High pressure one day, the next day, a front moves through, what do you do. I have found myself fishing with one style on some of these days and another on other days. Here is what I have found to work consistently for all conditions.

The number one thing you have to do for the following style of fishing is to believe in your lure and not give up and start fishing with a half hearted style.

We will start by launching the boat and motoring to a general area that you have caught fish before. I then select a lure or bait that has consistently produced for me. It is important that you have confidence in the lure or bait or this does not work.

Ease your trolling motor in the water and move your boat so you are far enough off of the edge of the shoreline that you can barley make a cast to the edge. Now, make your cast along the edges and SLOWLY work your bait back to the boat. While doing this you will have to be looking at all of your surroundings and listen for any sounds that seem to be a fish striking. If you hear or see that sound, throw your bait to the splash on the water. This fish is feeding and very catchable.

If you are using a floating or floating/diving lure, such as a MirrOlure Top Pup or MirrOlure Provoker, your success will be better and the frustration level will not elevate from loosing baits in the oyster mounds. The floating surface bait is a no-brainer when it comes to getting hung up on the oysters as it floats all of the time and will not sink down. Now other lures that sink or float then dive down when pulled on will get snagged on the bottom.

When I fish lures that dive or float then dive, I fish the with a sense of fines. By that I mean that I am VERY intuned with the action of that bait and try to pay close attention to every thing that lure comes in contact with. Because this lure will sink or dive it is important to, NOT set the hook on everything that feels like it hit something and this takes a little getting use to. When you are working a sinking/diving lure it is going to make contact with the bottom on most retrieves. If you set the hook on everything that comes in contact with your bait, it won't be long before you have lost all of them or you throw your hands up and say this is too hard and go to do another style of fishing.

To keep from loosing all of you sinking/diving lures, work them slow and pay close attention to the bait. The bottom making contact with the lure and a fish striking a lure is a very different feel.

When I do this style of fishing with a new person, I let them hold the rod and point the bait toward me. I then let my hands run over the bait as if it was in contact with the bottom and asked them to remember what that felt like. Then I grab the bait and gently jerk back on it and asked them to remember what that felt like. This usually works and I don't spend all day going to the edge trying to unhook my lure from what ever it is snagged in.

Most of the time a fish is going to hit a diving/sinking lure when you have paused or stopped your retrieve. They seem to be chasing it and then it stops moving or running from them and all of the sudden they say to themselves "it stopped I better eat it" and when you go back to retrieving the lure it feels heavy as if it was caught on something. This is generally when I like to set the hook or if you are using PowerPro line on your reel, most of the time a short hook set is all it takes to bury the hook past the barb. At that point, if everything is done just about right, you will land the fish.

A bait that I also like to fish this way is a floating jerk bait such as a 12 Fathom floating worm. These worms are about six inches long and are thicker than the bass fishing worm that you might be familiar with and sometimes they will have a forked tail for more action in the water. For this style you will need the wind to be at a minimum as these are generally fairly light and do not cast well in a heavy wind.

If you think you would like to fish this type of bait (which works very well on reds and trout), you will need to purchase some 5/0 worm hooks, I use the Daichii D42 offset wide gap worm hook in a 5/0 size. This rig is rigged with the rubber bait and the hook only, NO weight. You want this to float or slowly sink and if you ad any weight, it will stay hung up and then the frustration factor starts to play a part in the fishing trip and this you do not want, fishing is supposed to be fun.

Last week I had a day that my normal spots were not producing and I said what the heck, lets go and see if we can catch a few quality fish. My guys were agreeable and off we went to the shoreline. I handed each of them a rod with a MirrOlure and said have at it. It wasn't long before one of them had a nice red. Not long after that one he had another one. Before the day was out we had caught several nice reds and all on the "slower, sometimes means more, technique.

Key points to remember for this style of fishing are: Make very long cast. Work your baits slow. Pay attention to sounds around you, as you might here and see a striking fish that will eat your lure. Work a bait that you have confidence in.