Agree or Not Agree?

[MN Fisher]

As much as I may admire Mr. Dance, I have to disagree with him in the main. You may be throwing Green Pumpkin Lizards and what it wants is Black/Blue Senkos. That's the only 'luck' involved...presenting what the fish wants at that time.

[JustJames]

I agree, becuz I do think that most of the fish or at least half I caught just becuz of luck.

[WRB]

If you can master the luck part buy a lottery ticket and go the Las Vegas now!

Tom

 

[Catt]

The only part I disagree with is you cannot master luck!

 

You don't use luck as part of your game plan & you certainly don't rely on it but to deny it happens is beyond laughable!

[WRB]

Good luck, bad luck is like superstition you believe or you don't. Do you have a lucky hat? The most superstitious group I know are racer drivers and lengths these people go through not to cross Lady Luck is beyond comprehension. The reason may be their life is on the line and want to repeat what worked successfully vs what was a disaster. Fisherman aren't far behind and tend to have lucky charms or hats thinking it will bring them good luck. It's all about believing in yourself, it's called confidence.

Tom

[Sam]

7 hours ago, WRB said:

Good luck, bad luck is like superstition you believe or you don't. Do you have a lucky hat? The most superstitious group I know are racer drivers and lengths these people go through not to cross Lady Luck is beyond comprehension. The reason may be their life is on the line and want to repeat what worked successfully vs what was a disaster. Fisherman aren't far behind and tend to have lucky charms or hats thinking it will bring them good luck. It's all about believing in yourself, it's called confidence.

Tom

Tom, we bought specific name brand sports underwear while in high school we put on our uniforms from top to bottom in the same way for good luck.

 

Did it matter? Of course not. Did we play better? Of course not. But we did it. Just like baseball players who will not step on the chalk line from home plate to first base while heading into the dugout.

 

And what about having a banana on your bass boat? Bad luck.

 

So why did Pistol Pete Maravich never change his outer sox during basketball season? He thought it brought him good luck.

 

My grandmother would put the "Gree-Gree" on you if you got her upset. You never want to have the "Gree-Gree" put on you.  That is really bad luck.

 

And while watching LSU football on TV I will sit in the exact same position when LSU gets the football if they had scored or made a good play prior to the next snap. It is my way of sharing the good luck that happened before.

 

There is a psychiatric term for this behavior but I can't remember what it is.

 

You have to just have to "Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler."

[Catt]

I don't put "superstition" under the same hat as luck, superstition is where your trying to force luck.

 

Luck, intuition, gut feeling to me are pretty much the same!

 

By definition: the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

 

It's like when running down the lake & something tells me I need to fish that!

 

This happened with this bass, where I caught her had nothing that told it should hold fish & I had blew past it numerous times.

 

But time something told me turn in here!

 

[Troy85]

39 minutes ago, Catt said:

I don't put "superstition" under the same hat as luck, superstition is where your trying to force luck.

 

Luck, intuition, gut feeling to me are pretty much the same!

 

By definition: the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

 

It's like when running down the lake & something tells me I need to fish that!

 

This happened with this bass, where I caught her had nothing that told it should hold fish & I had blew past it numerous times.

 

But time something told me turn in here!

 

 

I 2nd this.  The above is normal luck, then there is dumb luck.  Dumb luck is when you take your buddy bass fishing for the first time ever, and he catches a 7 pounder on his third cast.  Dumber luck is after you see it jump the first time and realize its a nice fish and start freaking out,  your buddy then starts dancing and singing on the bow of the boat(the fish is still in the water mind you, and jumping around like its in a watery bounce house).  Dumbest luck is when you somehow still land the fish after all his foolishness and the hook literally falls out of the fishes mouth as soon as it gets in the net.

 

 

[Mobasser]

2 hours ago, Catt said:

I don't put "superstition" under the same hat as luck, superstition is where your trying to force luck.

 

Luck, intuition, gut feeling to me are pretty much the same!

