After fighting this big fish on 8 lb. test line for almost 2 minutes in my Tracker Pro Team 185 Bass Boat, James strained to lift up on the handle of the net, but when it cleared the water we saw 2 monsters in the net!
I know a lot of guys that hate to fish in off color, stained, murky or coffee water as I call it. I call it coffee water because I drink my coffee with just enough creamer to make it the color of the water we were fishing that day. They are all used to fishing those crystal clear waters. Clear water is fun, but those long casts get to you after you’ve made about a thousand of them.
Next year during the April & May run-off, try fishing the “coffee” colored water if you really want an advantage over the fish. And I don’t care what kind of fish you’re stalking, if you’ll work the stained water at the right time you’ll catch more fish and bigger fish.
Why, because the fish can’t see you. You know how you tend to give up on a cast & retrieve in clear water when your lure is about 10 or 12 feet from the boat? I was forcing “clear water angler” James Davis to fish the “coffee” water about 2 feet from the bank with a Deep Wee R crankbait at Elephant Butte Lake in southern New Mexico. We were catching 2+ pound white bass sometimes with less a foot of line between the lure and the rod tip. On several occasions James lifted fish into the boat without even having to turn the reel handle.
James Davis is a salesperson at Rocky Mountain RV & Marine, and he is such an avid fisherman, he’s been known to practice casting into his hot tub at home. This spring, he learned to cast parallel to the bank, 2 feet from shore into 18 inches of “coffee water”.
After 2 trips James was gut hooked on the “coffee water”. On our second trip he caught a 3 1/2 pound largemouth on his first cast! We caught and released most of the 75 fish we averaged per day. And of course, there was the one that got away.
The 2 monsters that James & I saw in the net when he finally managed to lift it up out of the “coffee water” were a matching set of 20 pound plus stripers. One had taken the Deep Wee R, and the other was a “buddy” that was obviously excited by his twin’s struggle to get free. The second fish couldn’t see the boat or us because we were sitting in “coffee water” with about 3 inches of visibility.
Just as the mouth of the net cleared the surface of the water, fish #2 , the one that wasn't hooked used the hooked fish to bridge across the net and made a mighty jump to freedom.
Next spring try the “coffee water. You can bet that James & I will be there!