Redtile Dysfunction

It’s no laughing matter that fifty-five percent of anglers suffer from Redtile Dysfunction at some point within their fishing tenure. Redtile dysfunction is a generic term used to describe the inability of an angler to catch the targeted species over an extended time. Which defines my struggles as I continue the quest to catch a redfish, as documented in my last story, “Well, Do You Feel Lucky?”

One must remember that it’s okay to ask for help, which is what I did when I invited my friend, and former Estero Bay guide, Sean Davis, to come fishing with me out of Goodland, my home base. Sean is a live bait fisherman and a popping cork enthusiast, arguably the most productive method to fish this region, and pretty much the exact opposite style as mine. Perfect scenario to breathe life into my red drum doldrums.

The problem with live bait, aside from shrimp, which are sold live at most marinas, is that it’s not always around. Depending on the time of year and a myriad of conditions, a fisherman can spend hours chasing baitfish while the peak fishing time comes and goes. Or one might toss their cast net smooth out of the boat and wrap it around Coon Key Light. I will use live bait provided I can find it quickly, and I almost always buy a few dozen shrimp. However, I primarily use artificial lures. Trolling along, making strategic casts is more my game. 

The exercise was to load up with shrimp, get out there, and for Sean to tell me what he’d do differently. Ultimately, other than pointing out several spots I hadn’t thought to try, Sean thought my methods were sound. We caught some of everything, including a limit of speckled trout but no redfish. Sean out fished me, but not by much. Man, I had no idea how many ways a popping cork can be used. I spend more time keeping the slack out of my line, whereas Sean will let that line sag like a loaded clothesline as long as the bait is within the strike zone.

Later, back at Dad’s dock cleaning fish, I had a moment of clarity. How could this have slipped my mind? My dilemma could be explained by The Pohlman Theory, which states that, on average, an angler’s claim is seldom wholly accurate. It seems that everyone I talk to is catching reds as of late. Then I thought long and hard, narrowing it down to…three. I’ve spoken to a total of three people who told me they’d caught redfish. But had they?

Hill Pohlman, featured in my story, “He’s Doing It Again,” is a lifelong friend and angler extraordinaire. Much of what I know I learned from him. But Hill gets excited and acts erratically once the bite is on. At the end of the day, he couldn’t tell you exactly how many fish he had caught. In South Louisiana, you can lose count quick. The element of typical angler bravado and Hill’s notorious embellishment was the basis for our profound theory.

Being the Einstein of angler BS, I realized a pattern was not mutually exclusive to bag limits but in all sportsmen’s assertions. A few of us like-minded individuals got together and went to work with the proper funding; collecting data, studying psychological behavior patterns, and formulating theoretical equations resulted in a revolutionary discovery in human behavior. An integer assigned to quantities, size, and productive areas to reveal a more honest number, The Pohlman Unit is .314.

Let me break it down. On average, 30% of anglers inflate their declarations. “Ahh, we ripped ‘em, caught 20.” Factor in the Pohlman Unit, 20 x .314 = 6.28. Take that off the total, and the result is a more realistic number: 13.7 fish. Remember that 30% is an average. Some stories, such as the one I just told about the Pohlman Units, can be up to 90% untrue. 

Case in point, I told Dad we caught twenty trout. But per The Pohlman Theory, it was more like fourteen. The justification was that a couple of big ones got off at the boat, and we missed several strikes. 

The moral here is that I may be too hard on myself (no pun intended). There’s at least a 30% chance that I may not be catching any redfish because they’re all in Estero Bay. It could be that only a handful of anglers have been catching reds. Heck, I may not need a blue pill after all. We’ll have to see, won’t we, amigos?