Inside Line Delta Article

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tag Watson on October 5, 2009 at 10:42pm

Great info, Ron. Congratulations on yet another solid FLW Series finish at the Delta. Thank you once again for the wonderful opportunity to prepractice with you prior to the tournament. It was a tremendous learning experience and the Delta is an amazing fishery. An angler could spend a lifetime exploring that labyrinth. Watching you break down a body of water that vast was truly remarkable.

Go get 'em at Clear Lake, my man!

By the way, Ron isn't just a machine when it comes to catching largemouth and smallmouth....

Attachments:

• ByCatch.JPG, 41 KB

Permalink Reply by Joel Alinen on October 6, 2009 at 10:11am

Ron Congrads on your solid performance on the delta, its amazing how you can finesse the smallies one month and then knock out the green fish with 1 1/2oz baits the next! Truly a great NW angler and an awesome asset for this website! Keep up the good work and good luck on Clear Lake. Bring home that angler of the year!

LOL...gotta love the Donkey Punch...ouch, thats gonna leave a mark!

Hey can you elaborate on what helped your get better hook ups?

Permalink Reply by Steve Hastings on October 6, 2009 at 10:42am

Ron,

Nice of you to share your experiences and credits. Would you care to reveal what you think you did wrong. I always learn more from my mistakes or the mistakes of others. I remember watching my younger brother touch a hot iron as a kid.... Knew I didn't need to do that.

Steve



Ronald Hobbs, Jr. said:

Basically for me the tournament was all about one technique...punching. Basically for me if I wasn't punching some kind of weeds I wasn't catching fish. The technique produced higher than average catches of fish. I lost 2 fish in 3 days which isn't too bad but both would've probably got me in the top 10. I punched hydrilla and some mats of periwinkle. I used a 1.5 tru tungsten sinker and a skirt I made that I like to call the Donkey Punch. I matched my skirts with the beavers I was using. There were a few other rigging tricks that Charlie did not mention in that article that were imperative for better hook ups.
I made a couple wrong decisions during the tourney if one of those would've been different the standings would have been different. Its just how a tournament goes if you made every right decision you would win every time, almost. The Delta is a complex waterway, you really have to pay attention to details such as types of cover how thick how sparse, the time of the tide from all the way out to all the way in. Then the current which changes due to the height of the tide that is coming in or going out. You can't control any of these variables you just have to adapt to them as you go. Once you get a good pattern going at the delta you can run that same pattern all over the delta and catch fish it is truely unbelievable.
Also want to thank Tag for going down with me in prepractice to come up with pattern I used during the tournament. He is an awesome angler and helped fill in important details to a succesfull pattern.

Permalink Reply by Aaron Christel on October 6, 2009 at 10:41pm

I think you're on a whole other level because you realise when you are making mistakes. Thats something that most guys, including myslef, sometimes don't understand. Great write up Ron.

Ronald Hobbs, Jr. said:

Mistakes I made plenty, quite a few of course, mostly it was timing mistakes, as far as wrong place wrong time, also not knowing what places had better quantities of fish. I guess mis-reading the signs. Thinking that a few areas were better than they actually were. The delta is complex and during practice the tides were exact opposite as the tournament so I did not get to see those tide swings and currents so I guess my mistake was not knowing enough. I don't see losing fish as a mistake that kind of stuff happens. There were alot of littler mistakes that would take all day to uncover, but like you Steve that is how I learn. Knowing more executing better is the name of the game.

Steve Hastings said:

Ron,

Nice of you to share your experiences and credits. Would you care to reveal what you think you did wrong. I always learn more from my mistakes or the mistakes of others. I remember watching my younger brother touch a hot iron as a kid.... Knew I didn't need to do that.

Steve



Ronald Hobbs, Jr. said:

Basically for me the tournament was all about one technique...punching. Basically for me if I wasn't punching some kind of weeds I wasn't catching fish. The technique produced higher than average catches of fish. I lost 2 fish in 3 days which isn't too bad but both would've probably got me in the top 10. I punched hydrilla and some mats of periwinkle. I used a 1.5 tru tungsten sinker and a skirt I made that I like to call the Donkey Punch. I matched my skirts with the beavers I was using. There were a few other rigging tricks that Charlie did not mention in that article that were imperative for better hook ups.
I made a couple wrong decisions during the tourney if one of those would've been different the standings would have been different. Its just how a tournament goes if you made every right decision you would win every time, almost. The Delta is a complex waterway, you really have to pay attention to details such as types of cover how thick how sparse, the time of the tide from all the way out to all the way in. Then the current which changes due to the height of the tide that is coming in or going out. You can't control any of these variables you just have to adapt to them as you go. Once you get a good pattern going at the delta you can run that same pattern all over the delta and catch fish it is truely unbelievable.
Also want to thank Tag for going down with me in prepractice to come up with pattern I used during the tournament. He is an awesome angler and helped fill in important details to a succesfull pattern.

Permalink Reply by Marc Marcantonio on October 7, 2009 at 10:03am

Paying attention to the details of not only what works, but also what went wrong are clearly what separates the successful tournament angler from the casual angler.

Writing down notes in a log can easily be the best way to improve your angling from year to year. To be even more to the point, give some thought to what you think you should have done differently, and write that down in your log. Correct me if I'm wrong, Ron, but I would bet you thought about what you should have done, and what "mistakes" you made, all the way home on your 12 hour drive, and even once you got home and discussed your experience with others. I dwell on this myself after every fishing trip, not just tournaments. Then I document it in my FishNLog software.

