Do you rely on Intuition?

[Bazoo]

11 hours ago, Tennessee Boy said:

If you’re familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality assessment you know that one of the four dichotomies is Thinking vs Feeling.   Where you land on this spectrum probably determines how much you rely on intuition when fishing.  Everyone thinks and everyone feels but we all vary in how much we rely on each.   I scored very high on the thinking side.  I’m logical to a fault.  I tend to reject intuition and examine the facts as I know them.  Another of the Myers-Briggs dichotomies is Sensing vs Intuition.  Sensing means you focus on the known facts when making decisions.  Intuition means you focus more on the big picture.  I scored slightly on the intuition since on this one.

 

That said, if intuition is important to you check out the YouTube channel Intuitively Angling with Randy Blaukat.  😆

Thanks. I am familiar with personality types and how they affect a person's thinking.

 

I had made a new friend a couple years ago on the gun forum. After talking a while he asked me if I knew my personality type. I said no. He said, I think you're like me. He was INTJ. After talking to him about it, with the tests confirming it, I am an INTJ. My wife is an ISFP, almost exact opposites.

 

I have always relied on my intuition heavily. I also have always been "different". So much so that others have commented on it. But learning about personality types and how INTJs think and act explains why I feel and am perceived as different. Learning about it has helped me tremendously in my relationship with others.

 

Knowing what my wife's type is, I am able to better communicate with her, and understand why she does things differently.

 

Part of the INTJ personality is that we/I assimilate information. So I read about a subject, bass fishing in this instance, and learn all I can about it, then I am able to apply what I've learned from many articles and videos into one broad knowledgebase that I use on the water.

 

Intuition comes into play a lot, especially if I haven't had experience in a certain situation. And I often am able to connect with my intended quarry with new lures, techniques, colors, and on new bodies of water.

[Swamp Girl]

15 hours ago, BigAngus752 said:

It's important to embrace that statement.  Intuition is your unconscious processing what you are seeing based on any number of past experiences you've had, patterns that your brain has recognized, even emotional responses. 

 

Spot on.

 

And, yes, I rely on intuition. If you're ever in a canoe with me and I suggest you cast to a certain spot, do it. When I'm retrieving a lure, my head is rotating as I'm searching for the next spot that feels right. 

 

5 hours ago, A-Jay said:

Finally, If you don't think 'women's Intuition' is real, you're only fooling yourself.

 

Andy understands. 

 

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, Bazoo said:

Thanks. I am familiar with it personality types and how they affect a person's thinking.

 

I had made a new friend a couple years ago on the gun forum. After talking a while he asked me if I knew my personality type. I said no. He said, I think you're like me. He was INTJ. After talking to him about it, with the tests confirming it, I am an INTJ. My wife is an ISFP, almost exact opposites.

 

I have always relied on my intuition heavily. I also have always been "different". So much so that others have commented on it. But learning about personality types and how INTJs think and act explains why I feel and am perceived as different. Learning about it has helped me tremendously in my relationship with others.

 

Knowing what my wife's type is, I am able to better communicate with her, and understand why she does things differently.

 

Part of the INTJ personality is that we/I assimilate information. So I read about a subject, bass fishing in this instance, and learn all I can about it, then I am able to apply what I've learned from many articles and videos into one broad knowledgebase that I use on the water.

 

Intuition comes into play a lot, especially if I haven't had experience in a certain situation. And I often am able to connect with my intended quarry with new lures, techniques, colors, and on new bodies of water.

I had to take those tests in college, I think I was also ISFP but I definitely got tired of reading the questions and just started fudging answers 😂 

[Swamp Girl]

True story: This summer, when I was fishing with the kid, one spot felt soooooooooo right.

 

So, I told the kid, "Watch this retrieve. The bass is going to hit right...."

 

And when I said "...now," the bass hit.

 

I told him to cast where he caught these three bass. I positioned the canoe too and told him, "Wait, wait, now."

 

[Umphreak]

The short answer is yes. The reason I say yes is because I have thousands of hours of experience on the water and I can recognize things going on around me. As a new angler you don’t have the ability to make intuitive decisions. They might make those decisions but they do not have the experience to know if it works or not

[Catt]

On 8/9/2024 at 4:39 AM, Catt said:

Intuition: the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

 

@WRB sounds like a jig bite huh?

