"Sometimes you can't reel a lure in fast enough to trigger a strike--you've got to troll o make 'em hit."

Out of all the "Perryisms" that have come from Buck Perry through the years, that one left me a little doubtful. I knew speed control was important in getting fish to strike, but how fast is fast...two miles per hour? Four? More than five?

The scene was a central Florida lake in about 1978. The weather was hot; it was midday and fishing had slowed. Our group decided to go in and make lunch. I opted to keep fishing until it was absolutely necessary to go in. The plan was to troll a man-made channel about half a mile long that connected the two lakes we were fishing.

While the others were having a cool drink and cooking outside a trailer on the canal's bank, I trolled the canal, running a spoonplug along the sharp-breaking edge, trying to tap every small underwater projection that I passed.

I trolled five minutes without a hit, then remembered "sometimes you can't reel a lure fast enough to trigger a strike--you've got to troll to make 'em hit." I kicked up my trolling speed even faster. On my next trolling run, which took me past our lunch spot, I went even faster. A yell pierced the air, "come on in, we're eating. Now!"

I figured I had time for one more trolling pass.

On my next run I went even faster, with the lure "flying" down the canal's edge. The notifications of lunch were getting ugly and not at all flattering. While trolling at a speed I thought was already too fast, I began to reel the lure in as fast as possible. Bam, a bass hit! I was amazed. I had to keep fishing. Not that I wanted to--it was a "scientific thing."

My next trolling run was really fast. About the same time I zipped past the lunch site, several southern members of our group (who already thought trolling was un-American) shook their heads in disbelief--that is until a five-pounder broke the water about 30 yards from them. Five more bass followed in the next 20 minutes from the area I had worked several times at slower trolling speeds.

Well, I guess this Buck Perry lesson just took longer for me to learn.

At times faster speeds often trigger strikes from fish that would otherwise not be caught by any other means. Strikes can often be triggered when fish are not feeding. A spinnerbait blade careening off a reed, a crankbait skipped across a point, a jig type lure jumped off the bottom--these all can be strike inducing maneuvers.

On the other end of the spectrum, very slow or no movement at all may be the correct speed for a certain set of conditions.

I remember one opening day in Wisconsin when Carl Malz and I were fishing Lake Geneva, a hard-fished water-sports playground located an hour's drive from Chicago. Three hours of fishing produced one bass. While drifting along a rock-studded shoreline and casting 1/8-ounce black Fuzz-E-Grubs downwind, a strong gust of wind caused me to stop my retrieve and hand adjust the electric motor. The soft-bodied, marabou-tailed jig lay motionless on the bottom for four to five seconds; when I tightened the line to resume the retrieve, I felt resistance and quickly set the hook and landed a two-pound bass.

We ended up catching 21 smallmouth bass. Seventeen fish picked up the "dead" motionless jig off the bottom, as we let it "rest" four-five times on each retrieve. Water temperature was 39 degrees.

Speed control means varying retrieve or trolling speeds in an effort to find the perfect range. Sometimes speed control can be used to trigger strikes from nonfeeding fish. Sometimes it is used to match the action of the forage when fish are feeding. Speed control can also be used to tempt or tease a fish into striking or to gently pick up a bait. Crankbaits usually trigger strikes, while jigs and plastics are used to tempt, tease, or otherwise appeal to less aggressive fish.

It is a common mistake to associate faster speeds only with warmer waters, and slower speeds only with colder water. While faster retrieves or trolling speeds generally produce better in warmer water than they do in colder water, many times I've seen "faster" work better in "colder" than a much slower speed.

Lure speed should be governed by what the fish are telling you, not by a preconceived notion of what you think the fish want.

If fish are taking lures deep, they're usually aggressive. If you speed up a slow retrieve to make a hurried cast, or rip a worm upward off a reed and receive a strike, the fish may have "told you" that your speed was too slow to interest them. The sudden burst of more speed triggered them. Faster retrieves should follow.

When trolling and a turn is made, the lure(s) on the inside of a turn go slower while the lure(s) on the outside of the turn are going faster. Obviously, if the inside rods produce strikes on turns, you may have been going too fast. Vice versa if the outside rods draw strikes on the turns.

Often anglers fish quickly to find an area with fish. Once a fish is caught, a wide array of speeds are tried to milk as many fish as possible from an area.

Speed and depth control are the two major presentation factors. Don't assume a cast and a moderate speed retrieve is all that's needed on any given cast. Speed controls should constantly be varied, and most of all, "listen" to what the fish may be telling you!