Why I am a better ________ angler than you are!

[Turkey sandwich]

There's a lot of really great info on here!  There are a ton of you guys I'do love to get on the water with and pick your brains.  

 

The thing that I'm probably best at doesn't necessarily have to do with time on the water, but likely learning efficiently instead.  I was always pretty analytical, but I was extremely lucky in college to be able to study under and work with a leading researcher in learning, problem solving, and the development of expertise... Or I guess simply "how to learn".  It was a really humbling experience to actually break down the process, especially with common "genius" cases like brilliant musicians, artists, and innovators.  Interestingly enough, the same ideas have really benefitted me in everything from my career, to how I teach Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, to how I approach my time on the water. 

 

The really short version of lots of research and case studies is that hard work plays a big role, but so do things like structured practice, tiered and evolving goals, engineering or troubleshooting a problem space, etc.  For me, it was really motivating knowing that inherent "talent" isn't nearly the factor it's made out to be, and that most of time we just limit ourselves at what we decided to get "good" at.  

 

I think, also, it may give me a different perspective than most when it comes to how I pursue my time on the water.  I don't get as much of it as a lot of you guys, so I spend a lot of time learning a body of water before I get there.  I'll typically have topo maps (if available), DNR fish surveys, YOY surveys, reports on water quality/silt/blooms/nutrients, etc, before launching the boat or putting on my waders.  When I do get on the water, I'm paying attention to the sizes of baitfish, what's living under rocks, the colors of crayfish, relative water clarity, weather, etc. This also taught me to learn more techniques and diversify how I fish (for years, I was a jig/worm guy) without getting too tied down to just one strategy.  I keep notes on how/where they were caught, but focus probably more on what/how I was imitating than just the lure I was doing it with.  

 

The result might be similar to how a number of you have expressed having an engineer's approach to fishing.  For me, it's the process of learning as efficiently as I can.  It certainly doesn't make me a better fisherman than most of you guys, but I think it's ultimately given me a better than many understanding of what's happening under the water in the amount of time I've been back to fishing regularly.  That said, I would love to get out on a boat with a lot of you guys and see how much I don't know.  

 

 

 

[the reel ess]

Oh, Not sure if this has been mentioned, but I'm a better angler because I keep a journal. My wife gave me one for Christmas last year. I started first time out in 2015. I was late getting going because i had foot surgery. But I'm looking back in it now and seeing what worked and didn't work from March on. It's like an almanac.

I was out Saturday fishing with a buddy who likes to bet college football. We've been fishing a long time and he told me I'd gotten a lot better. and asked how. I said time on the water and keeping a journal. He said that sounds stupid. I asked him if he wrote down his betting history and everything about the games and he said no. But that sounds like a good idea, might cut the losses. I said "Yeah."

[scaleface]

Why I am a worse crankbait fisherman than you .

 

I dont deflect crankbaits off of wood , when I bump a tree the lure attaches itself to the tree .

[quanjig]

Why am I a better "random" cast specialist?? In the last few years, that little "why not put one over there" casts has produced a kicker for me has really worked!! 

Then I started thinking, at what point does it stop being random and start becoming progression!!??  Just a thought.........

[Paul Roberts]

Great stuff mentioned. In particular, the ones that jive with me are: being willing to hoof/explore, knowledge of limnology/ecology, taking time to observe, and keeping a journal -an almanac is a good way of describing a journal.

[WRB]

Everyone can be a better bass angler by using your most important tool, you.

The bass you are trying to catch are not invisible or trying to hide. If you use your eyes, your hearing, your intuition, coupled with your knowledge and experience, you will become a better bass angler.

When fishing with a partner I am usually more aware of what is going on with the bass because I look for them in the water to see if they are following my lures, bumping them. Chasing prey, nervous water indicating prey or predators and keeping an eye on animal activity, etc....keep in tune and use you brain!

Tom

 

[Ratherbfishing]

Making comparisons is precisely why I don't fish tourneys so, while others do enjoy this sort of thing, I'll abstain.

[the reel ess]

2 hours ago, scaleface said:

Why I am a worse crankbait fisherman than you .

 

I dont deflect crankbaits off of wood , when I bump a tree the lure attaches itself to the tree .

Yeah, and usually on the first cast at that tree, ruining that tree for you. I fish one body of water that only has one good laydown on the entire reservoir. I'll always approach it with a T Rig for that very reason.