[volzfan59]

I equate intuition with past experience. Just like in my law enforcement career, I rely on intuition with bass fishing and just about everything else.  When the hair on the back of your neck stands up, there's a reason and you learn to listen to it.

 

In fishing, I have two Garmin units on my boat, without FFS. Basically they are to see structure, how deep the water is (I don't fish in deep water) and the water temperature. I rely on my past experiences, or intuition, as to what to throw, how fast to retrieve it, etc.

[Tennessee Boy]

On 8/9/2024 at 9:07 AM, Team9nine said:

If you follow the research, especially in the area of AI and computers, then you know there has been a lot of studies which support "intuition-based" decision making as equal to or even better than traditional logic based decision making. However, we have also seen the rise of "big data," which is beginning to swing decision making power back into the hands of 'logic.' In the past, you’ve seen this with computers like 'Watson' and 'Deep Blue,' and newer, more powerful AI based machine learning is in the news almost daily.

Very interesting post.   The nerd in me would love to do a deep dive on this subject but this is probably not the thread for it.  One of my interest is the study of randomness and the tendency that people have to see patterns in randomness that do not exist.   I’ve always believed that this is rampant in fishing and results in poor decisions driven by bad intuition or bad logic.
 

There’s no denying that intuition often prevails over logic.   One of the most interesting stories in this area is in basketball.   Basketball players have always believed in the idea that shooters get hot and cold.  Feeding the ball to the hot shooters has long been a strategy.  Mathematicians looked at the data in countless studies and for years said there was no basis for this belief.   Making a shot did not improve your odds of making the next shot.  Most players refused to believe the math geeks.   Eventually,  someone discovered that the math geeks in all of the studies had made the same error in their calculations and when it was corrected the data showed that the players were correct.

[Bazoo]

3 hours ago, Tennessee Boy said:

Very interesting post.   The nerd in me would love to do a deep dive on this subject but this is probably not the thread for it.  One of my interest is the study of randomness and the tendency that people have to see patterns in randomness that do not exist.   I’ve always believed that this is rampant in fishing and results in poor decisions driven by bad intuition or bad logic.
 

There’s no denying that intuition often prevails over logic.   One of the most interesting stories in this area is in basketball.   Basketball players have always believed in the idea that shooters get hot and cold.  Feeding the ball to the hot shooters has long been a strategy.  Mathematicians looked at the data in countless studies and for years said there was no basis for this belief.   Making a shot did not improve your odds of making the next shot.  Most players refused to believe the math geeks.   Eventually,  someone discovered that the math geeks in all of the studies had made the same error in their calculations and when it was corrected the data showed that the players were correct.

This is very interesting, thank you for sharing.

[gimruis]

On 8/9/2024 at 9:07 AM, Team9nine said:

except for one tourney I won, winning a fully rigged bass boat as top prize 😎 

Care to elaborate?
 

I knew we were already in the presence of a record holder. But also in the presence of a boat winner?

[Catt]

4 hours ago, Tennessee Boy said:

Feeding the ball to the hot shooters has long been a strategy.

 

 

[crypt]

all day every day......no matter what I'm doing.........when it comes to fishing ,it's what I live by.....

[F14A-B]

Yes I certainly do, rather than trying to explain it I will say that experience matters.. prior experience matters..

[Bazoo]

1 hour ago, gimruis said:

Care to elaborate?
 

I knew we were already in the presence of a record holder. But also in the presence of a boat winner?

I haven’t heard about the record or the boat and I surely would like to.  I have however gained respect for @Team9nine through his detailed and informative posts. I very much appreciate your addition to a subject. 

[TnRiver46]

6 hours ago, Tennessee Boy said:

Very interesting post.   The nerd in me would love to do a deep dive on this subject but this is probably not the thread for it.  One of my interest is the study of randomness and the tendency that people have to see patterns in randomness that do not exist.   I’ve always believed that this is rampant in fishing and results in poor decisions driven by bad intuition or bad logic.
 

