The making of a good angler

[WTL]

I think where one lives has a lot to do with how they develop as an angler. People are sometimes, if not products of their environment, at the very least heavily influenced by their environment.

That is not just technique wise. I think there is something else going on here. Everybody knows that guys from Carolina will throw crankbaits, and guys from California will throw swimbaits. I think the water they fish is just naturally given to making that lure a little more advisable to throw, so more people take the time to learn them. That is a given.

What I am thinking more about is patience and experience. So its story time.

Last year while I was working at a hotel I started talking fishing with a guest from Kansas. He was a real nice guy so I decided to invite him to go fishing the next morning at a nice little local water supply reservoir. He was excited to be in the South where the bass grew naturally large, but I spent the drive over informing him that it really wasnt so true at this lake so far as I knew.

So we get to the lake, and pretty soon I realize that this guy just fishes differently. He is throwing all this bottom hugging stuff peiced together from my tackle boxes that I rarely use. We go up a large bluff with sunken brush. I'm lazy cause I'm a local, throwing a spinnerbait and I guess I threw a fluke a little too.

He goes through my tackle until he finds a worn out SK Pro model jig, no skirt. Then he takes a 10 year old tequila sunrise lizard and threads it on the big jig. And he starts throwing it up against the wall and slowly working it back.

I'm thinking to myself that he was certainly lost. What a combo. And yet, I wouldnt relate this story to you guys if that were the case. No, this yank from Kansas after 10 minutes with this rig gets hung up. With a 5 1/2 pound or so bass.

Now why did he manage to catch such a nice fish out of water I had had trouble with?

I think the answer is not the lure choice, that was incidental. No, this guy was used to fishing tough lakes. He was from a marginal bass state, at least from my perspective. Which means, he knew how to squeeze every last bit of productivity out of the water.

I was raised fishing good water. It made me lazy. I throw the same baits trying to pick up active bass and I lose concentration and I retrieve too fast for a big bass to bother.

So when you put the two of us on a lake, and I looked at this lake like it was a problem child, he looked at it like it was an opportunity. I flinged the wrong lure around, cause I was going through the motions, and accustomed to it working on great lakes like G'ville or Kissimmee, and he was really fishing efficiently.

What does this example tell me? Sometimes, you make the best of a bad opportunity. It can sometimes be a good thing in ones developement, fishing wise, to do without and fish poor lakes for a period of time.

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There is an opposing example to that idea though. Young fishermen start out absorbing all they can from bassmaster, the web and all the lies that the infomecials can spew. Then you put them on a difficult lake, and since they really don't know where to begin, they start to struggle. Then by noon they are out of it.

So in their case, what they need is a shot of a little good water. It doesnt even have to have big fish, but fish willing to bite. Fish that will provide many opportunities for learning in a given day. After all, if a new guy makes 10,000 cast for 2 bites, he isn't really learning that much for the 10 hours time it takes. But if the fish are there in good numbers to oblige him say 30 times, over the course of all those bites he will learn a lot about the pattern that day and fish behavoir in general.

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So in one example, I say that a guy who learns to fish difficult water will become a good fisherman, and in another example, I say a guy who gets to fish productive water will learn quickly. Do they contradict? What am I really saying?

I think diversity of experience should be the ultimate goal in making a good angler. You gotta hit both types of places. You have to learn to be effective in good lakes, on good days with favorable conditions, and you also have to learn how to survive bad lakes and bad conditions.

Right now I dont like where I am. Not productive water by my standards. Not even compared to Tuscaloosa, which I considered very so-so. I want to go back to Guntersville, which I will do fairly soon in my life.

But, I have to tell myself to follow my advice a bit and realize I am here for a reason. I have to learn what I can and make good of this situation, and if that means learning the patience of the Kansas man then so be it. If I can get the patience and that concentration down, then I will be better off for it than the guy who has only ever fished G'ville and nothing else.

[bcklash]

WTL, I hope the younger guys read this more than once--I did and you are 100% correct.

THANKS WTL

[lowrider]

well put. we all need to read this one and think about the waters we hit regularly.

[bamabassman]

you are exactly right wtl. you are going through what i went through down there. i know EXACTLY what you mean pal. this is extremly good advice. not just the younger ones need to read this, but we all should take this and learn from it. when i lived down there i was ready to give it all up cause i didn't have the numbers i had up here. but taking my time and learning how to fish in strange waters is a leson i needed to learn. i plan on fishing different lakes the rest of my life just so i can do this. thank you for this thread pal. very informative indeed.

