"What this sport really comes down to is figuring out your own personal style and running with it. There really are no right or wrong ways when it comes to fishing approaches. Some days, the flippers do well; other days, it's the ledge crankers. Likewise, power rules under certain conditions, and finesse holds its own on other days. Chances are, if I were to name a style or type of fishing, you could give me the name of at least a couple pros who have made a great living on just that technique or approach.
"Where guys get into trouble is when they start fishing for information. It's a very bad habit that, once started, is hard to break yourself of. If you're a bent-pole pattern guy, you'll never learn to find fish on your own. If you rely on the GPS coordinates of others, you'll suffer the same fate. Sure, you'll have your day or two in the sun, but you'll fail miserably when you can't get the goods. If you always ask others what the bite was, then go out and fish that pattern the next day, more than likely you'll always be a day late. Yesterday is over, and tomorrow might bring a completely different bite.
"It's fine to study others and ask questions along the way, but at some point, you need to get comfortable with your fishing. You can be a power fisherman, a worm fisherman, or a topwater fisherman and do just fine most of the time. Be a specialist or a generalist--it doesn't matter which. Just pick something and become good at it. Don't worry about what others think of your style, or get swayed by talk of guys whacking them on something completely opposite of what you like to do. There are lots of fish in the water and lots of ways to catch them. Pick something you enjoy doing, or a style that suits your personality, and then spend time asking questions that revolve around that particular aspect of fishing. At that point, you're learning as much as you can from others who might have more experience, but it is focused learning, with a purpose in mind, not haphazard-information overload or fishing for a shortcut.
"No matter how big your boat or garage, or how fat your wallet, you simply can't fish everything you might like to in a given trip. You only can effectively fish one rod and reel and, subsequently, one bait at a time. The more options you have at your disposal, the more likely you are to quickly abandon something, thinking you're missing out on a different bite. When I was tourney fishing, the best partners I ever could draw were guys who constantly changed baits and retied. You should be able to finish this sentence quickly and precisely when it's posed to you: 'I'm a ---- angler.' If you can't, you haven't found your style yet, so keep searching."
One angler who evidently has found his style is Tommy (see photo above, right), a 75-year-old Senko fisherman (and custom home builder by trade) I also read about today. About 90 percent of the time, he fishes a chartreuse Senko and reportedly manages to catch as many or more fish than the majority of his fishing partners.
Something about this worm caught Tommy's attention about seven years ago, and he has been fishing it Texas-style, without a sinker, ever since. As for other lures, he has a wide assortment but doesn't choose to carry many of them with him. "This lean-tackle strategy saves him time on lure selection," noted outdoor writer Ray Sasser in an article about the veteran angler.
Tommy likes the Senko because "it sinks horizontally, with a subtle side-to-side action that the bass really like. The worm is soft enough that it's easy to set the hook," he said, but there's also a downside to that softness factor. "The plastic is so soft the fish tear them up," he added. "You usually only catch one fish per Senko." He figures that he goes through at least 500 Senkos a year.
Going hand-in-hand with finding your style is the matter of believing in yourself, especially when bad things start happening. According to seasoned pro angler Mark Davis, confidence is, by far, the most important thing in all of bass fishing, or for that matter, any kind of fishing. Find out what else he has to say on this subject in the following sidebar.
Do You Have Fishing Confidence?
"That kind of confidence comes from inside you. It's based on experience and is a part of being competitive. You have to 'know' that you can catch them. You have to believe you can figure things out. You make it happen. That might come from using a particular lure in a particular color, or it might come from knowing you can fish deep, or shallow, or wood, or grass, or riprap, or anything else and catch them--anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances.
"One thing is for sure: You'll never see a confident angler running all over the lake fishing deep and shallow with every lure in his or her boat. Rather, they have the confidence in their strategy to keep working at it until the strategy works. It's a matter of bearing down, gritting your teeth, and having the confidence to follow your plan through to the end.
"Now I know that sometimes nothing we do as anglers puts fish in the boat. There are too many factors affecting our sport for that to happen. We do know, however, that if we have confidence in what we're doing, it'll work more times than not. That's the real key to having confidence.
"You'll know you have the confidence thing right when you adopt a strategy that puts five bass in the boat after conditions have changed unexpectedly. And you'll know you also have it right when you don't put five keepers in the boat but honestly can say you'd still make the same decisions if you could do the day over."
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