[Fishing Rhino]

12 hours ago, ww2farmer said:

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". 

That's okay.   I caused my wife no end of embarrassment prior to her retirement.  She is a registered nurse and worked in the hospital administration. 

The doc came in to see me when I came to after having a colonoscopy.  "Any questions?", the doc asked.  I asked him if he found my head up there during the procedure.  He laughed and said, "No."

I then asked if he'd give me a signed statement to that effect, for my wife.

Sometimes, I embarrassed myself. 

My wife had surgery for a not uncommon female condition.  I went to the cafeteria, and on my way back to her room came across the female doc who had performed the surgery.  She was telling that all went well, etc., etc.  She said in that type of surgery, you never know what you might find.

Before I could stop myself I blurted out that it was like opening Pandora's Box.  She thought it was quite funny.  I stood there shaking my head, telling her that I realized before I finished what it would sound like, but too late to stop it.

[PitchinJigz]

12 hours ago, WI_Angler1989 said:

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. 

Sent you a PM.

[WRB]

PM's not allowed in this thread, it's a open forum for all to learn.

If you are a better drop shot angler, tell your secrets and we promise to keep them.

Tom

 

[Turkey sandwich]

I think one thing, that I am better than most at, is smallmouth fishing on rivers.  I grew up on the Susquehanna and still know miles of it like familiar highway.  

 

These are are some notes that I have:

-bass fisherman can learn a lot from trout fishermen about how to read a river.  Paying attention to things like inside/outside bends, changes in current, converging currents, and current breaks are huge.  If you learn basic seasonal patterns and can read the river,  you can eliminate a lot of dead water.  I've even watched guides on local/regional outdoors shows waste a ton of time fishing dead water.   If you have an outboard or especially a jet boat, you can be very, very efficient in the summer and fall. 

- as kind of a follow up, in rivers, depth is all relative.  Often, fish aren't going to be able to drop down to 20-30' of water after a spawn the way they might in a lake.  A 3' drop, with access to current might be equivalent to a 10-15' drop along a point or bluff wall in a lake.  Remember, moving water provides food, current breaks provide resting/stacking points, and in moving water, depth doesn't always provide the temperature changes it does in ponds or lakes.  Also, remember, in current fish need to eat more frequently and be closer to a consistent food source.  A 20' hole or deep bend may look promising on a graph, but unless it offers close shallow water access with current and/or a hard bottom with current breaks, it's likely dead water.  If you are marking fish, they're certainly worth a few casts, but they also aren't likely the most active fish.

- in many rivers during the summer, helgramites and madtoms/stone cats are king.  Tragically, there aren't a whole lot of great soft plastics out there that represent them well.  Outside of using live bait, some of the best imitations I've found are fishing worms with small appendages near shorelines (ideally with some depth) with either a very light nail weight or drop shot (especially with the dropshot, you want the weight light enough for your bait to still drift in current) between riffles and rocky shorelines (helgramites) and fishing fat grubs or small paddle tails like Confidence Baits' Bird or some goby imitations on small, weighted worm hooks in current make a decent culpin/madtom imitation.  In all cases, bottom contact is huge.  Another cool strategy to emulate helgramites is drifting black/brown/olive bead head wooly buggers on a 4-6 weight fly rod. 

-here in the north, big smallmouth love perch (and why not? They're delicious).  If you can find a school of perch, it's pretty likely that you'll find smallmouth nearby.  Crankbaits, jerkbaits, and spinnerbaits with or without Keitech trailers can be a great way to pick up a kicker fish.  

- smallmouth do not require small baits!  They will crush full sized spooks, 3/4oz spinnerbaits w/trailers, and even big crank baits fished aggressively when conditions call for them.  

- when in doubt, be simple.  The reason you can still see small spinners, grubs, and tubes everywhere is because they catch fish almost anywhere.   Spinners aren't typically my go to for size, but they're a great way to locate fish when you can't seem to buy a bite.  Also, with the grubs and tubes, the size and weights used are typically much more important than the colors.  

- smallmouth are super competitive in almost any body of water.  You'll often get fish following right to the boat.  I will almost always keep a light or ultra light rod rigged with light mono and a grub on an 1/8oz ball head to flip to following fish or short hits.  it's almost unbelievable sometimes how many fish you can boat following something like a rattle trap with a finesse grub. 