 

By definition: the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

 

It's like when running down the lake & something tells me I need to fish that!

 

This happened with this bass, where I caught her had nothing that told it should hold fish & I had blew past it numerous times.

 

But time something told me turn in here!

 

Your intuition Catt! That comes with experience

[JoeyT]

I believe luck is when preparation meets opportunity...

[Catt]

1 hour ago, Mobasser said:

Your intuition Catt! That comes with experience

 

My experience with that "spot" was to blow by it for 25 yrs!  ?

[Paul Roberts]

On 1/6/2019 at 6:31 AM, scaleface said:

I took  my cousins son fishing once this year and was out-fishing him pretty badly .  He called me a lucky-dog . We were using the same lure  , he just wasnt  keeping it in a "lucky"  strike-zone as long as I .

Bingo!

 

Sometimes, when one is catching but another isnt, it can be tough to know what's actually going on. Here's an example I can describe pretty well, bc I know the game and playing field pretty well: 

 

I used to do a lot of steelheading. One morning we hit a river full of active moving fish. I got on them, hooking up one after another. My buddy, standing right next to me, and fishing an identical terminal rig, wasn't getting bit at all. He finally got frustrated and then down on himself. I saw this, stopped casting, and told him what I was doing.

 

He was not knew to the game exactly, but he was failing to recognize something important, and so didn't know that NOW! was the time to switch gears... (How many gears you have available to you is a matter of acquired knowledge).

 

Often —ok virtually all the time— when fishing, we —and the fish— are at the whim of conditions and circumstances. Rarely in fishing is this as obvious as it is in lake-run salmonid fishing —or lotic waters, in general. It's a bit tougher in still-waters, esp deeper ones, bc we have less visual input to work with. (Current is mesmerizing -for very real reasons.) But the same is true on still-waters too. Just ask any river-run res fisher what runs the show there, a great example bc it melds the two (lotic and lentic waters).

 

Most simply, esp for these giant lake-dwelling trout that have come into relatively small water (low volume —don't care how wide it is), water levels are critical to those fish. Volume allows them the impetus/freedom to move, water color alleviates their spookiness, and... "season" -the "Prime Directive”- got them there in the first place.

 

Rarely do we get "perfect" conditions. But I know em when I see em: First, my heart starts going. In some situations my heart actually gets going before "I'm" aware of what set it off; I've got lotsa cool stories about that kind of thing. Next...I get to work, no time to waste.

 

In steelheading, most often, conditions are obviously not perfect for a easy big catch (Ah! @everythingthatswims —the "Big, Dumb Bag”!  ). When conditions aren’t great we have to fish more thoroughly, and slowly. On the toughest days (low volume, clear water, when those big trout are holed up and spooky —ofttimes even asleep), catching "stale" steelhead involves precision: in approach, rigging, presentation, and placement, not to mention location and timing. On the good days, the fish will meet you part of the way; Can't ask for much more than that! In the poorest of conditions, we may be left to what I call “fish-filching” (from author William Schaldach), where you have to bring everything to bear, not only be on-task, but downright crafty, even ingenious, as well (Schaldach has some fun anecdotes on this). 

 

On this particular day, the river volume was up, the water color perfect, and I caught a fish immediately. So, I worked quickly up, picking off aggressive steelies in every cut and pocket: Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! ... . My buddy was hitting the same pockets, but a mere step behind. In poorer (and “regular”) conditions, if I’d been fishing fast, he would have been picking up fish too; One’s I’d “missed” due to the precision required.

 

But that’s not where we were right then. Those fish were up off bottom, on the move, moving into “new” water, and highly vulnerable to fishing. I simply took full advantage.

 

When it was like 9:1, I finally saw my buddy's real frustration, stepped back, explained, and let him take the lead. And our “luck” switched —Poof! Like “magic”.  

[Tennessee Boy]

One of the best fishing books I ever read had nothing to do with fishing.  It was "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Nickolas Taleb.  The premise of the book is that much of our lives are effected by random events and most people are very bad at finding causality when trying to explain these events.  Fishing is very random and this book had me constantly thinking about how this randomness affects the way I think about fishing.

