Fishing Opener Tip: If Nothing's Biting, Switch Things Up
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- So you whet a line and came up empty at the opener. It happens.
The question: What are you going to do to make sure it does not get repeated tomorrow? That's where we bring in Steve Carney, and get some advice for two of our amateur fishermen.
So you had a what you thought was a good idea, and here you sit, no fish.
"You go out Saturday, you fish hard and you got nothing to show for it. It was a bad day. What would you do on Sunday?" WCCO's Mike Max asked.
"I'd go to a completely different lake and start all over again. I'd stick with the same strategy of starting shallow and moving fairly deep," Carney said.
Some of it is not deciding what lake to fish, but when you decide what lake to fish can make the difference.
"When do you make the decision as to where you're going to go fishing? Night before, three days before, what?" Max asked.
"I never plan ahead that far. It's the night before. If I have groups the next day I'll call them after the weather on 'CCO at 5 o'clock and I'll go, 'OK, we're going to XYZ.' It's all about, I want to get the very latest in terms of the barometer, the pressure," Carney said.
Simply put: Don't be afraid to be impatient.
"When you move lakes, are you looking for a warmer lake if it didn't work here or what are you looking for?" Maxie asked.
"If I'm on a medium-sized lake and it didn't work in the morning I'll move to a completely different lake in the afternoon. You don't want to keep doing the same thing, is what I mean," Carney said.
Because Maxie is always trying to help others, he even reached out for a couple colleagues.
"Now I work with Liz [Collin] and Molly [Rosenblatt] on Saturdays and I don't think they could catch a fish if it jumped on the boat," Maxie said. "What do you think the problem is for them?"
"Boy, I don't know. I'd have to fish with them to see what the deal is," Carney said. "Lack of experience, probably. It could be equipment may not be quite right for what they're trying to do."
