating over its head, i bet it would be hard to resist such an easy meal!

Giving it more thought, my theories also fitted in with a few lads i know that have been catching recently, firstly a mate is catching quite consistently on fly, but a few lads have also been catching on squirrely burts. The thing about burts that got me thinking is that they enable you to pause giving the fish more chance, add to that the enticing nature of the grub tail fluttering away, it kind of matches the appeal of what a fly would offer.

I have plans to make my own pull baits similar to burts but not got round to it yet, so i thought I'd get out and give the fly theory a go.

I can't really conclude anything from my session on the fly because the conditions were pretty bad, obviously it was bad conditions i was trying to get to grips with but these conditions were the worst id fished recently so wouldn't be fare to compare these results to previous sessions where the conditions were bad enough but not as bad. 

I chose a same venue despite not doing very well on it previously, this was on purpose, i wanted something to compare. Despite the degraded conditions and not expecting to do very well anyway, i still had two fish on which was quite surprising! A great result but still early days to say whether or not the fly made the difference or not.

 And lastly, i often get photos which i don't use mainly for one reason or another there crap, but i was bored so played around with a few recent crappy photos and came up with some nice images, a bit like graphic art style.