 

Here's an example of how we might find false causality when fishing: 

A guy fishes all morning with his favorite blue worm and catches nothing.  He stops at a marina for lunch and decides to buy a new color worm that's just hit the market.  On his first cast with the new worm, he catches a fish and proceeds to catch a few more over the next couple of hours.  The guy will probably attribute all of his success to the new worm color and may even conclude that it's because the fish have never seen this color before.  The question is,  how does he know the color of the worm made any difference?  His success could have been caused by any number of things that changed in the afternoon that he's not aware of.  Maybe the fish just started feeding in the afternoon.  Maybe he was just unlucky in the morning and lucky in the afternoon.  One thing's for sure,  he'll probably be buying more of the new color worms.

[Hook2Jaw]

I believe myself to be a somewhat above base level angler.  I've caught some rather nice fish.  I've caught numbers of fish, and the days I get skunked get farther and farther apart.  I have gained a large amount of skill in the two years I have been bumping the banks either on foot or from my kayak.

 

I do not believe in luck, but do believe in chance and yes, some folks stumble upon chance happenings more often than others.  One day, I invited my little brother out and within his first five minutes of fishing in many years I was coaching him through landing an 8 pound toad on light tackle through lily pads on a weightless YUM Dinger and light line.  I believe it to be chance that he hooked that fish, but through the knowledge I gave him during the fight he landed the fish.

 

I believe as I add more skill to my current level, I'll be able to have more chances to land trophy bass.

 

It's skill.

[Don51]

On 1/5/2019 at 2:23 PM, Glaucus said:

It's skill to know where they should be. It's luck to find that they currently are where they should be. 

It's experience to think that a fish is in a particular piece of cover or holding on certain structure. It is luck that the fish is actually there and took the offering. The skill part is hooking that fish and getting it in your hands! 

[TnRiver46]

On 1/5/2019 at 9:38 PM, slonezp said:

I don't know that it's awesome. The hat and Raybans are his trademark

For the record, it is indeed awesome

[CrankFate]

I agree. I am extremely lucky. Except I never hit the lotto and other people usually catch bigger fish than me. I accidentally caught a few extremely large LMB,and yes, it was just luck. Meanwhile, I really intended to catch trophy saltwater fish that I fished my whole life for, day after day, after day, but never caught, even while outfishing most people 10 or 20 to 1 for them. The problem is, that no matter what I fish for—I fish the way your supposed to fish for LMB. The bottom line is it’s not just luck. You need to have the luck that goes with what you want. The big bass I caught were luck. My skill is only good for decent sized fish.

[Mobasser]

6 hours ago, Tennessee Boy said:

One of the best fishing books I ever read had nothing to do with fishing.  It was "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Nickolas Taleb.  The premise of the book is that much of our lives are effected by random events and most people are very bad at finding causality when trying to explain these events.  Fishing is very random and this book had me constantly thinking about how this randomness affects the way I think about fishing.

 

Here's an example of how we might find false causality when fishing: 

A guy fishes all morning with his favorite blue worm and catches nothing.  He stops at a marina for lunch and decides to buy a new color worm that's just hit the market.  On his first cast with the new worm, he catches a fish and proceeds to catch a few more over the next couple of hours.  The guy will probably attribute all of his success to the new worm color and may even conclude that it's because the fish have never seen this color before.  The question is,  how does he know the color of the worm made any difference?  His success could have been caused by any number of things that changed in the afternoon that he's not aware of.  Maybe the fish just started feeding in the afternoon.  Maybe he was just unlucky in the morning and lucky in the afternoon.  One thing's for sure,  he'll probably be buying more of the new color worms.

Good point here. As much as we all think we have fishing figured out, sometimes we just don't.Thats fishing. It's the kind of thing that you can become almost expert at, and still be learning things too.Use all your knowledge and skill, but a little bit of luck helps too.

