Once again winter has set in.  All of us anglers are engulfed in fishing catalogs and memories of last years fishing trips.  This is an opportunity to reflect on lessons learned in past seasons.  We should take time to analyze our mistakes and correct them.  Many of us have our favorite lures or go to baits.  This is great but it can also be a great handicap on your ability to grow as an angler.

Each year I order multiple bags of green pumpkin tubes from Bass Pro Shops.  This is my favorite bait and my greatest failure.  It was the first thing in the water and the last for years.  Many limits of fish have been filled and tournaments won.  There was also many zeros with them too.  As anglers we try to duplicate what we have done in the past to catch fish even if the fish don’t want it.  The attitude of “we’ve caught fish here before on this lure” will not last forever.  We must learn to read the water and give the fish their favorite bait.

This lesson was taught to me on a weeknight tournament when my partner made me net man and fish culler.  The jerk bait bite was on!  He was flipping them in the boat faster than I could weigh them and cull.  The tube produced two fish, while the jerk bait produced eleven.  Would it not been for my partner’s versatility, that could have been just another average night.  I failed to realize that the shad were schooling up away from the bank, and so were the bass.  Trying to fish where they were the week before was a foolish mistake repeated often up until that day.  It is a good place to start if we are willing to observe what the fish are doing that day, not the week before.

So go head and use your favorite bait, but dedicate yourself to try
something different if and when the fish are not biting.  In my case take everything out of the boat but the jerk baits, this will force you to learn a new technique.  I spend lots of money each year on tackle but in all honesty I only use ten percent of the new stuff.  I tend to stick with what caught the fish last year.  A new attitude should be (What’s your favorite bait?  Whatever the fish are biting on!!!).

As we flip through the endless pages of baits in those catalogs, think of our lessons learned.  Maybe new crank baits or a different color is the ticket.  Try something to give your fishing a different variable.  We should all learn to use all the baits in the tackle bag, not just your favorite one.

Brian Carson