What the engine called. What actually happened.
Every trip gets scored before it happens and logged after. The gap between those two things is where the engine gets better.
Trip reports
Two Mornings, Seven Trout
A calm, crowded morning and a wet, empty one on the same lowland lake, with a rig change in between.
Two mornings on a lowland lake
Two sheets for the same lowland lake in western Washington, a number on neither, and a reason. The water read against a thermometer, a recent plant against the catch, and a bank that was line to line on Saturday and empty on Sunday.
Two fishermen, two days
One sheet for two days on a big reservoir in the Columbia Basin, a number on neither day, and a reason. The water read against a thermometer twice, a method the sheet never listed, and a largemouth trip that became three species.
A Basin reservoir scored 89. A day earlier, the same water scored Wait.
The best smallmouth water in the region, two days running, with opposite verdicts. The fish never changed — the wind did. Then the day ended at 12:30, and not because of the clock.
A reservoir arm, walleye, and a wind that worked
The same breeze that shut down the big water made this one better — for the fish. For the anglers it ran the clock down by eleven.
Technique
The engine scores a day. Days are the wrong unit.
Five trips, five different waters, five unrelated mechanisms — and every report says the same thing about the way the score is built. The fifth one isn’t even about the weather.
Reading wind in the Columbia Basin
Wind is the single biggest variable on Basin water, and it’s more predictable than it looks. How to plan around it instead of being surprised by it.