Fishing With A Purpose

Have you ever caught a fish on the last cast of the day?  Have you ever caught a significant fish, late in the day that really made the whole trip worth it?  I mean literally fished up until the last second you could be on the water?  Whether you were fishing in a tournament,  out with a couple of friends or soaking night crawlers from the bank, has this ever happened to you?

If the answer is yes, I will bet that it is something that doesn’t happen very often, and yet, if you follow today’s pro tours, catching an important fish late in the day is quite a common occurrence.  Aaron Martens caught the deciding fish at this year’s US Open late in the last hour of the last day, Takahiro Omori caught three key fish within the last forty five minutes to clinch this year’s classic and who will ever forget the three pounder that put Mike Iaconelli over the top in the 2003 BassMaster Classic.  All fish caught late in the day.

So why is this such a common thing on the pro tour and why doesn’t this happen to you and I more often?  Confidence and purpose.  Professional anglers fish with a purpose.  To a touring bass pro, that last hour is just as significant as the first hour.  That pro is fishing cast after cast towards an expected result….fish on.  Confidence is something you hear about all of the time in bass fishing to the point that you might think its over played, but never under estimate what confidence and purpose can do for you.

A couple of Summers ago, my sons and I got onto the most amazing catfish bite.  A local pond near where we live has a reputation for being stingy with its catfish, but we learned that if we fished with a purpose and stayed the extra hour each night we would be rewarded.  After fishing all afternoon, hunger, rest and escape from the meddlesome bugs that plagued us would call, but we knew if we continued until the sun went down, we would be rewarded.  Day after day, we were rewarded with a big catfish, if we stayed at the pond after the sun went down.  So when most folks had given up and gone home for the day, the boys and I patiently waited and on most nights were rewarded.

This kind of success doesn’t just happen, no way, confidence in fishing only happens when you catch them, over and over and grow to expect success.  Why do the pros catch the good ones, late in the day?  They expect to.  Not want to.  Not hope to.  They expect to.  Its fishing with a purpose.

A typical bass angler goes to the lake for a day of fishing.  Anticipation is high, he expects to do well.  Do you ever notice that if you catch them, the bites usually come in the morning?  It’s the time of day when you are most confident, when your resolve is strongest, when your purpose is most defined.  Our friend drops the boat in and quickly motors across the lake to begin the day.  As the minutes turn to hours, it begins to dawn on our friend that the fish just aren’t biting today.  Soon, food starts to sound good and the comfortable recliner and an NFL Sunday afternoon begins to beckon.  The boat is put back on the trailer, another tough day is chalked up and our friend hasn’t grown an inch in regards to his fishing confidence.

Okay, enough said, I have described myself and probably a whole lot more of you out there, and yes it is painful.  What does a fella have to do to become confident?  What do I do to convince myself to fish just as hard the last hour as I did the first hour?  Having some success late in the day would be a good start, however, the fish aren’t just going to jump in the boat.  First, let’s get our selves to the part of the lake where we have some confidence.  Is wind blowing?  Maybe I will go over to the flats fish those shallow grass beds.  Next, what is the lure that you have more confidence in than anything else?  I love to throw a spinner bait in the afternoon around grass beds when the wind is blowing, this is total confidence for me.  Maybe you feel best when you are dragging a split shot worm over deeper structure.  It doesn’t matter.  Just do it.  Finally, make sure you have a color that gives you confidence, and add anything else that makes you feel right.  A little fish attractant, maybe a rattle.  If it adds to your confidence use it.

I think you know where I am going with this.  If it helps your head, it will help your fishing.  When you are confident, you will concentrate on the fishing and not the wishing.  This factor, as strange as it may seem will allow you to continue fishing and guess what, in order to catch that significant fish, late in the day, you have to be fishing for that fish.

Professional tournament anglers demonstrate to us again and again that luck has very little to do with their success.  Instead it that confidence that comes when you are doing something that you know works, time after time.  Its fishing with a purpose.