[CrankFate]

16 minutes ago, Mobasser said:

Good point here. As much as we all think we have fishing figured out, sometimes we just don't.Thats fishing. It's the kind of thing that you can become almost expert at, and still be learning things too.Use all your knowledge and skill, but a little bit of luck helps too.

Good point. If I could count all the times I was like......

 

[The Shipley]

Fishing is a learning journey that will take time if you want to get good.

 

I remember an old pond I fished when I was about 8 years old. I would start off my day fishing in the shallows in the morning and then wound fish the west bank of the pond during the afternoon. This always worked for me. And I caught pools of fish for a young kid. I had no idea what I was doing and looked like a fool some days. If I knew how to set my Dad bait casting real I would of had more time to fish. Instead I was on the shore learning the art of picking out a tangled birds nest. 

 

But the short if you are getting out there consistently and you are trying. You will adapt, and you will learn. Years later did I learn the importance of water temps and feeding habits. Funny looking back that is why the fish were in those places. You will always benefit from a plan and knowledge when fishing. There are some people that are just in the right place at the right time. I don't call it luck. I call it experience and a investment on your sport of choice. Learning how to find bass and what will work, that is what makes you keep coming back over and over to learn more skills. 

 

PS - As far as messing up bait casting reals. I'm still working on it every trip. Some things never change. 

 

 

[CrankFate]

All of my biggest fish were luck, especially the bass. I was never a good bass fisherman, but I have been a very lucky bass fisherman.

[scaleface]

To me its just a clever play on words . Means nothing .

[jbsoonerfan]

To me, luck is something that happens by chance. Someone can put a hundred dollars in a slot machine and not win a thing. Someone else may put a dollar in and win a thousand. Neither required a skill set other than pushing the button. Then you have those people that think they actually have a skill set for playing slots. They will say stupid stuff like "always play the machine on the third row closest to the door on the second Monday of the month after 8:00 PM". Fishermen have a certain skill set and knowledge to bring to the table, but it doesn't mean there isn't luck involved. You may find a lay down and fish the heck out of it for 20 min and not get a bite because you never threw it in the perfect spot. The next guy may catch that 8 lber on his first cast because his cast was perfect. It wasn't that he brought a different skill set. You both knew there could be fish there, he just happened to get lucky with where he made his first cast or maybe he was using a different bait and he was lucky that the fish wanted that particular bait. So for me, there is some luck involved no matter how you look at it.

[Choporoz]

2 hours ago, jbsoonerfan said:

To me, luck is something that happens by chance. 

That is how I approached this discussion.   After reading @Catts posts, I understand that some think of luck as something different....something affected, even if slightly,  by experience,  knowledge....or ?? To me, luck is a flip of the coin...nothing more.

On 1/7/2019 at 1:21 PM, Tennessee Boy said:

Here's an example of how we might find false causality when fishing: 

A guy fishes all morning with his favorite blue worm and catches nothing.  He stops at a marina for lunch and decides to buy a new color worm that's just hit the market.  On his first cast with the new worm, he catches a fish and proceeds to catch a few more over the next couple of hours.  The guy will probably attribute all of his success to the new worm color and may even conclude that it's because the fish have never seen this color before.  The question is,  how does he know the color of the worm made any difference?  His success could have been caused by any number of things that changed in the afternoon that he's not aware of.  Maybe the fish just started feeding in the afternoon.  Maybe he was just unlucky in the morning and lucky in the afternoon.  One thing's for sure,  he'll probably be buying more of the new color worms.

I am the cynical, skeptic who is the opposite of this guy.  Every fish I catch, after even a short drought, I find myself questioning every possible variable.  I rarely immediately conclude that I simply chose correctly....color, changed lure, speed, etc.  Instead, I'm wondering about variables in location, tide, time of day, sun angle, fish activity turning on, etc.  I dont believe luck is a factor, but at the same time, I still have some trouble crediting skill.

[scbassin]

The better you become at mastering the skill set of fishing the less luck will happen while fishing.