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I absolutely love this post and have a lot to say but will begin by answering your questions outright.
“1. Does retrieving with/against the current matter?”
What matters is getting good presentations. Good presentation = getting the lure in front of the fish. Should you fail to do this then your effort doesn’t matter. You may as well be at home doing something else.
The ideal simple-stupid way to get good presentations is what I’ve detailed ad nauseam in this video. If the water was falling (moving west to east) then you were ideally set up correctly and Chas was not. I’m not totally clear on what the exact conditions were and we’ll circle back on that in a moment.
“What might have been his theory for casting into the wind and retrieving against the current?”
Chas is a master of knowing where his lure is in the water column and getting it to the bottom in front of feeding fish. He was most definitely giving the lure more slack and a little more runway to get to the bottom.
“Or does that even matter at the trestles?”
It does matter, but when you’re as good as Chas it doesn’t matter. You just get the good presentation.
“2. How does water clarity affect lure color?
I’ve heard than when the water is a little dirty (which it was) it’s better to fish darker colors (which I was doing). Yet apparently he was fishing a bright color.”
You might want to be sitting down for this: no.
What happened is that Chas has a lot of Tiger Bait taking up room in his office and he needs to make space, so he went out and caught them on Tiger Bait. Now the masses will obey and go buy Tiger Bait.
Otherwise, he could have been using Lipstick Lusciousness, Radical Rainbow, Depressing Dapper or any number of colors I can make up that catch more fishermen than fish.
I think color can make a difference, but it won’t make up for the disparity between your single fish and his many fish. What made the difference there is his eons of experience fishing that same bridge since the day it was renovated 30 years ago, his total and far-reaching angler’s network and the fact that he lives across from the marina and can get in the water on a whim.
Now, I get the impression you’re a smart guy and aren’t making comparisons and just want to know why, how, etc.
So let me make another post breaking that down, because there’s some things I’m not clear on.
