Bass fishing versatility: stubbornness vs confidence

[Finnz922]

In this day and age with so many boats on the water. And for those of you that fish tournaments the need to be able to adjust quickly. I'm curious as to how many of you really believe you are versatile vs just having a tackle addiction? And how many believe in a just few techniques and whether your stubborn or just have maximum confidence in those.

I'm finding myself going more and more in the direction of a few techniques vs all of them. For me, I fish tournaments, and even in those, it's almost out of disdain that I don't throw some lures or try certain techniques. What I am trying to decide is if it's stubbornness or confidence? Maybe a little of both. It really got me wondering if I'm in the minority or if others gravitate this way as well.

[hoohoorjoo]

As a former tourney fisherman, I always played to my strengths and made minute tweaks if my go-to wasn't working as planned. Sometimes, it was as simple as a lighter bullet weight for a t-rig or a shorter leader on a c-rig. Sometimes, just a color change or upsize/downsize on my same confidence baits made a huge difference. For example, I was fishing a late-winter tourney on the Harris chain of lakes in Florida. Last week of January and we were 2 days on the other side of a major cold front that just seemed to turn the fish completely off. I started fishing a #5 shallow shad rap and was actually getting bit. Fish would hit it, but only half-heartedly. I landed 3 of the first 15 bites and 2 of 3 turned out to be big black crappie. I upsized to a #7 shallow Shad Rap in the same color and we ended up winning by that Redman event by over 6#. My dad and I found lots of fish in the 3-5# range with steady retrieve. Then after a line twist/tangle on the eggbeater, I figured out that the big fish wanted a dead stick bait. I cast up by a big clump of dead cattails. While picking out a weird line lay on the spool, a 6# fish whacked the bait.(fwiw, there was a 10-fish limit back then). The last hour we fished, we replaced our three smallest fish in the 3-4# range with three fish from 6-8#. That one impulsive choice by 14 year-old me ended up paying out $2700 (and a new Yamaha 4-wheeler for big fish). I know things have changed with all the electronics innovations we've seen recently, but those gut feelings should still play a part in any savvy fisherman's decisions imho.

[goldrod]

Went fishing this weekend with a young guy ( Squid )
And we were throwing everything big. But the cold front had the fish in a funk. With that information I preceded with a jerkbait.
Nothing. Now when you can’t get them in a jerky jerk it’s hard fishing. Found the fish wanted downsized and light line.
We could have fished all day catching fish
We adjusted

My pixy super eiger setup paid huge dividends and makes me smile
I have been invited to fish the tournaments but it doesn’t do it for me. I’m still figuring it out either way. I have been invited to fish as a non boater and will oblige and see how that goes. I already know I only need three rods

[toddmc]

There are so many factors that come into play. Sometimes you know the lake and the conditions well enough to force something that you have complete confidence in. This tends to be more effective when the bite is tough for everyone, and one fish can make or break your tournament results. Versatility is really important in the long run though. I grew up with a rod in my hands so that when I started fishing tournaments at 18 I was way ahead of your average club fisherman in technique experience. It was my goal to be proficient with every technique so that I could employ it at any given time. I continue to use my backyard golf course lakes to employ all of the new techniques and polish up on old ones. Time on the water makes a ton of difference also.
In my second year of club fishing, I won 6 of the 11 tournaments with 6 different techniques. The other anglers got really upset that I was doing this from the back of the boat. They started making me run the boat in rough conditions by the end of the season, and the wins kept coming. It was a combination of confidence in my versatility and my growing lake experience. I was fishing the same lakes as the year before, but now I knew the lakes better and I knew what had worked before. This eliminated a lot of wasted time. Time of the water will cause you to make better decisions. Unfortunately, it is still fishing, and we all have those headscratcher days. I had one this weekend. Getting quality in the fall is often difficult. At least I now know what they probably aren't biting right now on my home lake! Next week may be different as the weather is changing big time.
I just had to get the boat out with my fresh new carpet. I didn't even have time to put on my Hydrawave and 360 imaging. Too many projects!

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[MK49]

A very interesting topic. I'm pretty limited, and I'm happy with that. For example, for about 6 years from the late 90s to mid 2000s, I used ONLY topwater baits, mostly poppers and walkers, which are my confidence baits to this day. And, it was fun. In early 90s for 3 or 4 years, I threw jerkbaits 90% of the time, and caught thousands of fish. Other than topwater and jerkbaits, I have confidence in crankbaits, including lipless and a few other things. That's about it. I still feel I lost (to what? ), when I have to use soft plastic baits to catch fish. Yeah, you can call it stubbornness and confidence at the same time. I have caught a 12 pounder, a 10 pounder on jerkbaits and five or six 10+ lbs bass on topwater. I just think I can catch bigger fish with those two styles of baits.

