Why I am a better ________ angler than you are!

[Catt]

Many would think my strength would be a Texas Rig or Jig-n-Craw, y'all would be wrong.

I have a God given gift; when I look at a one dimensional topographical maps along with the one dimensional view on a depth finder screen I turn it into a three dimensional image in my minds eye.

As a teenager I worked as a first mate on my Uncle Joe Addison's charter fishing boat in the Gulf of Mexico where he taught me to understand what structure is, how to truely identify it, interpret it, and the fish it effectively.

During the early 70s I attended a 5 day seminar under Elwood "Buck" Perry. Before class, during breaks, during lunch, and after class I questioned him relentlessly. What I gleaned from Buck I added to what Uncle Joe taught me and completed my understanding of how fish relate to structure.

While y'all see the obvious structure humps, ridges, points, ect, I see little subtle pieces of structure y'all over look. In my thread on Toledo Bend I've shown guys "honey holes" that were right under their noses and they had fished around them for years.

[Master Bait'r]

Bah, I'm just good at having a good time.  Fishing I'm ok at but it's all about having a good time and getting away, enjoying the little things and being thankful for the day and the ambition to enjoy the hell out of every second of it.  

[CarlF]

Why I am a better armchair angler than you.

I have a two year old.

My wife works.

Local fisheries are poorly managed for bass, and are highly pressured. Better fisheries are 1.5-6 hours away, requiring a full day commitment.

Im easily distracted, and spend a lot of fishing time pursuing other species/methods.

I have unlimited access to the internet and spend hours reading forum posts and fishing articles.

Anyone want some unqualified advice?

[the reel ess]

Why I'm a better bass fisherman than you: Because I'll fish for 4 hours for one bite. The fact that fish aren't biting well just makes me try harder. 3 times in 2015 the only bite I got was a bass over 5 lbs.I won't get sidetracked to other species unless they're what I was targeting when I went or I'm in the back of my buddy's boat-he's a crappie trolling expert. I won't get too drunk to fish. I fish from the kayak and advance very slowly.

Oh, and I fish smallish private waters with some bigger bass.

PS: I don't really think I'm better than any of you.

[Scarborough817]

i don't have any expertise yet since i've only really fished one year and i was mainly throwing craws into any visible cover 

[WRB]

This thread is coming along, some insight and sharing of skill sets that can hopefully help every angler without putting down each other.

We have a good mix of angler skills that very with age and time on the water.

Why I am a better bass angler than you are brings out how competitive most anglers really are. Some say they are only interested in being outdoors in natures wonderland , some like to catch numbers of any size bass, some are tournament bass anglers and a few focus on being big bass anglers, we all share the joy of catching bass.

We haven't heard from the sonar experts, Catt did add he is a top notch tournament bass angler and has the aptitude to translate 2 dimensional images into a 3 dimensional structure, being engineers we have that ability common. My guess is Catt also has a very good memory to recall details of isolated structure elements where he caught bass.

This leads us to reading sonar and understanding why bass prefer to locate where they are at the time you metered them. The bass are on that structure for a reason, prey is there.

Knowing the bass are where you are fishing is a big help. Knowing what the bass are feeding on helps you to select what type of lure to use, how to present that lure effectively, what depth to target saving a lot of time to catch those bass.

Understanding bass behavior starts by observation and education. There is lots of stuff to read to educate yourself but only you can put in the observation time on the water to apply what you have learned.

Why I am a better structure angler than you are...reading flashers, paper graphs, black & white and color sonar units for decades and having the knowledge to understand why the bass are where I found them.

Tom 

 

 

[J Francho]

I am better at learning because I teach others what I think I already know.  The more I fish, what I think I know becomes less, lol.

[K_Mac]

I am better at enjoying the moment than most. I am not driven by numbers or size so much anymore.  It is interesting that not being driven to perform has allowed me to relax, and I often catch more and better fish. I am happy to fish with guys that are better than me at different techniques and if you catch more or better fish than me, especially from my boat, I am genuinely happy about it.

It is easy to get caught up in the competition to be the best. With few exceptions, I am really not interested. I have friends that I rarely fish with anymore because having a good time is dependent on the fish biting. Life is too short...

[buzzed bait]

why i am not a better _____ angler than you are....

because i've never met or fished with you to make that determination!

i'm always happy to learn something new from anyone, when you think you're the best at something, you're limiting your ability to continue learning.

 

[Catt]

K_Mac that's the reason why for the last 20+ years I've enjoyed teaching more than catching!

I thourhly enjoy seeing the look on an amateurs face when it starts clicking!

[roadwarrior]

I don't think I am a better angler than most of the guys I have fished with, but my greatest pleasure has been putting several of them on their Personal Best. That includes several Forum members. A couple of years ago our very own Glenn May hooked up with the biggest largemouth bass I have ever seen in person during a BassResource.com Roadtrip at Pickwick. He fooled that girl with a Siebert Outdoors spinnerbait.

http://www.siebertoutdoors.com/Cosmic-Double-Willow-Spinnerbait-405.htm

[the reel ess]

2 hours ago, Scarborough817 said:

i don't have any expertise yet since i've only really fished one year and i was mainly throwing craws into any visible cover

Kudos! I never fished a craw before I was 35. Always a worm.

[Scarborough817]

Just now, the reel ess said:

Kudos! I never fished a craw before I was 35. Always a worm.

no shame in worms i was never a big crank fan until i locked one in my hand one day this year it was a productive day for large and smallies 

[the reel ess]

21 minutes ago, buzzed bait said:

why i am not a better _____ angler than you are....

