Here we go again, another slow Saturday on the water. The couple of bites you had were small, and your partner is starting to whine about not catching any fish. Yes, its all starting to cave in. Running down the lake towards the next spot that probably won't be any better than the last spot, you notice a steep bank with chunk rock and some isolated brush in the water. Suddenly, you make an abrupt 180 degree turn, and head over to that bank. Not saying a word, you walk to front of your boat, drop the trolling motor in, pick up your crank bait and fire a cast up along the bank. About half way back to the boat, your rod loads up and you put a three pounder in the boat. Your partner, stunned and still trying to get his life vest off and his rods untangled just sits and stares in disbelief. What just happened?

All day long, nothing to speak of and suddenly you are on fish. A little voice in your head whispered to you about that bank, and you listened.

Intuition- an instinct, a perception, a sixth sense or just a hunch. However you describe it, the successful professional on today's pro bass fishing tours has learned to master the art of listening to his/her thoughts. In bass fishing, as in everything else in life, we stock pile our experiences that we have had on the water. Oh you may not remember that back in 1992, you caught some real nice fish on a bank that looked like the one you just stopped to fish, but your sub conscious mind does, you know, that vault where everything that happens to you is stored.

Our bass fishing intuition comes to us from the articles we read, seminars we attend, TV shows that we watch and of course, our own experiences on the water. Of these things, our own, personal experience on the water, is the most valuable and meaningful information we will ever gather, because it is our own. Professional anglers are the best, because they do this all of the time, they have more personal experience than most people, thus, they have a greater intuitive base to draw on.

The thing about intuition is that it presents itself to us as little thoughts, some we are aware of and some we are not. I think of these thoughts as little voices that whisper to me, telling me what to do. Before you launch your boat, or bait your hook in the morning, you are tuned in to these thoughts. Anticipation is high, and why not, your going fishing!

Have you ever considered how you plan your day's fishing strategy? Why did you decide to fish that point the first thing this morning? Because as you drove to the lake you were listening to your fishing intuition. Thoughts were racing through your mind a mile a minute and you were taking them all in. Its was easy to do this, because you weren't fishing, you were on your way. You hadn't arrived yet at that first unproductive spot. You hadn't fished that perfect looking cove that yielded only a single small bass. You hadn't lost your lucky crank bait on a deep tree stump. In other words, nothing negative had happened.......yet.

Tough fishing days happen more often than not. When they do, there is a tendency among even the best anglers to let their minds say, "oh no, not again."  That sinking feeling you get that the fishing will be poor. I like to call it the "Eor syndrome," named for that loveable donkey from Winnie the pooh who is always waiting for the other shoe to drop?

As the day gets tougher, we begin to doubt ourselves even more. It gets to the point where we no longer trust our own intuition. That, friends, is not good.

Those little thoughts I was talking about earlier, they are still there, whispering advice. However in the midst of a bad day of fishing, the negative voices are yelling at you. The worst part: You lose trust in the one person who is always there for you....You. "Hey, I bet those fish have moved out to the deep grass beds at the other end of the lake, Ahhhhh, nothing else is working today, why should that?"

Today's successful pro fisherman, learns to listen, ¦and more importantly act on every thought that pops into his mind. The next several times you go fishing, make a point of acting on every fish catching thought that comes to mind. Catch yourself telling yourself that it won't work and go and try it. It will make a difference, I promise.