I have fished a tournament only once, and I was 16 years old. I ended up being #4 in the tournament, and I was the youngest. I just didn't enjoy it. I had to do something I didn't enjoy to win. So, that was my first and my last tournament. I fish for fun, and why do I need to use technique that I don't like?

I really like Takahiro Omori. He's not very versatile, as far as I can tell. Most of the time, he's hitting banks and trees with crankbaits, chatterbaits, jigs... When the condition is right for him, he wins. Heck, he even won a Bassmaster Classic long time ago. That's pretty amazing.

Oh, speaking of confidence, I had a little popper, which caught at least one 4 ~ 5 pounder around a same small area for the last two weeks (I fish 3 or 4 times a week). I lost the popper, when a 4 pounder took it to sticks. It's a popper that I bought 30 years ago, and I just can't buy it anymore. The area is basically a riprap with bunch of little sticks. I just moved the popper very slowly along the sticks. And, I caught them pretty much every time. I fished this morning, and I used 4 or 5 different poppers, and nothing happened. I didn't have confidence like I had with the popper I lost yesterday. Because of that, I think I was moving poppers faster this morning. When I have confidence in the technique (in this case, moving a popper very slowly), I don't mind being slow, because I think a bass is going to hit it. But, when I don't have much confidence, I just don't have enough patience to wait long enough, I guess.

[Finnz922]

A very interesting topic. I'm pretty limited, and I'm happy with that. For example, for about 6 years from the late 90s to mid 2000s, I used ONLY topwater baits, mostly poppers and walkers, which are my confidence baits to this day. And, it was fun. In early 90s for 3 or 4 years, I threw jerkbaits 90% of the time, and caught thousands of fish. Other than topwater and jerkbaits, I have confidence in crankbaits, including lipless and a few other things. That's about it. I still feel I lost (to what? ), when I have to use soft plastic baits to catch fish. Yeah, you can call it stubbornness and confidence at the same time. I have caught a 12 pounder, a 10 pounder on jerkbaits and five or six 10+ lbs bass on topwater. I just think I can catch bigger fish with those two styles of baits.

I have fished a tournament only once, and I was 16 years old. I ended up being #4 in the tournament, and I was the youngest. I just didn't enjoy it. I had to do something I didn't enjoy to win. So, that was my first and my last tournament. I fish for fun, and why do I need to use technique that I don't like?

I really like Takahiro Omori. He's not very versatile, as far as I can tell. Most of the time, he's hitting banks and trees with crankbaits, chatterbaits, jigs... When the condition is right for him, he wins. Heck, he even won a Bassmaster Classic long time ago. That's pretty amazing.

Oh, speaking of confidence, I had a little popper, which caught at least one 4 ~ 5 pounder around a same small area for the last two weeks (I fish 3 or 4 times a week). I lost the popper, when a 4 pounder took it to sticks. It's a popper that I bought 30 years ago, and I just can't buy it anymore. The area is basically a riprap with bunch of little sticks. I just moved the popper very slowly along the sticks. And, I caught them pretty much every time. I fished this morning, and I used 4 or 5 different poppers, and nothing happened. I didn't have confidence like I had with the popper I lost yesterday. Because of that, I think I was moving poppers faster this morning. When I have confidence in the technique (in this case, moving a popper very slowly), I don't mind being slow, because I think a bass is going to hit it. But, when I don't have much confidence, I just don't have enough patience to wait long enough, I guess.

Your Popper story about fishing faster with baits you don't have the same confidence in really rings true with me.

I love frogs, punching, and drop shotting. When I get to focus on those my confidence is up and I tend to catch more fish and do better in tournaments. When I have to flip jigs or throw cranks, I struggle. I don't throw chatterbaits unless I want to throw my entry fee away. Others smoke 'em on it.

[toddmc]

A very interesting topic. I'm pretty limited, and I'm happy with that. For example, for about 6 years from the late 90s to mid 2000s, I used ONLY topwater baits, mostly poppers and walkers, which are my confidence baits to this day. And, it was fun. In early 90s for 3 or 4 years, I threw jerkbaits 90% of the time, and caught thousands of fish. Other than topwater and jerkbaits, I have confidence in crankbaits, including lipless and a few other things. That's about it. I still feel I lost (to what? ), when I have to use soft plastic baits to catch fish. Yeah, you can call it stubbornness and confidence at the same time. I have caught a 12 pounder, a 10 pounder on jerkbaits and five or six 10+ lbs bass on topwater. I just think I can catch bigger fish with those two styles of baits.

I have fished a tournament only once, and I was 16 years old. I ended up being #4 in the tournament, and I was the youngest. I just didn't enjoy it. I had to do something I didn't enjoy to win. So, that was my first and my last tournament. I fish for fun, and why do I need to use technique that I don't like?