 

Why I'm not better: Because I fish a few places I know really well. If I do catch a PB I've stacked the deck in my favor.

[Fishing Rhino]

On ‎1‎/‎3‎/‎2016 at 11:22 PM, Big C said:

I am a better sand flea angler than you, because I highly doubt any of you are sand flea anglers.

Compared to me (and other lobstermen) you are a rank amateur when it comes to catching sand fleas.  Put three or four pounds of bait in a lobster pot on good sand flea bottom and they will pick the bait to bare bones as fast as a dense school of piranha. 

You can make book that I recorded those areas, and avoided them like the plague.  Rather than lasting two to four days, it wouldn't last two to four hours.

Then again, I wasn't a recreational sand flea angler, so I had an unfair edge.

[Jaderose]

I'm a pretty darn good hollow body frog fisherman.  Better than some, I reckon.  I got the timing "touch" and don't miss many.

[scaleface]

Why I am a worse top water angler than you .

 

I get an explosion then set the hook on nothing . 

[fishballer06]

Why I'm a better moving bait angler than you. 

 

I grew up fishing with my Dad and Grandfather. Both of whom are very set in their ways, and love to throw crankbaits almost exclusively. I honestly don't think I ever fished with a single hook until I was in my college years. They just simply never fished that way and so I was never taught to use plastics or jigs. 

 

In my younger years, my family had a permanent spot in a campground with a pond about 5 acres in size and it was very shallow. This entire pond didn't get much deeper than 6-8' deep,  and most of it was 3' or less. Every weekend, from April through October, for probably 7-8 years, we would be at that campground. I would fish every second that I got at that pond. I learned every rock, stump, drop off,  bottom change, everything.... I was obsessed with fishing and I spent all of my free time off the water reading,  watching, and learning everything I could about fish,  fishing, and water in general. I would take what I learned and I was able to apply it to that pond every single weekend. I quickly learned how the bass related to cover, what they liked, what they didn't like,  and how I could trick them into biting. From banging squarebills off rocks, working a buzzbaits over cover, ripping a rattle trap over weeds, I was just able to master so many moving baits. 

 

And then in the evenings, my Dad would take me to one of the local lakes on our old 16' Bass Tracker.  I was then able to learn how to read the fish finder and fish for deeper fish. Shad Raps, bombers, bandits, and risto Raps were my main staples of my tackle box in the lakes. We'd catch bass and walleye and it was always a blast. My grandfather lived to fish topwater, and he taught me how to walk a spook and work a popper. As a kid,  seeing a fish explode on top is enough adrenaline to get you hooked on fishing for life. 

 

Fast forward a few years and I caught onto chatterbaits, swim jigs,  and paddle tail swimbaits (Keitechs). The past two years I have really harnessed these lures and put my time in with them. If you asked my tournament partner what lure I catch my most fish on, he'd tell you a chatterbait. And if you asked him my second and third best, he'd tell you a buzz bait and a DT. 

[Catt]

roadwarrior I would believe ya if I hadn't seen those little mouths ya catch!

[mrmacwvu1]

I am not going to say that I am better than anyone at anything. However, when fishing I will say that I am willing to do more then most to catch fish. I do a lot of wet wading. In my case sometimes crawling on my belly a hundred yards to make one cast to one certain spot in a stream that looks too good to not hold a fish. I grew up reading small trout streams and spent as much time on the stream just watching and not casting. It is amazing the things that one can see in nature when no other creature knows that you are there. I think that is why I love wading streams for smallmouth so much. There is nothing like catching a 5 pounder on light line is swift current. Most of the time I only fish waters that other people are unwilling to hike to. However it is amazing when I am around other anglers that just hop out of the truck and start slinging lures or flys with no game plan. Usually when I am fishing a body of water even if it is one that I have fished for years I will take at least 5 minutes to watch the water see what nature is telling me and enjoy the quiet for a few minutes.

[scaleface]

15 minutes ago, mrmacwvu1 said:

 Usually when I am fishing a body of water even if it is one that I have fished for years I will take at least 5 minutes to watch the water see what nature is telling me and enjoy the quiet for a few minutes.

Excellent advice , I need to adopt this . I always liked to camp on the lake the night before a tournament and just spend sometime sitting on the bank and watching what is going on. .

[the reel ess]

6 hours ago, the reel ess said:

Kudos! I never fished a craw before I was 35. Always a worm.

.nm

[WRB]

On January 3, 2016 at 6:34 AM, scaleface said:

 

Rick Clunn known as the zin master for his practice of camping out on the lakes he tournament fished to get a feel of the environment by being close to nature. Hard to argue with Clunn's success.

Tom

 

[ww2farmer]

Why I am a better bass angler than you................Because I have "it" and I get "it" without getting spun out on useless minutia....................what "it" is, is up for debate. According to my wife ..................put the letters "S" and "H" in front of that "it" and I am an all timer of being full of "it". 

[WI_Angler1989]

On 1/3/2016 at 3:35 PM, PitchinJigz said:

 

I feel like I wrote too much, but hopefully it helps some people out. A lot of people dislike finesse fishing and spinning rods, but it's something you absolutely need to know, especially if you fish competitively. I think I like this technique so much because there's so many options: ways to fish it, things you can change. You can complicate it or keep it simple and still catch tons of fish in it. You can catch active and non-active fish on it any time of the year.

There is no such thing as writing "too much." This is fishing! That was an excellent read for me, and anyone else who has no experience with dropshotting. I want to learn it next season, it's one of my biggest fishing goals. 

One question for you, tell me about the weights you use. Size, shape, what effects which you decide use, etc.