We anglers are a pondering lot (pun intended) regardless of whether we enjoy trolling for tuna on the open ocean or kayak fishing for crappie on a placid pond. We go to bed thinking about that hook-set that failed to come tight, dwell on break-offs for hours, and spend days contemplating why the fish appeared here and disappeared there. We wonder if the Purple Goat pattern might have worked better than Trout-Cicle and if we should have chosen a chugger instead of a spinner. We don’t always come to a solid conclusion and when we do, I’m convinced that half the time we’re wrong. Consider the following:
Fishing Myth: You might be reeling too fast for the fish to catch your lure
Busted: Measure out a distance of line, use a stopwatch to time yourself reeling it back as fast as you can turn the crank, then crunch the numbers. You’ll discover that it’s virtually impossible to crank a lure to over seven mph, and it’s very difficult to keep up a pace over five mph for more than a few seconds. There isn’t a predator fish on the planet that can’t catch that lure if it wants to. Of course, the “if it wants to” part is critical. While you can’t crank a lure too fast for a fish to catch it, you certainly can retrieve one too fast to attain the ideal presentation, depth, and action.
Fishing Myth: WD-40 is a fish attractant
Busted: Dr. John Prochnow and Mark Sexton, Berkley’s brain trust behind the scented/flavored Powerbaits and Gulp!s, tested WD-40 both on live fish and chemically when Powerbait was under development. They found it was 100 percent neutral, neither stimulating nor discouraging any sort of feeding behavior from the fish. “It’s sort of like trying to put a square peg in a round hole,” Prochnow explained. “Their chemo-receptors (fish taste buds) simply don’t detect it.”
Fishing Myth: Red hooks and lures look bloody underwater
Busted: The color red fades just five feet underwater, by 10’ down it’s very dim, and by 15’ to 20’ (the specifics can vary with conditions and light levels) it’s completely gone. Not gone as in invisible, but all the redness has disappeared and it looks like a dusky gray. So, while those reds might be red on a topwater lure or a shallow diver, in most cases they’ll just be a contrasting shade.
Fishing Myth: Paddletails should always be rigged tail-down (or tail-up)
Busted: It doesn’t make one iota of difference. Try rigging half the rods on your boat one way and half the other, and have the anglers aboard swap rods halfway through the day. Whether that paddle points up or down is completely irrelevant. In fact, you’ll find that some lure manufacturers add a hook pocket for rigging facing up, while others add one for rigging facing down. There are even a few that add pockets on both sides, for rigging in either direction. Pick your poison. (Note: there are some paddletails with very deep bodies that can only be rigged one way, but that’s a result of body shape not the tail).
Fishing Myth: Trolling motors are silent underwater
Busted: Sorry, but nope. Drop a hydrophone into the water and listen for yourself, and you’ll discover that they generate propeller noise just like any other propeller. It’s a whining/whirring sound that grows and fades in pitch related to the prop’s size and speed. We can’t say how the fish feel about it, but there is some level of audible noise whenever a propeller is spinning.
Fishing Myth: Four-stroke outboards are not silent underwater
Busted: Listen to that hydrophone and you’ll discover that a four-stroke doesn’t make any more engine noise underwater than it does above the water, which is to say little if any when idling in neutral. However, see above—when in gear you’re creating prop noise. Shifting into gear also creates a loud metal-on-metal noise below the waterline. And two-strokes create one heck of a racket that’s audible from quite a distance underwater (probably the origin of this myth).
Now, all of the above withstanding: whatever you do, don’t dare step upon my boat with a banana in your hands!