I really like Takahiro Omori. He's not very versatile, as far as I can tell. Most of the time, he's hitting banks and trees with crankbaits, chatterbaits, jigs... When the condition is right for him, he wins. Heck, he even won a Bassmaster Classic long time ago. That's pretty amazing.

Oh, speaking of confidence, I had a little popper, which caught at least one 4 ~ 5 pounder around a same small area for the last two weeks (I fish 3 or 4 times a week). I lost the popper, when a 4 pounder took it to sticks. It's a popper that I bought 30 years ago, and I just can't buy it anymore. The area is basically a riprap with bunch of little sticks. I just moved the popper very slowly along the sticks. And, I caught them pretty much every time. I fished this morning, and I used 4 or 5 different poppers, and nothing happened. I didn't have confidence like I had with the popper I lost yesterday. Because of that, I think I was moving poppers faster this morning. When I have confidence in the technique (in this case, moving a popper very slowly), I don't mind being slow, because I think a bass is going to hit it. But, when I don't have much confidence, I just don't have enough patience to wait long enough, I guess.

The Popper market is one of the fastest growing markets in the industry. You should be able to find something very close in color, size, and action to what you lost. If not, sand, weight, or paint something like we did with the original Pop-R's.

[MK49]

The Popper market is one of the fastest growing markets in the industry. You should be able to find something very close in color, size, and action to what you lost. If not, sand, weight, or paint something like we did with the original Pop-R's.

I would think so, too. I buy a few new poppers every year, but I don't often find the ones I really like. In the last 10 ~ 15 years, I liked only these: Evergreen One's Bug, Yo-zuri 3DB Popper, Storm Cover Pop and maybe, Deps Pulscod. Other than those, I still use the same old poppers from 25 to 40 years ago like Heddon Chugger Spook, Pop R, Pop X/Max, Splash It, Lucky Craft S8 Popper, Rio Roco .....

The closest one to the one I lost a few days ago is Lucky Craft G Splash, the smaller one. The one I have (bought it about 15 years ago) has different color from the one that I lost, though. I think the smaller G Splash was discontinued, too, but it's probably easy to find them on eBay. Oh, BTW, Storm Cover Pop moves/walks just like the one I lost. But, it's twice as big.

[MK49]

Your Popper story about fishing faster with baits you don't have the same confidence in really rings true with me.

I think that's just true for many of us. We just don't want to waste time in something we don't have much confidence in. Some people are super patient, though. One time, I took a co-worker to a pond in a park. He never fished before. Because the pond was super pressured, I just showed him how to use shaky head, and told him fish it super slow. He fished much slower than I did. He also listened to me very carefully. He's a very calm and patient guy. A few weeks before that, I started teaching another co-worker how to bass fish. So, for a few months, every Saturday, I fished with those two guys. I told the first guy that the new guy would catch his first bass, before you do. The new guy was that patient, which could be very important for bass fishing and for many other things. I'm not that patient, so I was actually surprised how patient the guy was, even though he never fished before. Sure enough, the patient guy caught his first bass in his 2nd trip. It took 1.5 months for the other guy to catch his 1st. Unfortunately, the patient guy got a new job, and moved to Arizona (I'm in California). In his last day at work, he asked me if we could go fishing for one last time. We left work early on that day, and fished for a few hours in the evening. I gave him my spinning rod/reel, which he used for a few months. The other guy ended up fishing with me on Sat for the next few years.

I ended up teaching them topwater fishing. The patient guy didn't catch fish on topwater. He moved, before he caught his first topwater fish. The other guy eventually started catching some topwater fish every once in a while in the next few years. His biggest bass was a 4 pounder, and it was on a Pop R. I still remember how excited he was, basically out of his mind, when the fish hit his Pop R. It was around 11AM on a sunny day in July, and I didn't expect much topwater action that time. He was just popping it for a while. He said he's practicing. Then, suddenly, about 10 feet from us, the fish came up big time. I thought the fish was bigger, when I saw the bite. He lost his mind, really. I tried to calm him down, while he was trying to land the fish. I think he will never forget the fish. That's a kind of things that makes fishing great. To most of us, 4 pounders are nothing special. But, for him, it's a fish of life time.

BTW, he never caught fish by walking the dog. Walkers and poppers are my main baits, but sometimes (or, I would say many times), walkers work much better. After I caught some fish on walkers in a morning, I told my friend to try walking the dog. He did, but he went back to poppers after 10 or 15min. He caught enough fish with poppers to gain confidence.

[Fbass]

The Popper market is one of the fastest growing markets in the industry. You should be able to find something very close in color, size, and action to what you lost. If not, sand, weight, or paint something like we did with the original Pop-R's.