There’s no denying that intuition often prevails over logic.   One of the most interesting stories in this area is in basketball.   Basketball players have always believed in the idea that shooters get hot and cold.  Feeding the ball to the hot shooters has long been a strategy.  Mathematicians looked at the data in countless studies and for years said there was no basis for this belief.   Making a shot did not improve your odds of making the next shot.  Most players refused to believe the math geeks.   Eventually,  someone discovered that the math geeks in all of the studies had made the same error in their calculations and when it was corrected the data showed that the players were correct.

I’ve definitely had moments back in high school (just pickup games ) where I was “feeling it.” You know the moment it leaves your hand it’s going in. And it is most definitely streaky

[Team9nine]

5 hours ago, gimruis said:

Care to elaborate?
 

I knew we were already in the presence of a record holder. But also in the presence of a boat winner?

 

3 hours ago, Bazoo said:

I haven’t heard about the record or the boat and I surely would like to.  I have however gained respect for @Team9nine through his detailed and informative posts. I very much appreciate your addition to a subject. 

 

In the late 1990s, my partner and I decided to fish a regional team trail (Team Bass of America) out of NW Indiana. It pulled in some big local sticks from that part of the state, as well as from the Chicago area, and some of the sticks from down in the southern part of the state. We fished a monthly series of tournaments throughout Indiana, which culminated with the final event in Sept.

 

At that event, on the morning of the final day, they announced where their Classic would be held, as it had been kept a secret all year, and how the qualifying process worked. As it turned out, the Classic was going to be held on Kentucky Lake. When they announced it, I was really disappointed. I wasn't much for traveling to fish, especially out of state, and taking time off work because we'd need to be down there on the Thursday before to register and start practice on Friday. So I kind of went into that last tourney with a, "if we qualify, great, and if we don't, that's great, too" attitude - lol.

 

As it turned out, we did well in that event, and even if we hadn't caught any fish, we still would have qualified for the Classic through either of the two eligible routes. I ended up taking that as a sign that it was meant to be, and weirdly got this notion that we were going to win that (Classic) tournament - like truly believed it. That was kind of a stupid notion, but I became more and more convinced during the off-limits period, which started the morning they announced the location, that we would win. I never told anyone, not even my partner. It was a weird confidence despite having only been there a time or two fishing a couple club tournaments on a completely different part of the lake.

 

The Classic rolls around in early October. We drive down Thursday afternoon, get all settled in our room, and head out on Friday morning for the one official practice day. We check out a bunch of creek arms in the immediate area, fish a bunch of stuff, and catch a few bass, but nothing crazy. It's our only practice day, so we spent all our time fishing shallow and staying relatively close, trying to maximize our time on basically unfamiliar water.

 

The first day starts Saturday morning, and we head out and begin on our best shallow areas. We spend a couple 2-3 hours running a variety of stuff, and only have two keepers to show for it, 2-3 pounds apiece. So about lunch, I'm idling around in this large creek arm, and it was the weirdest feeling. I'm kind of talking to myself, wondering where in the heck I'm going to find the fish we need to win, since I'm convinced this is what was supposed to happen. I still truly believed that would be the outcome. It was supposed to happen, despite only having 5 pounds in the well halfway through Day one.

 

Being a structure fisherman, I had looked at a bunch of maps of the area, studying up for the tourney. We never checked deep in practice, but I distinctly remembered one area that stood out to me on the maps. Much like today's maps, different manufacturers/sources had different levels of detail, and a place might show up on one map, but not really on another. One area that had jumped out at me while studying during the off-limits period only showed on one of my maps, but I liked it the minute I saw it. It was a small horseshoe shaped bend in the main creek channel, and I hadn't forgot about it. I thought I should now go check it out since our shallow morning bite had died.

 

There was still a couple hours left to fish before having to weigh-in, so I motored over to where the map showed it should be and started graphing. It didn't take to long to find the area, and I dropped the trolling motor and started moving along what I thought was the outside bend, fishing as we went. About a half hour in, we hit a keeper, then lose one, then catch another.  The last one is about 3.5 pounds, and it ties up our Carolina rig in a big brushpile. We stick with it, hoping it will swim out or free itself, but that doesn't happen. My partner swears the fish is still on, but we're afraid to just break it off. We lightly tug and pull, and this actually goes on for close to 15 minutes. Somehow, the brushpile eventually gets loosened from its resting place, and I slowly start to pull it up inches at a time from about 12 feet of water.

