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.