With out a boat LOADED with every gadget.  It takes a lot of shore casting to learn the right spots each day & light conditions.

Most likely not 1K casts, but a jerkbait.  It took me the better part of a season to catch a fish with one. I fished Original Rapalas for decades like a crank. Now, it's one of the first baits I tie on after ice-out and there's usually one attached to one of the rods on my deck throughout the season.

Jerkbait is close for me. I'll reach for it, make a few casts, catch a dink, and put it back up. It's like the dink curse... happened again today. Wouldn't bite any kind of crank, paddletail, and were too far off the bottom for a jig or t-rig. Cast it out, caught a dink. Stuck it out and caught ...  a second one. 

 

 

I’ve never caught a bass on a square bill. 

Jigs took me a long while to learn, then it was the bladed jigs after that. Oddly enough now they're a couple of my favorite baits. The drop shot was another that took me a long time to get the hang of. 

Believe it or not, I had a tough time with frogs. There are many variations between popping, walking etc. I could never get to a point I was comfortable using them, especially here in Indiana where locally I do not have a ton of floating vegetation like pads. 

 

I dedicated some time to it, and got a good walk with them, with the right equipment of course. Now I love throwing frogs, and won a local tournament late last year using a black Vega frog!

37 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Jigs took me a long while to learn, then it was the bladed jigs after that. Oddly enough now they're a couple of my favorite baits. The drop shot was another that took me a long time to get the hang of. 

I am still a noob when it comes to drop shots. I need to get on that early this year. I my tournaments here are often times on crystal clear lakes full of smallmouth. This is a priority for me this year as well!

Spinnerbait. I passed the 1000 cast mark back in the early 90s, still never catch crap