W MY he b r a e S ’s S?
bY aNdY “COOCH“ CUCCIa
W
here did my fish go? For many of us,
this is probably the single question
we ask ourselves most while chasing
these silly green fish. Whether it be tournament day after a great prefish and practice,
or that next fishing trip for the weekend angler,
we have all experienced the inevitable, "we can't
catch fish today", on a specific bait or in a given area
when we had such great success here before. The
answer is simple: something changed. Your success
on the water will depend on how you react to and
deal with the "change". Most of us don't react to
the "change"; we remain in our comfort zone and
continue to do what we feel like doing.
More often than not, this spells disaster in the
world of angling for bass. This is the difference between
guys like Kevin VanDam, Skeet Reese, Aaron Martens,
and a long list of other anglers that we see, who are
consistent all the time--versus the rest of us. How
fast we recognize, react and adjust to the "change"
will determine the outcome of being successful or not
while bass fishing. I can't emphasize enough: if you
choose not to change the way you're fishing when
conditions change around the bass, you WILL remain
on course with tough fishing success. If you recognize
and make a variety of changes in the way you are
fishing when fishing does get tough, you WILL find that
your fishing success begins to turn around.
Bass fishing is like a puzzle or maze. Like a
puzzle, there are many pieces that all interlock and
fit perfectly into place. When a piece doesn't fit, it
doesn't fit. You can't force it into place. No matter how
many times you try to force it into place the same
way, it's never gonna fit. You must change the way
you are attempting to piece it together, maybe rotate
that piece, or pick up a new one until it fits. A maze has
many different paths, yet there is only one that leads
you to the promise land at the exit. If you continue to always go right, eventually you wind up at a dead end. The same is true by always going left, straight, up or down. Yet by being adventurous, and mixing and changing your patterns, eventually you find your way out and hit pay dirt. Bass fishing is on a parallel to these two games.
Toooften,weget caughtupinwhatwedid yesterday.Wekeep fishing thesame places,throwing thesamebaits, makingthesame milkrun,solely onthefactthat thisiswhatwe liketo do;more importantly, itworked yesterday, lastyear, it'salways workedfor me.Butya gottaask yerself,"Do Ireally enjoy NOT catching
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