Mueller backing off his fish

Paul Mueller learned a valuable lesson about the power of the Garmin Panoptix LiveScope, which allows the angler to literally see the fish within the cone of it’s transducer range.

Yesterday, he noticed that for every one fish he caught, there were a dozen more that he saw, but did not catch them. The clue as to why came after he dropped his Berkley Maxscent Flat Worm drop shot rig on their nose.

“I’d see them, watch them get near the bait, and then move off,” he said.

Mueller decided to back off the fish, believing the shadow of the boat gave away his fake offering. A clue turned into an answer.

“I have seen this happen before,” he explained. “The fish can see the boat from 25 feet of bottom in this clear water, and it causes them to either nip at the bait or just come up, look at it, and ignore it.”

The back-off strategy is in play and working. Mueller has also decided to camp out on his spot and hammer it for all it’s got, which is probably a good plan considering the change in weather (aka wind velocity) that is coming on Championship Sunday.