Fish your strengths!

[Catt]

Start at the 49 minute mark & watch 4-5 minutes.

 

 

[Pat Brown]

What if you don't have any @Catt 🥹🥹🥹🤣🤣🤣

[Catt]

4 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

What if you don't have any @Catt 🥹🥹🥹🤣🤣🤣

Watch the video 😉

[Pat Brown]

In all seriousness I love Larry Nixon and love this wisdom here.  Finding my fish is all I know how to do!  I am definitely getting to the point where I know what I'm looking for to do my kinda thing but I'm learning all the time still is the only hang up in the process.

 

Happy Thanksgiving @Catt!  I really appreciate you and all the wisdom you share with us!

 

Bout to take jr. out for a sunrise session before Turkey and I'm bringing a buzzbait and a jig!  Hopefully I find my fish before Jake finds em!  🤣🎣

[Catt]

@Pat Brown 

Happy Thanksgiving 😉

[Dwight Hottle]

As always very insightful @Catt

[greentrout]

When I need a refresher on worm fishing, I always go Mr. Nixon's articles on worm fishing. The Master. 

 

Good Stuff

[Mike L]

“When I’m not seeing anything I know why”

“When I’m not catching anything I know why”

 

You only get to that point by learning your waters. 

Understanding the why of things is key

 

 

 

 

 

Mike

[Tennessee Boy]

It took me a while to learn this lesson and I consider it the most important fishing lesson I ever learned.  You will catch 90% of your fish when you’re fishing your strengths.  Yes it’s good to expand your strengths but understand that takes time.  Buying a technique specific rod and watching 100 hours of YouTube videos will not make you an expert at a giving technique.

[Mobasser]

Larry Nixon has been one of my favourite guys forever. Good info here Catt, and, Happy Thanksgiving!

[Pat Brown]

3 hours ago, Catt said:

@Pat Brown 

Happy Thanksgiving 😉

 

I did what you said and look at what happened!?!?!?  😉🎣

 

[N Florida Mike]

Thanks for sharing that @Catt

Im assuming you’ve met Larry Nixon a few times…😉

Happy Thanksgiving!

[Susky River Rat]

That was a great video. I would say I fish what little strengths I have. I do like to branch out and learn. When it gets tough you can sure bet I am going to grind on the strengths. I learned this a long time ago while musky fishing. It’s very easy to have BCD (bait changing disorder) while musky fishing always thinking you are missing the  hot bite. 
 

When I fish with my dad and we both seem to be on something I will completely switch to something different. I will tell my dad to stay the same. One to see if there is something better they would like. Two to build confidence in other options. 

[Swamp Girl]

I pretty much fish the same seven lures. Like the rest of you, I've hundreds of other lures, some still in their packaging and other used just once, but I know how to catch fish on my seven reliable lures: popper, Whopper Plopper, underspin, Mepps spinner, squarebill, wacky worm, and T-rigged worm. Sure, I can go out and catch fish on a fluke, hard jerkbait, etc., but if I want to catch a lot of bass, which I do, my steady seven serve me well. 

[Bankbeater]

Good video.  A lot of good info and history.

[RipzLipz]

@Catt Where was the part about drinking beer? I must have missed it.🤣

 

Try to fish my strengths but at times the fish are more strong-willed in regards to their lack of desire to open their mouths.

[Zcoker]

Many fishermen can confuse their strengths with their comfort zones, imho. All along when I thought that I was fishing my own strengths, what I was in actuality doing was just fishing my comfort zones. And those comfort zones didn't really have much to do with my strengths at all. Breaking out of the box is what I had to do, trying out new things, going to new places, new techniques, new frontiers, all of which opened up many more doors and made me much stronger at what I do. It sorta defined my strengths, if that makes sense, which gave me a solid foundation to work from.  

[Pat Brown]

Learning how to fish your strengths productively in any conditions/on different bodies of water takes practice fishing your strengths and trial and error.

 

Bass can be difficult to catch but bass are fairly predictable.  I think for me the biggest obstacle is throwing something comfortable vs something I am good at fishing that the moment calls for.

 

Strengths can often be highlighted or outlined by our limitations a little bit I think.  It's important to embrace the limitations present in each moment on the water and exploit the moment with our strength that is 'the easy way out'

 

Perhaps great anglers are the ones who always take the easy way out every day on the water and simply are the most efficient at identifying the easy way out that fits into their preferred methods of finding and catching bass!

[Catt]

On 11/23/2023 at 7:19 AM, Mike L said:

“When I’m not seeing anything I know why”

“When I’m not catching anything I know why”

 

You only get to that point by learning your waters. 

