This is something the carp anglers among you will probably know plenty about. It’s been a while since I fished for carp obsessively, but when I did, fishing the same area from a different angle generally made a huge difference. Combine this with an understanding of fish movements i.e at which point they would enter your chosen swim, where they would sit and you could catch them off guard. Pin your line to the deck and even more so. This was exaggerated even more on small waters where the importance of the fish not knowing you were there, was paramount.
So how is this relevant to lure fishing saltwater? Well yesterday I was fishing my usual area on a smaller tide. On a larger tide I need to cast straight out, set my clutch to barely give line if at all and really bully any fish I hooked up in the water to get them over the rocks in front of me. I usually fish big tides here, as it has produced some cracking fish for me but this time the tide was a neap, exposing a hump of rock at high tide that I would not normally be able to access and it suddenly dawned on me that I could access the same water from an angle parallel to my normal position. Now I’m not saying wrasse are scared of your line but the line angle on this occasion made all the difference. I had been fishing from my usual position before and not had a touch. I was glad I bought my Savage Gear SGS6 9ft 6in, 10-35gr rod with me, as this enabled me to hit the extreme range required. Bear in mind I’m talking extreme range for wrasse fishing with a Texas Rigged lure. I’m not great at estimating distances but just imagine you’ve cast as far as you are able to with the setup above. Over the following 30 minutes I landed about 5 wrasse with the 3lb plus fish below being the best of them. It may have been bigger than that but I would rather under estimate and not get called out for dodgy weights😀.
So why do I think it was the line angle that made a difference? Well to start with there had to be a reason why only moments before, casting over the same ground, with the same lures, I had not been catching, but after the move I had. Could it be the lure being presented down tide rather than across the tide appeared more natural? The lures in question were the ZMan Shrimpz and my ever faithful Keitech Sexy Impact. I can’t prove this but suspect the lure might have been in the fishes line of sight for longer. In my minds eye, fishing from my previous position my lure was coming up and over rocks/reef before falling back down the other side, only to be moved away too quickly by myself? Maybe it was running alongside the reef/rocks from this new angle and the fish could see it coming and going for longer, thus giving them more time to decide to take it; or it looked more natural as it was doing so?
Watch the video of how I caught this fish and others here:
There is another spot just around the corner that I have also been successful on whilst fishing from a different angle. The reason I have been fishing from a different angle is more to do with being able to access water that at a certain state of tide I otherwise couldn’t. Now I think about it, I am also running the lure alongside a feature rather than up and over it. In this instance the feature concerned is exposed at low tide and I wouldn’t attempt to fish over the top of it at high tide due to concerns about fish safety; the rocks are too high and too jagged, alongside being only inches from the surface, thereby not giving the room to manoeuvre/battle a wrasse over!
So how might this apply to other species? Well imagine I’m fishing the same scenario but after Bass. Casting a lure out across their faces might not result in a take? Maybe they are not prepared to take a bait like this, maybe a lure hanging in the current looks more enticing and doesn’t involve so much energy/chasing from where they are stationed. Remember that lure before moving away too quickly, not giving the fish time to think about it? Sometimes this can induce a so called “reaction strike” but this relies more on instinct than something looking more natural. Maybe I could inch a bait up current along the bottom that would spark their interest, maybe even a surface lure that swings around in the current then tries to get away would spark their interest? Obviously there are many factors involved not just the topography and depth of the water, but it does get my brain buzzing. How often do we rock up to a mark and simply blast a lure straight out? If nothing else try fishing more parallel to the shore.
It’s all food for thought, so maybe on your next trip whatever the species, you might try fishing your usual mark from a different angle.
Cheers for now. The Constant Angler
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