Take A Few Steps Back. Then A Few More.

This has come up on the podcast before, but if you’re not doing it, you’re missing fish. And your assumptions about their size are probably wrong.

Last week I was fortunate to FINALLY get on some open-sand fish. These fish were right on the beach- almost literally. I hear anglers say all the time “they were at the rod tip” and I’m telling you right now, that if I was “toes touching water,” the fish would have been halfway back from the tip! I watched a high-teen bass air-out on my lure, and it landed with its head out of the water, and then rolled back in and went berserk! I didn’t catch any monsters, but I had a few respectable fish that were around 20-pounds.

Tony Stezko always stood 30-feet back from the edge of the water. This can be so, so important and it doesn’t matter where you fish. Sand, rocks, boulders, etc. Stripers can be incredible in their ability to get into shallow water, especially if there’s a structure-specific reason. On this particular night, it was a tiny trough- almost a gutter- that these fish were running as the current washed down it from a deeper bowl.

The thing is, backing up doesn’t just mean you’re bringing the lure all the way to the lip, it also helps keep that lure down and not just skipping across the surface. And another tip I’ll offer- sometimes you have to go heavier not lighter when the fish are close, just so you can keep that jig, needle, swimmer, or soft plastic down in the wash.

I caught almost all of my fish on one of my top-four sand beach lures, which we discussed in Season 2, Episode 36. Which one do you think it was?