Improving Your Fishing

[Glenn]

What can you do to improve upon this past year of fishing?

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

What are your goals for next year?

[riverbasser]

Try to get better at ruling out unproductive water

Force myself to pay more attention and know why I caught each bass so that I can duplicate and find patterns faster

Also have a goal of joining a small tourney club on the river and doing well

[roadwarrior]

I would like to prefect my pitching, improving both distance and accuracy.

[Mike L]

My strength's are flipping, pitching and punching.

I need to have more confidence in useing a spinning outfit and Be better at skipping under dock useing a baitcaster.

 

Mike 

[scaleface]

 Learn how to back hand cast .  I'm horrible at it .

[Senko lover]

I need to gain confidence in jerkbaits and crankbaits.

["hamma"]

Seeing as I only fished 6 times this year, I will need to brush up on everything. I know skipping will be a bit,.."again",...lol,... pitching and flipping wont be too bad, everything else shouldn't be to difficult.

 Weakness? dropshotting, as its new to me, and my new electronics,.. Strengths?,... tenacity, determination, application, and patience.,... this strengths part took awhile for me to answer. Its not easy if you really think about it, but these are what I would think are my true strengths.

 Lures and techniques are easy to a seasoned angler, unless they are new. So how could one consider a technique, or lure a "strength". They are what one uses often, and its like riding a bike. I didnt throw a true crankbait all year, or last for that matter. But I know I can bottom bump one along with the best of them at a moments notice..

[padon]

I need to get better at deep water fishing,and using electronics.I had a new sonar with GPS and mapping coming .also more study and understanding where fish go And how they move in my lakes seasonally.

[Mike L]

1 hour ago, scaleface said:

 Learn how to back hand cast .  I'm horrible at it .

What helped me was to release earlier than I thought I should. Pick out a reference point on shore someplace and realese at that point. Dont even look at your target.

It'll  take a while but keep at it, you'll get it  

 

Mike 

[Bluebasser86]

I need to improve my crankbait fishing. I own hundreds, bet I didn't hit the century mark on cranks all year. A lot of that was due to the flooded conditions I faced a lot of the year that just weren't conducive to a good crankbait bite. 

It was one of best years ever for a frog though because of those flooded conditions, which was a lot of fun.

[Alan Reed]

Being that this was my first year fishing I have a lot to learn.

I started to learn about developing a pattern. But sometimes getting that first bite was a struggle. So learning their location based time of year, water temp, weather etc... This become more important as I start to fish larger waters.

 

[scaleface]

I have always thought my best strength was fishing sinking lures on the bottom .  I learned that from watching Virgil Ward . He hopped everything off the bottom and I mimicked him .

[Ohio Archer]

I need to spend more time on the water (don't we all?) but and spend more time using my side scan sonar to ID underwater features that will hold fish.  Blindly beating the banks or the same dead stretch of water is unproductive around here. 

Going to spend some time getting info at seminars this winter.  Regardless of the species you're fishing for you can learn a lot from listening to the guys that do it for a living.

I need to learn when and where to throw jerkbaits.  My patience level is low when it comes to letting something sit for a while before moving it again.  So, I guess I need to learn to slow my retrieves down when needed.

Love throwing crankbaits, spinnerbaits and worms.  I'd like to throw more swimbaits.  I also need to learn how to fish deep, 25'-40' deep.  I've seen large schools of fish on open water humps after the turnover but they are way too deep for anything but a jig. 

Everyday you learn something is not a wasted day even if you get blanked.

[scaleface]

11 minutes ago, Ohio Archer said:

 

 

 

Love throwing crankbaits, spinnerbaits and worms.  I'd like to throw more swimbaits.  I also need to learn how to fish deep, 25'-40' deep.  I've seen large schools of fish on open water humps after the turnover but they are way too deep for anything but a jig. 

 

Sound like a spot for a 3/4 ounce Red Eye shad .

[CrustyMono]

Strengths:

pitching to cover and docks

soft plastic swimbaits

senko

wacky

dropshot

texas rig

swim jig

jerkbait

 

Weaknesses:

spinnerbaits

ned rig

hook setting

rattle traps

[Bankbeater]

My strengths would be fishing jigs, crankbaits, and Texas rigged plastics. I need to work on fishing jerkbaits, and my dropshot presentation.

[BrackishBassin]

I'd like to improve my ability to use a baitcaster from wooded banks. Main lake I can access is all heavily forested on the bank. 

[JustJames]

Learn to read structer.

my strenght would be dropshot and senko, weakness is all hard plastic lure  since I hardly use them. I plan to use more of this spinnerbait, shallow crank, jerkbait next year. 

[fishwizzard]

I need to learn to slow the hell down.  I can't think of a single lure I fish slow enough.  I need to find a 1:1 reel or something.  

[Airman4754]

I am moving right next to Wheeler Lake in a month. So, essentially I will be learning how to bass fish all over again. What I consider shallow will be about the deepest water I can find. It will be interesting for sure.

I don't consider anything a strength or a weekness. I own just about everything, I fish all of it, and sometimes I find what they are on and have a great day, sometimes it's the opposite.

[Catt]

On 11/26/2016 at 9:55 AM, Glenn said:

What can you do to improve upon this past year of fishing?

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

What are your goals for next year?

Go fishing more!

Strengths: reading structure & fishing deep structure

Weakness: night fishing! I can't resist it!

Seriously probably lipped crankbaits, the places I fish the cover so thick I don't even carry my crankbaits box.

Go fishing more

[scbassin]

I am 77 years old & pushing 78 kind of hard.

To improve- more time on the water. Must get up before the crack of noon.

Strengths-Cork fishing

Weakness- Can't see the cork once it gets 5 ft. from the boat.

Goals- To find my way back once I leave the landing. The guys in the club helped me with this, they bought me a 50 lb. sack of flour so I can leave a trail & follow it back.

[N Florida Mike]

I tried this year to get out of the rut of fishing the same way all the time,and to catch a new PB.I was somewhat successful with A,but not close on B.

Overall,I caught less fish,and less big fish this year.I feel like I've been in a slump most of the year.Even the tried and true baits haven't worked for me as well this year.I have caught a few fish on new baits/ methods and that's it.

STRENGTHS: T-Rigged plastics and ( gulp,) live bait.

WEAKNESSES: Nearly any other bait/ application.

In my defence I have been very successful with my strength so I haven't seen a huge need to change.After this year I'm considering just going back to what I'm good at.

GOALS: TO fish with more of y'all and to get that new elusive PB !!

[Spankey]

My strengths are fishing soft plastics. Like to finesse fish various ways. Fishing tubes, worms, grubs, soft craws. 

I'm no pro but crankbaits and topwater fishing must be going ok by the fish I've been catching. I'm more into straight line spinnerbaits like Mepps type of stuff. That's always went pretty well.

This coming season I'd like to do some frog type fishing. Not sure what types. I have all winter to do my home work. I can maybe tie this into some fly fishing also. It would be a 180 to how I normally bass fish.

 

[IgotWood]

This was my first season for LMB, and I far surpassed my expectation. To improve my fishing, I need to slow down, and fish more thoroughly. I also need to improve on my versatility. If I wasn't banging senkos, or T-rigged plastics off the trees, I wasn't catching. Next year, I'd really like to spend time with a jig, and learn ti fish it well. I would also like to have more success with cranks and jerks. I can read water and identify structure/cover just fine, but determining which parts of the structure, or which depth to target is the tough part for me.