 

I hope this is helpful to some of you guys, at least in terms of getting more efficient on a river, and getting a better picture of what's going on down there. 

 

 

[Turkey sandwich]

On 1/4/2016 at 5:06 AM, Catt said:

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.

 

Your Toledo Bend thread is essentially a problem solving book on fishing that lake.  How do you typically differentiate between productive humps and points versus maybe more secondary options?  I like your notes on boat positioning and presentation once you get there, but what do you find makes on point, cove, or hump more attractive for large fish than other, similar structure?   Even in deeper lakes, do you ever adopt a strategy of fishing heavy shallow cover versus deep weed lines and offshore structure?

[Catt]

Wow! Turkey that's a big sandwich to chew!

Look under the best of at the top of the page!

 

[Turkey sandwich]

2 minutes ago, Catt said:

Wow! Turkey that's a big sandwich to chew!

Look under the best of at the top of the page!

 

Figured I might try to get my money's worth :).  

What "best of"? I don't know if I've ever noticed one. 

[Catt]

When you open General Bass Fishing section there are "pinned"threads one is the best of bassresource. Once you open it you will get your money's worth!

[WRB]

Why I am a mediocre drop shot angler.

I started drop shot fishing using a dropper rig for salt water game fish in the 60's. I first heard of stacking or down shot for fresh water bass the rig didn't interest me, preferring a slip shot rig now called finesse C-rig. About the late 80's early 90's everyone was talking about the down shot or drop shot rig, so reluctantly gave it a try, tying a hook directly onto the line without a loop seamed wrong. Surprise...it worked!

I still hate to use a drop shot rig, hate even more getting out fished by A partner, so will use it under specific conditions...can't get bit on anything else!

I only finesse rig a drop shot using spinning tackle with 6 lb Sniper FC, Owner mosquito or down shot hook with Roboworms, Iovino worms or Basstrix Flash minnows, very limited selection.

I drop shot in depths from about 10' to 40' where I know bass are tight to structure.

If the bass are suspended a dart head or finesse wacky jig gets the call. If the bass are on slopping banks the slip shot or nail  rig is used.

Tom

[Catt]

Structure is structure!

It doesn't matter if it's me on Toledo Bend or WRB out in California or A-Jay up north or Rolo down in Florida or Raul over in Mexico.

There are (local) regional definitions of various types of structure but in it's purest form structure is the shape of the bottom of a body of water. All bodies of water have it; it starts at the bank & continues out to the bottom of the deepest depths.

When I'm faced with brush, timber, or vegetation my approach is the same; observe the structure first & then the brush, timber, or vegetation. Most anglers see the brush, timber, or vegetation (cover) but never look past it.

I see guys on Toledo Bend flipping/pitching/punching the massive fields of grass by randomly wondering down the outer grasslines. Knowing what structure lies below the grass field I target specific areas catching more bass, bigger bass. & in less time!

Turkey, look at what you wrote on river fishing & compare it to what I just said!

[WRB]

Catt posted earlier that he has a gift to see 3 dimensional objects looking at a 2 dimensional (sonar screen) view. This is how the world is, it's 3 dimensional and structure isn't anything more than terrain surrounding the lake covered by water. Look at the surrounding terrain to get a clear 3 dimensional view of the structure where you fish.

A large flat bottom area is very similar to a farmers field, no structure elements other than flat earth at first glance. If you look closer you may see a rocky knoll, a drainage ditch, a covert, a fence row etc., the features that are different than flat earth are 3 dimensional structure elements or isolated structure that bass related to, if that field was lake bottom. The weed beds can be different and have edges due to different soil composition, differencies in structure elements like sand, clay, gravel, rocks, stumps, under the cover is where you should be focusing your effort on and they can be visible above water by the different types of cover growing there.

Read ole Catts "structure" threads like "humps" and learn from them.

Tom

 

[senile1]

Why I am a better teaching angler than you are.  (I don't really believe I am the best teacher, but I'll play.  )

Finding fish on structure is not a complex differential equation that requires a high degree of intelligence to comprehend.  Structure and cover are very simple concepts that, once defined, should be easy for most anyone to understand.  Often left unsaid is the fact that learning structure on a large lake takes a lot of work and time, and typically the rewards from this process come later rather than sooner.  The process of learning the structure of a lake is not difficult to understand.  It is just difficult to execute due to the time involved.  

