Friday, October 1, 2010

Match the Hatch. Well Sorta

I have my own approach when it comes to the old saying "Match the Hatch". While I do believe that matching the hatch increases your chance at catching fish, I believe however that you should NOT match it exactly.

My approach to matching the hatch is slightly different; I tend to match the hatch in terms of size, but not in color. Think of it this way, when a school of shad are being attacked by a hungry bass every single shad in the school look the same. It's difficult to single out just one shad of the thousands in the school. Let's say there are 100 marbles in a jar, 99 of the marbles are silver, but just one is slightly off. Imagine how hard it is to find that marble, but imagine now that out of the 100 marbles, only one is purple. It is now easy to visually see that marble.

The pond today was full of shad and the bass were on the chew, I recently bought a few packs of the Fish Arrow Flash J lures and was tossing them into the school and around it. I had colors that matched the shad perfectly, but I threw out one that had a purple back. This allows the bass to single out this lure out of the hundreds of shad swimming in the school. Despite the color, it matched so well that the shad swam with my lure, while my lure flashed just like the school. Did my theory work? I fished for 30 minutes.

2lbs 2oz
Rod: Jackall Poison Heritage HS-66UL-IW "Super Inch Wacky"
Reel: Shimano Stradic Ci4 1000
Lure: Fish Arrow Flash J 4" Purple Weenie/Silver

5 comments:

  1. Hahaha, glad to hear the Flash worked, that'll be my next order. How are you rigging it?

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  2. I rigged it with a Zappu Mustang Head 1/16oz. You can also nose rig it with a wacky jig head so it rolls more to get an erratic flashing out of it. On the video I posted earlier, thats the first way it was rigged

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  3. This has to be my favorite Urban Fishing post yet. Great insight into something a lot of anglers don’t realize or talk much about. Matching the bait to forage is a start (and what 90% of pro anglers will tell you to do) but making it stand out can be explosive. Color variations can make that happen.

    Matching the hatch and then making a slight change can be huge. Fantastic post!

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  4. Flash J with a spinning jig head

    http://www.apstv.net/spb/spb41.html

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  5. yep! I love that site, I probably watched every single video on it!

    ReplyDelete

 
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