That's what I said to my Dewey's tournament partner along about 12:30 yesterday, as we were getting ready to call a halt to our five-hour fishing trip. This was our second such trip in a week, with basically the same results each time. We caught the vast majority of all our fish both times in the last hour or so of the day. In one short stretch of time (less than five minutes) just before we headed in yesterday, I watched Wayne boat three nice keepers to round out a double-digit limit.
For openers, topwater baits failed to yield a bite, which was puzzling.
"I made every cast and retrieve with great anticipation," he said, "but the bass were not impressed. So I pulled out a rod rigged with a lipless crankbait to rip through the sprigs of coontail scattered across the 4-to-5-foot-deep flat. When 10 minutes of flailing failed to produce even a bump, I tried blitzing a bladed jig over the next 100 yards of weeds."
Those efforts, too, however, were futile, so he resorted to dragging a Culprit ribbontail worm, but it didn't even generate a tap.
"I yanked up the trolling motor and fired up the outboard to check out other spots," he continued. "The gorgeous morning made for some beautiful scenery, but it sure as heck wasn't lighting up the bass. After six stops at a variety of hot spots, I began to suspect this might be a rare day when I would put the boat on the trailer and limp home fishless."
But hold your horses! This gent wasn't ready to throw in the towel, even though it would have been very easy to have fallen victim to the lack of action that Thursday morning.
"I still was paying attention," the fella said, "and recognized the jiggle that signals a bass bite. I jerked and wrestled a 3-pound largemouth from the thickest of grass. Five hours of fishing under a cloudless sky on water as smooth as a baby's cheek finally paid off. I wasn't going home after all with a goose egg on my scorecard."
Fifteen minutes later, another bass bit--icing on the cake, a well-deserved treat for the angler who had persevered, even when the fish were saying "go home."
Some days are easy; some are difficult, but the tough ones force anglers to learn and adjust. Anyone can catch them when it's easy. Success on a difficult day distinguishes the angler from people who just go fishing.
Also read what Bassmaster writer Steve Wright said about the late Aaron Martens back on June 23, 2018, after following Martens' boat for three hours that morning, struggling to put a fifth keeper in the boat.
Noted Wright, "I thought he might be ready to bail out of the Black River area where he'd been the past two days. He'd caught 17 pounds in the first two hours there Friday.
A brief conversation with Martens revealed that he saw the situation as a timing deal.
"They're going to bite, probably about 1:00 or 1:30," said the pro.
It should not come as a surprise then that Martens subsequently caught a 4-pounder at 1:48.
"I had four like this yesterday," he said, as he put a new worm on his shaky head and cast back to the area where there had been a deep school of bass."
And finally, former touring pro angler Sammy Lee once described the acid test for a person's attitude as being how they react after a difficult day on the water.
"An angler who can hold his head high and show emotional maturity after a bad day--or better yet, a bad week--is well on his/her way to being a professional," said Lee. "There's an old saying in sports that goes like this: 'Winners never quit, and quitters never win.' Nothing could be truer in professional bass fishing.
"There are going to be a lot of tough days on the water," he continued, "but the true character of a person will show through when they do not do well. How a person handles himself/herself after a tough day on the water says a lot more to me than how a person acts after a great day on the water."
Can't argue with that kind of thinking.
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