I would think so, too. I buy a few new poppers every year, but I don't often find the ones I really like. In the last 10 ~ 15 years, I liked only these: Evergreen One's Bug, Yo-zuri 3DB Popper, Storm Cover Pop and maybe, Deps Pulscod. Other than those, I still use the same old poppers from 25 to 40 years ago like Heddon Chugger Spook, Pop R, Pop X/Max, Splash It, Lucky Craft S8 Popper, Rio Roco .....

The closest one to the one I lost a few days ago is Lucky Craft G Splash, the smaller one. The one I have (bought it about 15 years ago) has different color from the one that I lost, though. I think the smaller G Splash was discontinued, too, but it's probably easy to find them on eBay. Oh, BTW, Storm Cover Pop moves/walks just like the one I lost. But, it's twice as big.

Did you try Yellow Magic? best popper IMO

[MK49]

Did you try Yellow Magic? best popper IMO

No, never tried Yellow Magic. I thought it's very similar to Rico. Rio Rico is probably my all time favorite.

[slipperybob]

I will pretty much catch more fish with soft plastics, but I much rather prefer to work hard baits or even metal lures.

When I first started hard baits, of course it was the Rapala Floater minnow F7 size. That was the confidence lure until it became stubbornness. Had to expand. Don't even remember what was my first suspending type jerk bait, but probably another Rapala Husky Jerk maybe H8 size. Then when I first stumbled on a Yo-Zuri Pins Minnow, it was the Altima Pins Minnow a rare suspending version. Bought one in 50mm and one in 70mm. Absolutely killer lure in so many situations. Then a buddy tripped over my tackle box in the sand and it was lost afterwards...so he said. So I started to buy more Yo-Zuri Pins Minnow, but they were only floater versions and didn't catch as much fish. Maybe another ten so years went by before the re-emergent of the Altima Pins Minnow. By now it didn't seem to have the Wow Magic as it's first version, but still has a confidence spot in my tackle and always comes along.

Somewhere along that time frame, I had gotten into topwater hard baits. Can't really remember which one I got first but the one that made the most impact was the Heddon Zara Spook Puppy and Pooch sizes. The fun factor was the multiple missed strikes until solid hook up. Then of course the twitch after multiple missed strikes for that one final attempt that brought out the hype of BAM! HOOK! UP! Something that a Popper doesn't quite have the same esoteric moment, although one can produce a similar situational presentation.

Of course stubbornness once again sets in and had to expand. I think prop baits and sinking hard baits came next. Of course had to start off with Rapala Countdown. CD1 and CD7 sizes were probably my first ones. Honestly they weren't very good at catching much fish, but the presentation was for the right scenarios. That was a split shot in the line of a typical floater F7 for example. Then somewhere I picked up Rebel Tracdown minnow and Yo-Zuri Emperor Minnow or L-minnow. Sinking minnows took a lot more attention and the presentation skills still had to be developed. I still need much more work on these. So the saying is it's far easier to work a lipless crank or metal spoon, yoyo the bottom and sweep. Secretly I picked up a rare limited production of Abu Garcia Tormentor sinking minnow 70mm. Gosh this thing just works, when I needed to get down and hop and sweep. Maybe just luck of the draw at that moment, but it works.

Prop baits, Heddon Torpedo was one of the first ones and once again Rapala Skitter prop. Skitter prop is bane for me. It's just lousy in so many ways. Just stick with the Heddon Torpedo was way more productive. Of course even a rare Bill Dance custom version of the Torpedo was fairly good, but if you look carefully, that lure rolls on it's side and somehow doesn't seal the deal in action. However the one that did the best for me was a Yo-Zuri Bass Arms Swisher. Even with it's diminutive prop and profile, it was a great fish caller. It made the right noise at the right level. Not overbearing, not loud, but fish will come to eat it.

That's it, I think it's stubbornness.

[MK49]

I will pretty much catch more fish with soft plastics, but I much rather prefer to work hard baits or even metal lures.

Interesting. I use hardbaits, mostly topwater and crankbaits 80+% of the time. I use soft baits, only when nothing gets bite or I need to slow down, because my shoulders/arms/wrists are tired. Don't get me wrong. I've caught thousands of bass with soft baits in the last 40+ years, but it's just not fun, so I don't use them much. In fact, for the last few weeks, I only caught bass on topwater, crankbaits and jerkbaits. I think I caught only one or two with soft baits. I'll use the soft bait more in the winter, though.

[kaiser]

I didn't have confidence like I had with the popper I lost yesterday. Because of that, I think I was moving poppers faster this morning. When I have confidence in the technique (in this case, moving a popper very slowly), I don't mind being slow, because I think a bass is going to hit it. But, when I don't have much confidence, I just don't have enough patience to wait long enough, I guess.

Nailed it on the head, the correlation between confidence and the speed at which I fish a lure is definitely strong. When my confidence baits don't work well, I'll often catch myself cycling a variety of low-confidence lures with a hasty presentation.