As the Worm Turns

In the midst of what has turned out to be a super bad pandemic, I'm having an equally bad fishing year. The joys of last season with topwater baits long have faded into the sunset. Replacing them have been the frustrations of experimenting with a lot of different baits, most of which simply didn't work. I finally, however, have come to realize I really only need one tackle box every time I head to the water now. And that one box contains my soft plastics.

I'm finding the bites again, but a new problem has arisen. This past Saturday, for example, I had three really good bites, where the fish picked up my plastic as soon as I took up the slack after a cast. None of those bites, though, translated into a fish. Each time, the fish ran with the bait, and I set the hook, only to find that the hook was buried in a piece of wood. On one of those occasions, I followed the failed worm cast with a creature bait offering that the fish immediately took but with the same results.

And yet, despite that turn of events, I had four other occasions where the fish immediately took the bait, and when I set the hook, the barb found their mouths. I'm left to ponder this question: What was different and/or what did I do wrong on those failed attempts to catch the fish? Everything felt the same.

Reckon I should be content with just getting bites again. There was a long time when all I was doing was thrash the water. However, my goal is to get to the point where I can be a "tournament contender," which means putting five in the livewell. It's OK to be a "tournament contributor" part of the time, but a steady diet of the same thing eventually gets old...and I'm fairly certain bass fishermen, in general, feel the same way about that point.