[zooker]

you are correct brother love..good read -fer once-

i have fished all over the country and canada..there is a distintive style and bait choice to just about every region..

i came out of the finger lakes region of western ny. a mainly soft plastic,spinnerbait area contained on huge lakes. i moved to the north carolina right smack in the heart of crankbait country the lakes here tend to be smaller the bass more water level sensitive..

something you really can't learn over the net, but i like to fish around here with guys from differant areas. cause you learn there style and can adapt it to your insight into the lakes you fish..

which i think is one of the big factors that caused bamabassman to start throwing these get togathers..

think about it...

there is going to be around 25 of us on ONE lake come this may.some from the mid north west where tubes rule. some from the mid south where paca craws and jigs are the bait of choice.some from the acc region where the crank is "the" bait.some from florida where shiner fishing, top water,and mat punching are the norm.and let us not forget the potomac mad man himself..

each one of us has a certain amount of skill that will be evident at the get togather...

$5 says dem virginia farm boys have a speed trap tie on...


zooker

[aikenyounggun]

yeah you definately need both.... my dad moved here right before i was born, so i grew up with him trying to adjust to SC lakes... he moved from Texas where he killed em.... the one time i went back there with him we killed em, on one lake we caught 40 fish over 4lbs in 5 hours....... so we now do better and can hold are own on most touneys but like you say i go to ponds to gain confidence in a lure b/c i can catch fish there

this helps b/c if you have confidence in a lure you will throw it for a while and have a better chance at having sucess and be able to throw it when needed

[Jim80]

good read man , thanks a lot .


Jim

[Raul]

Good post.

You may not necessarily were made lazy by having good water, I have good waters surrounding the city but man, they are tuff ! , being so close to the city bass get hit everyday all day long all week long all year long, fish have seen every single bait you can imagine.

So what makes the difference between getting skunked or catch a few ? if you look at everybody´s tackle box you´ll see that everbody has pretty much the same, we all have cranks, spinners, jigs n´such, so why some catch fish and others don´t ?

It´s not the bait, it´s how you use it.

[Jigger]

Originally Posted by WTL

I think diversity of experience should be the ultimate goal in making a good angler. You gotta hit both types of places. You have to learn to be effective in good lakes, on good days with favorable conditions, and you also have to learn how to survive bad lakes and bad conditions.

Nice thread. Re-read what you wrote, above. That about sums up what you're saying and I agree. Also, not only should you experience the feast as well as the famine, in becoming a "good angler" I think it helps to experience diverse fish and diverse methods. My real heros and the guys I think are the greatest anglers aren't just the one trick ponies like KVD, or Rick Clunn although I admire and respect them greatly but rather the guys like Larry Dahlberg, Flip Pallot, Roland Martin and Shaw Grigsby who are just as much at home in Salt or fresh water and who are just as comfortable with a fly rod, spinning rod or bait casting rod in their hand. I believe that diverse experiences with diverse fish help you become a better angler even if ultimately you decide to focus on only one fish whether it be trout or bass or walleye. Every fishing experience teaches you something.

Example: I love to sight fish for carp using a fly rod in clear or semi-clear skinny water. I've learned so much about how a carp reacts to my fly that has helped my bass fishing it's unreal. Some days I can cast to a carp and it'll attack my fly. Other days they act like they've seen a ghost and get the hail out of Dodge. Other days they'll act like they're ignoring my fly, I'll drop it to the bottom, they'll ease over, take a good look, tip up, suck it in and the fights on. I've learned how to deal with all those scenarios because it's so visual which rarely if ever happens bass fishing. I now know bass act the same way and I incorporate what I've learned sight fishing for carp into my bass fishing.

I do agree that in the beginning a fisherman needs to get on a lot of catchable fish. Otherwise discouragement sets in and the more fish you catch the steeper the learning curve. I learned to fly fish on bedding bluegill. I learned a bunch that first year that I'd have never learned fishing a technical trout stream for hard to catch fish.

Once you gain the confidence as a fisherman, nothing teaches you patience, determination and endurance to fish the tough times and tough lakes like tournament bass fishing. You pays your money and you fish 8 hours in all kinds of weather and all conditions, good and bad on public lakes where most of the bass have a PHD in lure identification.

[cassidyta]

Very good read. I read it twice and ended up adding it as it's own favorate. I believe that is exactly what seperates the pros from us. Their ability to not only adjust to the water and the fish, but to also modif their techniques. I have seen several variations in technique with the same bait. I get guilty of sticking to a cadence on a bait even when it doesn't work. Perhaps it is lazy or simply not having confidence in the areas when I expect the bite to be tough.