Example:
I wake up at 4am and wipe the sleep from my eyes. I put on my slippers, grab an energy drink, and slide in to my arm chair. I take a look at the weather buoy and note that the winds are light out of the North and the waves are less than 1 foot. The current down 20 feet is coming from the Southwest at a little more than 2.3mph. I know that they have had some serious wind conditions over the last several days with high winds from the Southwest. Today is the first day that the weather is favorable to fish.

I arrive at the ramp shortly before 7am. The sky is clear with a light breeze in my face when I head out of the boat out of the harbor and set my heading at 280 degrees. I turn on my VHF radio and put the power down. I’m to my first fishing spot in a little more than 10 minutes.

I setup from the Northeast and prepare to troll southwest. My plan is to fish a spread of 8 crank baits on planer boards. I set my speed at 1.2 mph SOG. I do this because I know there is currently a strong 2.3mph current running from the southwest. I take note of the first board that hits the water. I adjust down to a speed of 1.0. Before I can get my third bait in the water, my first board goes off and I am rewarded with a healthy walleye.

This scenario repeats itself for the next few hours. I never did manage to get all my rods in the water. With 24 fish, we are done for the day. As we are packing gear I happen to catch a comment on the radio followed by more chatter. Everyone is having extreme difficulty catching fish. I was not alone in the area I was fishing. There were several boats all around me. I was not on a hot school of fish. In fact, I never even turned around. I kept the boat traveling the same direction the entire time.

Guys start talking about color, and depth, and setback, and that the fish just are not biting. One guy says he is traveling at 1.6mph. He said he has tried several speeds and no luck. He is traveling with the wind so he assumes he needs to speed up. As I put my last rod in the locker, I come on the radio. I tell everyone to SLOW DOWN. I advise them of a big current traveling in the opposite direction. I flip the radio off and head for the dock.

Later in the day I hear that “The fish turned on”. The truth is, the current finally switched around to the direction the wind was blowing. They were finally trolling the correct speed to match their baits. It didn’t have anything to do with the fish turning on or off. Just a matter of them not understanding the environmental effects that had been caused by several days of wind and waves traveling in the opposite direction.