Now since Ron is young and has a great memory, and I am getting old and have CRS sometimes, many think you don't need to document your mistakes because you are sure you will remember them. This is a big mistake, although you probably won't realize it. Sure, Ron will remember the specifics of what went wrong, but next year he will find that if he didn't write down the details he will not have picked up on all the clues he could have which would shorten next year's learning curve. I made the same mistake when I was young. I could remember every strike and what I was using. What I failed to realize was some of the other details that I didn't think about at the time. Like what the water temperature was during the active bite? Or was the sun shining and casting shadows during the hot bite and not when the bite was slow? What effect did current speed have, or current direction? Was the bite improving each day or diminishing? Did I test different color patterns and did they make a difference?

So in summary, one lesson I learned through my Army training that has really improved my fishing was to dedicate time after fishing to think of all the things I failed to think about in the heat of the fishing battle, and then writing down what I should do the next time. Reviewing my notes prior to an event always helps me develop a game plan to test during practice for the next event.

Ron will continue to be a stronger force as his time on these California waters continues, and his analytical mind will always make him feared by his competition.

ciao,
Marc

Permalink Reply by Mike Bess on October 7, 2009 at 10:48am

That is classic Jon....

Jon Sessler said:

Like when you F*** with the wrong guy on this website?

AARON373V said:

I think you're on a whole other level because you realise when you are making mistakes. Thats something that most guys, including myslef, sometimes don't understand. Great write up Ron

Permalink Reply by Joel Alinen on October 7, 2009 at 11:10am

Thanks Ron and Marc,
It’s amazing how it’s really the small details that separate the average anglers from the great anglers. That may sound obvious to most, but here’s an example of what I mean...I am obviously an average angler but if you were to ask me what I though they guys on the Delta were using to catch fish down there I would have said they were probably flipping a beaver with a heavy tungsten weight on heavy braid in the slop. Which was true for the most part, but the little details, (ie. lb test, skirts, flavor, weed type, depth, tide) is what great anglers realize makes the difference between a last place finish and a first place finish.

I guess I wanna ask the great anglers on this website how do you do that…but I think I know the answer…time on the water, detailed records, and natural instincts?????

Permalink Reply by Aaron Christel on October 7, 2009 at 12:22pm

Great advice. Thanks Mark.



Marc Marcantonio said:

Paying attention to the details of not only what works, but also what went wrong are clearly what separates the successful tournament angler from the casual angler.

Writing down notes in a log can easily be the best way to improve your angling from year to year. To be even more to the point, give some thought to what you think you should have done differently, and write that down in your log. Correct me if I'm wrong, Ron, but I would bet you thought about what you should have done, and what "mistakes" you made, all the way home on your 12 hour drive, and even once you got home and discussed your experience with others. I dwell on this myself after every fishing trip, not just tournaments. Then I document it in my FishNLog software.

Now since Ron is young and has a great memory, and I am getting old and have CRS sometimes, many think you don't need to document your mistakes because you are sure you will remember them. This is a big mistake, although you probably won't realize it. Sure, Ron will remember the specifics of what went wrong, but next year he will find that if he didn't write down the details he will not have picked up on all the clues he could have which would shorten next year's learning curve. I made the same mistake when I was young. I could remember every strike and what I was using. What I failed to realize was some of the other details that I didn't think about at the time. Like what the water temperature was during the active bite? Or was the sun shining and casting shadows during the hot bite and not when the bite was slow? What effect did current speed have, or current direction? Was the bite improving each day or diminishing? Did I test different color patterns and did they make a difference?

So in summary, one lesson I learned through my Army training that has really improved my fishing was to dedicate time after fishing to think of all the things I failed to think about in the heat of the fishing battle, and then writing down what I should do the next time. Reviewing my notes prior to an event always helps me develop a game plan to test during practice for the next event.

Ron will continue to be a stronger force as his time on these California waters continues, and his analytical mind will always make him feared by his competition.

ciao,
Marc

Permalink Reply by Aaron Christel on October 7, 2009 at 12:30pm

Just to refresh your memory, I never started "f****ng" with people, I got f****ed with. In fact, I think the first comment on hear that involved me in any type of conflict with anyone else involved a picture of a white bat boat on Moses Lake posted by some no-memory, altiemers suffering goof. Do you remember that? Well, I guessing you don't, so here is the picture of you cruising the lake again.



Jon Sessler said:

Like when you F*** with the wrong guy on this website?

AARON373V said:

I think you're on a whole other level because you realise when you are making mistakes. Thats something that most guys, including myslef, sometimes don't understand. Great write up Ron

Permalink Reply by Aaron Christel on October 7, 2009 at 12:35pm

Hey Marc, where do you get the FishNLog software? I did a little search for it and couldn't find much. Logging info is something I need to start doing more regularly.

Permalink Reply by Jay Johnson on October 7, 2009 at 12:45pm

I am wonder if this is what you were looking for ... http://taysys.com/FishNLog.html

Permalink Reply by Aaron Christel on October 7, 2009 at 12:54pm

Thats it, thanks. Looks like they have a 30 day free trial and then it's $50 after that. I'll have to give it a shot. It would be 100% worth it if it gave me access to Marc's logs though.

Bisk1tSnGraV said:

I am wonder if this is what you were looking for ... http://taysys.com/FishNLog.html

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