Understanding the why of things is key

 

 

 

 

 

Mike

 

[Swamp Girl]

2 hours ago, Zcoker said:

Many fishermen can confuse their strengths with their comfort zones, imho.

 

How do you differentiate them?

 

For example, when I fished northwestern Ontario for smallmouth, my primary lure was an F13 Rapala and six-pound test. 

 

One time, my fishing buddy said, "I've just been watching you cast and time after time, your Rapala lands right beside wood or rock."

 

So, that suggests it's a strength, but that particular lure also comforts me on tough days when the bass aren't biting, for I've caught thousands of bass with it. 

[Zcoker]

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

 

How do you differentiate them?

 

For example, when I fished northwestern Ontario for smallmouth, my primary lure was an F13 Rapala and six-pound test. 

 

One time, my fishing buddy said, "I've just been watching you cast and time after time, your Rapala lands right beside wood or rock."

 

So, that suggests it's a strength, but that particular lure also comforts me on tough days when the bass aren't biting, for I've caught thousands of bass with it. 

 

For me, it had more to do with the phycological aspect of breaking out of old routines, not so much with fishing lures. I can make practically any fishing lure catch something. I used to find myself fishing out of habit or comfort, always going to places that I was comfortable fishing, maybe where I once caught a nice bass, sticking to that one spot and only that one spot only because it once produced for me and only because I was familiar with the area and comfortable fishing there. Once I broke away from such routines or comforts, I opened myself up to new horizons, newfound strengths that have since produced many quality fish. 

[Swamp Girl]

3 minutes ago, Zcoker said:

I used to find myself fishing out of habit or comfort, always going to places that I was comfortable fishing, maybe where I once caught a nice bass, sticking to that one spot and only that once spot only because it once produced for me and only because I was familiar with the area and comfortable fishing there.

 

Hmmm. @PhishLI and @AlabamaSpothunter might disagree with you. I know I do. I had my best fishing season ever by sticking to a few bodies of water and gaining a better and better understanding of them. In 2022, I was a hummingbird, flying from flower to flower, i.e. from pond to bog to a different pond to a different pond to a different bog. In 2023, I focused on five bogs and gleaned a better understanding of where the bass bunker and how that changes from spring to fall. 

 

I'm not the least bit uncomfortable fishing new water. I LOVE to fish new water, but by fishing the same bodies of water again and again, I did develop a better understanding of them and their bass. 

 

It's hard to compare your Everglades bass to my bog bass, for your fish grow 12 months a year, but as @Pat Brown has observed more than once, a six-plus-pounder in Maine, in terms of rarity, equates to a much bigger bass from the Everglades. I didn't catch dozens of six-plus-pounders like I did four-to-five pounders in 2023, but I caught enough to believe in the wisdom of @PhishLI's and @AlabamaSpothunter's approach.* And I'm pretty sure I hooked and lost fish bigger than the biggest bass I caught, but I don't yet have the skill/strength/equipment to land those biggest bass yet. It's pert near impossible to keep a goblin out of the weeds when she's big enough to pull your boat into the weeds. 

 

However, from time to time, I still do fish new water for the sheer joy of casting into the unknown. 

 

*To be frank, Alex and Phish wanted me to focus on one or two bodies of water. I just couldn't. I like variety too much. So, I compromised and focused on five...and am sure glad I did. 

[MassBass]

I think when you can take you strengths, and apply them and have success in new waters, that is strong. I think it is invaluable to have a water system or two that you know, or once knew, very intimately, so you understand how deep the rabbit hole can go trying to understand seasonal movements, interspecies interactions, etc. so even if you go to some new water and have success, you still know there is so much you don't know. 

[Swamp Girl]

6 minutes ago, MassBass said:

I think it is invaluable to have a water system or two that you know, or once knew, very intimately

 

I was fishing a lake in northwestern Ontario for smallies that I knew "very intimately." I had spent literal months on that one lake, fishing it from June through October. 

 

So, one day, I was fishing with my dad in one canoe and a pal was fishing in another canoe, perhaps 20 yards away. 

 

"We're catching them here," I said, observing that he hadn't caught a bass. "Come on over!"

 

"What makes you think they're where you are and not over here?" he asked.

 

"Experience," I said.

 

And then I caught a 21-incher to punctuate my point.

 

Sadly, he was too stubborn to move and caught nothing. 

[RipzLipz]

7 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

Sadly, he was too stubborn to move and caught nothing. 

Wonder if he’d make a good match with kingmotorboat’s former boat partner?