luck or lack of skills?
 

you ever feel like all you can catch are dinks? is it just bad luck or lack of knowledge?

clueless would be better

...was just fishing a situation this morning that would be the dream of any plug fisherman...not a swirl...made me think that when i do catch it must be luck rather than skill...not a good feeling since i fish every day...

I consider pretty much every fish I catch a result of dumb luck.

Knowledge. How do I know? The guys smarter than me are catching the bigger fish.

At least you're catching! I've seen it when its dink, dink, dink, dink 40#+ pounder!!! I've had it happen where me and a buddy are catching shorts. I take a 2 minute break, then my buddy has a 40# up on shore. :smash:

Just weeding out the little ones till yeah get that big girl

good question. I find whenever i'm "into fish" they are always around the same size. So then the question is... move on or are you happy catching fish?

oh and 95% of the time im into small fish.

For a short spell , luck. For all the time , skill

Ain't that the truth.

Let's see. 3/4 of the planet is covered in water and you want to know if it's luck when you throw your plug in the water and catch a fish? OF COURSE IT"S LUCK!!!:fishin:

:biglaugh:

I think it takes skill and knowledge to catch fish of any species, any size. But that's easy to get through practice.

I think to catch BIG fish you need a healthy amount of luck, and couple that with a lot of patience/perseverance... Getting up rather than hitting the snooze button at 2:00 AM, pulling those all-nighters around the new moon, scheduling vacations around breaking tides... The more times you put yourself into positions to succeed the better your chances will be. Worst thing you can do is to get discouraged.

A story of luck.
2003. A rock in Narragansett. Myself and my former fishing partner (pre-RIRockhound) 10 feet apart. Same rods wrapped at CMS, same blank even. Same line, same reel VS200. Throwing eels within a 50' radius. Me 3, 30# bass on 5 casts. My friend NADA. Absolutely LUCK!!!

I always think it takes skill to find fish and catch fish.......luck dictates the size of the fish.

Sort of depends on what you have you tried to cull out larger fish.

Bigger offering?
Deeper retrieve?
Slower water?
Rockier terrain?

Even a blind squirrel can eventually finds a nut, he just needs to dig enough holes.

Is that a reference to fishing the canal?

It happens that way sometimes, doesn't it? When it does to me (on the negative side of it) I'm always looking for the angle even though it would appear my fishing partner and I are doing half a dozen things exactly the same. Did I reel too fast, too slow, rod tip too high, too low, etc.. It's usually something. (at least I try to convince myself that it is.) :)

I dunno. I find certain spots and techniques will cull larger fish from the same area, even if you're fishing identical tackle to your fishing partner. Happens in my boat in SoCo more than often enough for me to think it's a coincidence. Of course on any given trip, the big fish can be caught by anyone and there's an element of luck to that. At least from what I've seen in the SoCo boat fishing contingent, it's the same guys all the time getting the bigger fish consistently year after year. These guys are fishing the same spots with similar tactics to the rest, but there's always the subtleties that only come from being out there a lot.