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Suddenly, Paul strikes. His rod tip snaps down. He's fast to a big fish. To a top-water reader, Jim and Paul seemed to fish the same water. Actually, they fished two entirely different streams: Jim took the top part which seldom contains fish; Paul took the bottom. Jim covered the pool, Paul fished it, working his lure smack down into the big-fish level. And yet, notice this, too: Paul made perhaps only half as many casts as Jim, but yet, because he fished his lure more slowly, it took him just as much time. That points up another common fault. Jim, like most anglers, persisted in fishing his lure much too fast. The angler who works his lures slowly, ever so slowly, so as to present a slow-motion imitation of the bait his lure represents, usually collects more strikes from the big fish who like to have their lures move slow and easy, apparently in keeping with their dignified station in life. To do this, consciously, slow down. Slow way down! Now, even slower! That's it. In fishing live bait, it seems even more important than in lure fishing to let the bait bump along the bottom, teasingly, and drift it in and out of the eddies, in front of and behind boulders, and along the bottom of the holding areas in mid-channel. Certainly, you'll foul- hook occasionally but that must be expected in the big-fish league of which you are now a member, in good standing. Show me the man who doesn't get foul-hooked and I'll show you a man who habitually returns with a light creel.
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