Is There a Method to Your Madness, or Is It Just Madness?

More to the point, I'm talking about what dictates when you change lures during a typical fishing day.

For some, it's every 15 to 20 minutes. For others, it's every 30 to 40 minutes, or maybe once an hour. And for still others, it's whenever the mood hits 'em--sometimes after only a half-dozen or so casts.

If I'm throwing one of my confidence baits, I generally allow 30 minutes to an hour of no bites before I'll change lures. If I'm just running through baits to find one that works, I'm inclined to call off the dogs after as little as 10 or 15 minutes each. My goal on tournament days always is to find two or three baits early on that will draw strikes, and then wear them out for the rest of the day, provided the bites keep coming.

My research for this article turned up an angler who admitted that "the urge to change lures is a tough one" when the fish aren't biting. However, he has a special plan for areas that he feels sure hold fish, and he forces himself to stick to that plan, no matter the outcome.

"I start with tying on one of my favorite go-to lures," he said, "then tinker with retrieve, weight, color, etc." When those efforts fail, he always tries a topwater bait before leaving the area because, as he explained, "the fish sometimes are looking up, not down." He will stick with this plan through a few good areas before changing to a totally different lure and/or presentation.

I also found an angler who said, "If I want to catch large numbers of bass, I will change lures as often as necessary. If I want to catch a big bass, I will fish the same lure all day long." It would appear there may be some truth to that philosophy, because here's the photo of a fella who stayed with the same lure all day and ended up catching the 14.16-lb. bass he's holding.

In closing, let me pass along the following advice of professional bass angler Joey Nania:

"Fishing is one of the most complex sports that a person ever could get involved with, and it can be extremely frustrating if you don't know where to start.

"With thousands of baits to choose from, as well as hundreds of different bodies of water and fish species to chase, a good, solid starting ground must be found. The key to learning and growing as an angler is, first, spending time on the water, but while you do that, you need to start with a basic technique and stick with it.

"Many inexperienced anglers try to do way too much, believing that switching baits or colors will bring instant results and put more fish in the boat. Nine times out of ten, it is not so much what bait or color you're throwing, but the place and way you are throwing it.

"My suggestion is start out simple, with something like a shaky head with a straight-tail worm rigged on it. Go out in the boat with just the shaky head and nothing else and use it all day. Try it shallow, try it deep, but no matter what, get a good feel for how to slowly crawl the deadly shaky head on the bottom. I promise if you stick with it, you will get bites.

"Once you've mastered the shaky head or something similar, put it aside for a day and choose a new bait, such as a jig and craw trailer and stick with it until you find success. In fishing, it is extremely important to build confidence in different baits and presentations and then put in the time on the water that it takes to have a deep understanding of when and where to use each one."