Confidence Colors
Let’s talk confidence colors.
Now, usually, I tend to refrain from story telling in many of my posts because I’ve found stories often result in a lot of “fluff,” which is contrary to my goal of compact articles that convey tactile information you can actually understand & use.
That being said, in this instance I’m going to make an exception because a recent fishing trip of mine highlights exactly the point I will be making in this post.
So, my good friend Capt. Brian Barrera invited me snook fishing, we met at the ramp around 6:30a.m., it was calm, no wind (or people thankfully).
Pulling up to the first spot around mid-sunrise, we were greeted by ladyfish and mullet all over the surface getting busted by snook.
Brian threw out a topwater that got crushed, first cast, right next to the boat by around a 30” snook, the water is around 20’ deep at this spot, but since they were clearly feeding at/near the surface on large baitfish, I chose a 5.5” Mansfield Magic on a 1/8oz jig head to provide a substantial presentation that wouldn’t sink too quick.
It got thumped by a similar sized fish on my 2nd or 3rd cast.
After releasing this fish I decided to go for broke and grabbed a rod rigged up with 7”Midnight Mullet on a 1/2oz jig head to see if there were any real ones hanging under that school of 30” fish and a couple casts in it got absolutely destroyed..by like a 20” snook, lol..
Keep in mind this has all happened in around 10 minutes, all signs point to an epic snook bite and we were prepared to take full advantage of it, however, the fish gods had other plans...
After those three bites, the switch was flipped, and everything turned off.
No more snook, mullet, or ladyfish.
On top of this the wind kicked up to a steady15-20mph, combined with the tide, the water dirtied up fast, awesome.
We worked that spot for another half hour or so and with no more bites we decided to move on.
Now I am no stranger to this scenario, I’ve been in it more than once with Brian, snook are finnicky creatures to say the least, more so than any other inshore fish that I’ve chased, one minute you’re catching them one after the other and the next your once prosperous spot turns to a barren wasteland.
So, I knew more or less what to expect for the rest of the day.
At this point, it's time to face the facts, bite’s dead, conditions are getting rough, it’s early, not even 9 O’clock yet, we have hours of casting in front of us and the best we can hope for is a couple of bites if we’re lucky,
Now this is where “Confidence Colors” come into play, these are colors that have overly proven themselves for you before, I mean like no more than 1-3 colors that you just have the utmost confidence in, to the point where there isn’t a single doubt in your mind that if you manage to get it in front of a fish, they’ll eat it.
These will vary for everyone, but for example, mine are Texas Broach, Pearl, Midnight Mullet & OG Blood Diamond(I know that’s 4, sue me).
Since it was so dirty I opted for Texas Broach.
The purpose of a confidence color in this situation, is once that decision is made, that’s it, it’s time to shut up & fish, because I have so much confidence in that color, it’s not something I will worry about for the rest of the day,
This allows me to just focus on putting my lure in the highest probability zones, remove distractions, keep my line wet and really grind it out, days like these the only thing that matters is getting that lure in front of a fish, cause there just isn’t enough action for you to worry about anything else.
And to be honest, I love days like those.
So, we settle in and just start working, were covering spot after spot, casting, casting, casting for several hours and with nothing to show for it, we decide to wrap it up,
Heading in we swing by one last spot, drop the trolling motor and putt down the shoreline, 20-30min goes by and still nothing, about to call it for good, I pitched my Texas Broach way up under a dilapidated dock, let it fall for a sec and slowly reeled up the slack in my line to feel a weight, I gave it a couple more cranks to see if it was a rope or not and then set the hook,
My hook set was greeted with a couple of brutal head shakes that doubled my rod over well into the backbone.
“Big Fish” were the only words my brain was able to muster.
Brian grabbed the net, I joked about foul hooking a drum, trying in vain to quell my nerves,
After a few runs she came up next to the boat, gave us a massive head shake, confirming to us what we had, and then took off again,
“This is where I lose her,” I thought, my central nervous system in almost full-blown buck snook fever at this point, but the hook, pinned right in the corner of her jaw, held fast and after a little coaxing Brain netted her and I got to finally see what we’d landed, my biggest snook to date.
After a couple quick pics & videos I got her back in the water for a healthy release, she gave one last headshake as the spit my thumb out, soaking me as a parting gift,
We fished another 20-30 minutes and called it a day.
To some, this may sound like a rough day of fishing, but to be honest, it was a huge success, we fished for 6 hours roughly, had 4 bites to show for it, 3 early, few hours of nothing, then a personal best on a day where most others probably didn't do very well.
But this is beside my point, which is that you need to have confidence color(s) to fall back on when fishing gets tough, because on days like that where you have to out work the fish, those are the colors that are going to allow you to do that.
And who knows, maybe catch a personal best of your own!
Catch ya later,
-M.