What does fishing with confidence mean to you?

Believing in yourself, your gear, and the situation at hand.

not sitting there thinking "i should change to something but i have no idea what.. "

back in my prime.. (fresh water about 13 years old) i was very confident while fishing. i knew almost everything that went on in my holes.. the when where why and what the fish were doing. but that came from fishing them every day from 5am till 8 pm. i had a routine every day.. of what plug to toss at what cover at what time of day etc etc. i could tell the difference between when a lure wasnt working due to it's type/size or because of its color..

then i found out i could lay into stripers by my house and switched over for a few years.. used the SAME EXACT routines..
between then and now i slacked off for many years.. and didn't do much fishing..

i have since lost all of that confidence and pretty much forgot my routines. and lost all confidence in most lures and baits. i fully plan on changing that this year.

i still have full confidence in one lure.. just cant find it ANYWHERE!!
over the summer we had some pretty high confidence levels on locating fish... but come august something changed.. (mostly our spot filled up with sun bathers that complained during prime fishing hours)
and we couldn't locate a fish for the life of us. from then till mid november we were running all over the south shore of mass. that a good example of not fishing with confidence.. we were constantly switching baits and plugs. spot after spot. nothing..

i am feeling very confident about locating fish from may/april till august.. come august if we cant access our spots again and slowly move with the fish we might have the same problem we did this past season.. who knows though.. the boats might fix that. hopefully we figure something out by then though. i still havent figured out what happened. i'm thinking it had something to do with all the large blues that moved in seemingly all at once. and once they disappeared it was doggy central. couldn't get into bass anywhere. just blues and dogs one after the other.. built up some confidence in pencil poppers.. but couldn't keep the blues off of them.


this year all will change!! :kewl:

tube n worm, that is confidence fishing.....lol....had to throw it in there Bubba, I'm confident in my boat skills(artificial and chunk/live), but not on artificial from shore(plenty of fish on chunk0, had luck on Storm shads last spring, but nothing else really

tube n worm, that is confidence fishing.....lol....had to throw it in there Bubba, I'm confident in my boat skills(artificial and chunk/live), but not on artificial from shore(plenty of fish on chunk0, had luck on Storm shads last spring, but nothing else really

stay away from us this year. and you will produce. :smash:

that's fishing with confidence.. fishing far far far away from tom and i. you can be rest assured the fish are not where we are. :rotf2:

atleast not where we are at the same time.. when we separate there seems to be fish.

I dont fish with him . I heard some bad things once about him and I decided I dont need to associate with people like that

Fishing with confidence is like being in the zone. You just know something is going to happen, you feel it, you will it, and it does...

I have a few things I have put together over the yrs.When the time is right.First and foremost, I am sure my gear is up to the task...I fish like a dog on point, every cast.Total concentration.This is hard to do.It'll wear most out after a few casts some slightly longer.I'm talking holding a 11' rod like u know the next hit is gonna punish you..I have landed quality fish of 35 lbs or better on the first cast.It's not luck. Another quality fish took me 7 hrs of casting to figure the timing out.Thank God I had the drive of a younger surfcaster at the time..
There's lots to be said about spending time on the water.U stumble upon things.It is how u get the confidence.If I held Ur hand an told you this is when it's gonna happen.You might last a while.But u'll tire after some time.Hey, there not always there.Thats part of the mystery..U have to build Ur own confidence.Then hopefully after a while u can build Ur own success and u can use your time more wisely..I still fish the whole tide an the turn to keep em honest.In doing that this fall run I learned a few new things.Things That put me into quality fish while most where complaining about how poor it was..Thats the great part of the sport.U never know everything but if u put the time in the fish will help ya.I happen to enjoy the sport immensely whether I catch or not.I guess I'm lucky that way.I once heard a great line from a prominent LI surfcaster.If I wanted to fish 4 hrs I would have got on a 1/2 day boat.
To sum it up fishing with confidence to me is.Having faith in my methods to the point where I'm thinkin the next cast might connect me to the fish of a lifetime.

for me it is fishing a spot that I know well enough to know what,where and when to cast.If I'am not catching fish I don't question if it's something I'am doing.I know theres no fish around even thou I always have a hard time aceppting it:)

fishing a spot or area you know,hitting tide,wind just right and you make the cast you want to make you can almost see the fish waiting to hit.alot of times it happens other times the skunk.peace and quite when your in the zone-thats what fishing is like for me.

Knowing your quarry, and knowing that you, your gear and your tackle are all up to the task.
Sure, getting fish on every cast sounds like fun, but if that were the case, we'd all be doing something else because fishing would have lost it's thrill.
My biggest thrills have come from fishing the canal after a couple of hours tossing Sluggos and Storms amidst a number of others, and when they leave (due to lack of action) I know the fish will be back.
(And they ALWAYS come back!)

it means to me never giving up and having great patience and also enjoying the whole experince fish or not. i use the same ideaology with my hunting.