A common question on this site is what lure to use when fishing is tough . There are a lot of reasons a person is not catching fish and often the  lure has  little to do with it .For example ,  I just watched a Youtube video with Jason Christie and he   had just weighed in a nice bag . He stated  the fishing was tough and he only had two fish late in the day . He pulled into the right cove at the right time and caught the final three keepers .   Having a lure that will work for the conditions encountered is paramount but there are so many variables that answering the question "what lure to use when the fishing is tough"  is difficult   . Like the elderly Indian  on the movie The Outlaw Josie Wales said  " endeavor to persevere "    translated " keep on keeping on "

"If I can find the fish, there's no fewer than 5 lures I can use to catch the fish"  

 

---Gary Klein----

 

I totally agree.  

One thing that Gerald Swindel said that has always stuck in my brain is something along these lines: There is no such thing as "the fish are not biting", have you ever been to a Chinese buffet and not seen someone going up to get food? Fish eat all day, all the time if a meal is presented to them... it's your job to figure out where they are and what they want. 

 

(i'm paraphrasing of course)

It's ez to blame the bait or weather or the fish. It's hard to evaluate bad days on the water and realize it was lack of focus not working hard enough or not being willing to look for fish or patterns one may not be comfortable with. Thats why i have some tough outings. 

 

36 minutes ago, TOXIC said:

"If I can find the fish, there's no fewer than 5 lures I can use to catch the fish

Thats an excellent statement .

25 minutes ago, sully420 said:

It's ez to blame the bait or weather or the fish. It's hard to evaluate bad days on the water and realize it was lack of focus not working hard enough or not being willing to look for fish or patterns one may not be comfortable with. Thats why i have some tough outings. 

Very true, and you might not have the skillset or correct gear to fish the technique that would be most effective on that particular day. 

That's why experience will always be the most important thing you can acquire in fishing. Sweet rods coming in a close 2nd of course. 

Some lures require skill to operate and some require zero input from the angler.  Some baits can be rigged a 100 different ways and some only one way.  It's a lot more complicated than just which bait.

Remember the Skill vs Luck thread a while back?

 

 

 

 

Mike

I believe all anglers go through phases, and one that is with us from the beginning is that there is some secret lure that will always catch fish, its of course not true. A broader statement that ill make is that there really aren't any secrets anymore, atleast none that are required to know in order to catch fish. The information is out there but some must be learned simply on your own by fishing.

 

Here's two statements that I have found to be 100% true

 

1. every lure I own will catch fish

2. no matter how tough it is someone is catching them

My head can be a mess when its tough.  But, generally, when I'm not catching fish, my mind tells me that I haven't found hungry ones yet.  This comes from low confidence in getting on active fish, I suppose.  So, I don't generally 'assume its the lure'.  However....what's really nuts is that if I've gone, say, an hour without a bite; and then I boat a fish not having changed anything -- without really thinking about it, I often change the lure very soon after.  Crazy, I know.  My pea brain says that I probably had the right areas and targets all along, but I just happened on one stupid fish that hit my 'wrong' lure.  If only I'd had something else on, I'd already have a limit....don't ask 

5 hours ago, scaleface said:

 Why assume its the lure ?

Because the vast majority of people aren't Spoonpluggers 

The reason people assume its the lure is because the lure is a concrete thing you can point to that either caught fish or didn't.

 

It took me an embarassingly-long time to understand the importance of location over the lure, but once I did, my success went way up.

You can use 1k lures in a body of water with no fish and not catch anything ..and you can use 1 lure in a body of water filled with fish and catch them all

. 1st step is finding 2nd is what lure ..mind over matter 

2 hours ago, Maxximus Redneckus said:

 ..mind over matter 

Or, in other words ...... free your mind, your arse will follow ! 

While I do not know the exact quote Rick Clunn once said "Catching fish is easy but finding them is hard". The other saying I heard was "I would rather have the wrong lure in the right place than the right lure in the wrong place". 

 

I will say once I started concentrating on finding fish as apposed to whether my soft plastics had a certain flake makeup my catch rate went up. 

 

Allen

In other words, every lure in our tackle box has potential but not if we cast it into a mud puddle 

20 hours ago, scaleface said:

 A common question on this site is what lure to use when fishing is tough . There are a lot of reasons a person is not catching fish and often the  lure has  little to do with it .For example ,  I just watched a Youtube video with Jason Christie and he   had just weighed in a nice bag . He stated  the fishing was tough and he only had two fish late in the day . He pulled into the right cove at the right time and caught the final three keepers .   Having a lure that will work for the conditions encountered is paramount but there are so many variables that answering the question "what lure to use when the fishing is tough"  is difficult   . Like the elderly Indian  on the movie The Outlaw Josie Wales said  " endeavor to persevere "    translated " keep on keeping on "

Good subject. The most recommended lure is not worth much if the bass don't want to bite it on a particular day. It is up to the fisherman to figure out what lure the bass wants and give it to the bass in order to catch that bass. That involves time on the water which is the best teacher for anyone that fishes for bass and everyone needs to do the best they can to learn on each fishing trip if they plan on becoming a better bass fisherman.  

19 hours ago, riverbasser said:

I believe all anglers go through phases, and one that is with us from the beginning is that there is some secret lure that will always catch fish, its of course not true. A broader statement that ill make is that there really aren't any secrets anymore, atleast none that are required to know in order to catch fish. The information is out there but some must be learned simply on your own by fishing.

 

Here's two statements that I have found to be 100% true

 

1. every lure I own will catch fish

2. no matter how tough it is someone is catching them

Well said, especially #2

I ran into this as a non boater in my last tourney. My boater insisted on fishing trees. I was catching fish off rocks behind him. He went through a handful of baits but when he finally cast to rock he boated his first and a keeper. We then proceeded to fish dead water for 5 hours and he kept saying I can’t find the right bait, I didn’t have the heart to say we were on the dead pattern from two weeks ago.

I'm sure advertising and marketing has a lot to do with it, as well as human nature. Coming from a commercial background, find the fish always comes before catch the fish or there's no $$$, I just apply the same approach to my bass fishing minus the coolers, totes, and ice.

Completely agree scaleface. So many variables in fishing! How can we explain so many good fish caught on the "wrong" lure each year. Timing, place, and presentation are a bigger factor I think. Too many guys , when starting out, get hung up on 1 magic lure. Really, there's no such thing

"The barometer was invented by fishermen so they would have an excuse for not catching fish."  John Geirach

The only thing that I have noticed over the years is that fish either will chase a bait and crush or or they want a bait that is sitting still or dropping straight down.. Once I figure out which it is I choose one of many options in those two categories. The thing I finally quit doing is trying to force feed them a crank when they don't want to chase their meal.

Next after location is timing; just because you don't get bite does not mean the bass aren't there or you tied on the wrong lure.