Back in the days of Buck Perry, the way to learn structure was to drag lures across the bottom in successive parallel paths, each one deeper than the last, so that the angler could feel and locate points, humps, drains, creek channels, etc.  When a nice point or other type of potential bass holding structure was located, a series of paths perpendicular, parallel, and across the structure would be taken to determine its layout.  Eventually, this process led to enough knowledge of the bottom to map out the bottom of the lake.  Anyone can see that this method took a lot of time and even then, spots on spots could easily be missed.  But . . . . it did work and Perry was dubbed the "Father of Structure Fishing."

Once depth sounders/fish finders came into vogue, this process was made slightly easier, though the angler could still only see what was under the boat.  If you still use one of these depth finders, then you will need to spend a lot of time following a process similar to the old "Buck Perry" process if you truly want to learn your lake.  Once you learn quite a bit, you will be able to find and catch fish much faster.

If you use side imaging and down imaging, then you have obviously shortened the process of learning the structure on your lake.  One can now see out to the side of the boat and get a quicker view of structure.  Anything that appears to be a potential spot to hold fish can then be further investigated with down imaging, 2D sonar, or lures.  

Additionally, an angler can and absolutely should peruse maps and online data about lakes and weather to narrow down probable lake areas for investigation.  He or she can then concentrate the investigation process in the areas already chosen, thus decreasing the time needed to find fish.  Keep in mind though, that if one chooses the wrong areas for investigation in your pre-trip searches, you may find yourself struggling on the water.  Always check the conditions, water, etc when you arrive at the lake so that you can hopefully alter your plan if necessary.  

As one can surmise, small lakes can be learned pretty quickly.  Learning a very large lake is where a lot of time is involved.  It is imperative that you do your research on a large lake to narrow your search areas if you want to achieve success in a shorter time period.  Keep in mind that knowing the structure of your lake is useless if you are not familiar with how a bass typically uses that structure throughout the seasons.  

In summary, it doesn't take an intellectually superior human being to be a good angler.  It just takes one with a desire to learn, persistence, and the time necessary to apply these ideas on the water.  I am not among the best anglers in the world, or anywhere else for that matter.  But I can teach you and I believe you will be more likely to absorb what I teach because you will never feel that what I teach requires a special gift or superior intelligence.  If you struggle with finding fish, don't be discouraged.  You can do this.  

[Catt]

Perfect senile1

 

WRB my depth finder is a 12 year old Hummingbird fishfinder 535, it shows only one dimension...depth!

[Paul Roberts]

You know, I still like flashers -truly. A lot of using sonar is interpretation -knowing what's down there sending back those signals, and the fish species in that water- and that's fun. Mebbe I'll even break out the old tubular steel rod I have and go retro for a while.

Hope WayneP doesn't see this. He'll disown me.

 

[WRB]

Flashers display real time returns within the transducer cone area, everything a LCD does without memory. Most anglers today don't realize the most modern units still display a flasher type real time return on the far right margin of the sonar screen, it's still there except the memory is displayed scrolling across the LCD screen.

My first unit was Lowrance green box portable Lo K Tor era early 60's, still have it!

Lowrance X-15 paper graph and Humminbird Super 60 flasher was my next set up in the early 70's until 2005 when I bought the LCX19C with X510 for the trolling motor for a new boat.  I really like the target separation of the 19C and see no reason to upgrade beyond that. Fun to play with other folks new scanning HD units, don't to upgrade this late in the game, I know what's under the boat.

Tom

[bigbill]

Fishing from a boat you maybe better than me but I mainly fish from shore. I can gun and run to different areas or different places to fish in a few minutes no boat to move. Shore fishing is a lot tougher than using a boat. I'll never make a pro status fishing from shore. I leave my ego at home and just fish against myself. I challenge myself to do better on every outing. Four months to the start date. Three months to grease the reels and add new line.

im the only fishing nut out there at 4am. Watching the sun come up everyday is priceless.

 

[Don't Tell The Wife]

I don't know about being a better fisherman but I am a better learner. I love observing others and picking their brain from that I can take what I learn, add to it, and I now have something that's my own that I try to teach others. What a fun process. 

 

I wish I had more opportunities to be around great fisherman and that I was a little better taking in subtle things in the environment while trying something new. This is what I am trying to get better at and its pretty fun too.