Confidence: The Pathway to Success

It's a bright, sunny day in the middle of June, and sweat drips down your face as the 96-degree weather beats on you as though you deserve some kind of punishment. You've fished for five straight hours now without getting a bite. Every lure you own looks uglier than it ever did before, and your confidence baits have failed you terribly.

The winning pattern you established the day before seems to have disappeared, like it was some type of miraculous dream pulling bass in the boat one after another.

Being an experienced angler, your mind is going into overdrive, trying to put pieces of the puzzle together and come up with something to turn back on Lake X's bass. But how do you find these missing pieces?

There's probably not an angler alive who hasn't found himself/herself in this predicament. If he or she is thinking correctly, they likely will start looking for answers by considering what has changed (e.g., the current, weather, or whatever) from the day before, especially if fishing the same time and place. The accepted philosophy, after all, is that the fish probably haven't gone very far. If a weather change is at play, the fish could have moved deeper...perhaps out to the first drop...or if you've lost the current, the fish likely are positioned differently than they were the previous day.

As another angler noted, "I always try to find out what the fish are relating to on a day when I'm catching them. Is it bait, cover, depth, water temp, and/or something else that's causing them to bite at that particular place and time? It's often just timing. They may feed at noon one day, and 2:45 the next day.

"Whatever you do, don't lose confidence. That's the game of bass fishing. If you lose confidence, the bass have won. Do what you know best, and more times than not, you'll come out on top."

This angler went on to explain that he had fished a known good bass lake for years without much success. Then, one day, a good friend who had had a lot of success there showed him that he really wasn't doing much different, other than "believing" that he was going to catch fish. And from that point forward, they both caught fish regularly.

An old-timer in a local bass club had a bit different take on the situation. He said, "You're thinking too much. Just step back, take a deep breath, and fish what you know when the fishing sucks...in other words, a back-to-the-basics approach. For me, that happens to be a fluke in and around the shoreline or just off structure and weeds. For my wife, it's soft plastics...usually French fries...fished slowly and patiently."