 

The line holds...I can see a branch, and grab it, and start pulling. Lo and behold, I see the fish still attached, bait in mouth, with the C-rig leader all wrapped through the branches. We grab the fish, get it unhooked, and well the 3.5 pound fish. Amazing.

 

We keep fishing the area, looking around. I lose a big fish that stayed deep and moved off like a freight train, unable to even turn the fish. Then 5 minutes later, I hook and land a 5.5 pound fish from the same area. In the well it goes, and time has now run out. We head back to weigh-in, and after all is said and done, we are leading after the first day. 

 

Storms move through the area as a cold front passes overnight. Winds change directions and blow out of the north on Sunday morning. We start on our shallow areas again and blank. The front has definitely affected them. About two hours in, I decide to head back to the channel location from the afternoon before and live or die there. I hook and land one bass, over 6.5 pounds.

 

At weigh-in time, the front has hurt a lot of guys. Areas got blown out, north winds affected others, and we just have one fish. But a couple guys figured out a decent bite and have 4 or 5 fish today. Everyone weighs, as they hold us back to be the last one to weigh, making a big deal about it - the only ones that still have a chance to win...but they only have ONE fish. Then we pull that one fish out of the bag and you can hear the groans along with the "oohs" and "ahhs" from various competitors. That one big fish wins the event for us, and we get to drive home with a fully rigged Nitro bass boat in tow; 19 ft., 150 HP FI engine, custom color painted and matching trailer - the works.

 

It turns out, when the tourney director asked where we caught our fish, he kind of shakes his head in disbelief. One of the local crappie guides had told him of the area, and that was their "secret" spot, which they built up by planting brushpiles all around that channel bend for the crappie to hang around. What are the odds. We don't catch the big fish that last day, we don't win. We don't get that hung C-rig fish in, we don't win. We don't find or fish that spot, we don't win. Everything that had to happen, did. It was the weirdest mental thing I've been through in tourney fishing, and I fished tourneys heavily for close to 25 years. 

[F14A-B]

37 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

 

 

In the late 1990s, my partner and I decided to fish a regional team trail (Team Bass of America) out of NW Indiana. It pulled in some big local sticks from that part of the state, as well as from the Chicago area, and some of the sticks from down in the southern part of the state. We fished a monthly series of tournaments throughout Indiana, which culminated with the final event in Sept.

 

At that event, on the morning of the final day, they announced where their Classic would be held, as it had been kept a secret all year, and how the qualifying process worked. As it turned out, the Classic was going to be held on Kentucky Lake. When they announced it, I was really disappointed. I wasn't much for traveling to fish, especially out of state, and taking time off work because we'd need to be down there on the Thursday before to register and start practice on Friday. So I kind of went into that last tourney with a, "if we qualify, great, and if we don't, that's great, too" attitude - lol.

 

As it turned out, we did well in that event, and even if we hadn't caught any fish, we still would have qualified for the Classic through either of the two eligible routes. I ended up taking that as a sign that it was meant to be, and weirdly got this notion that we were going to win that (Classic) tournament - like truly believed it. That was kind of a stupid notion, but I became more and more convinced during the off-limits period, which started the morning they announced the location, that we would win. I never told anyone, not even my partner. It was a weird confidence despite having only been there a time or two fishing a couple club tournaments on a completely different part of the lake.

 

The Classic rolls around in early October. We drive down Thursday afternoon, get all settled in our room, and head out on Friday morning for the one official practice day. We check out a bunch of creek arms in the immediate area, fish a bunch of stuff, and catch a few bass, but nothing crazy. It's our only practice day, so we spent all our time fishing shallow and staying relatively close, trying to maximize our time on basically unfamiliar water.

 

The first day starts Saturday morning, and we head out and begin on our best shallow areas. We spend a couple 2-3 hours running a variety of stuff, and only have two keepers to show for it, 2-3 pounds apiece. So about lunch, I'm idling around in this large creek arm, and it was the weirdest feeling. I'm kind of talking to myself, wondering where in the heck I'm going to find the fish we need to win, since I'm convinced this is what was supposed to happen. I still truly believed that would be the outcome. It was supposed to happen, despite only having 5 pounds in the well halfway through Day one.

 

Being a structure fisherman, I had looked at a bunch of maps of the area, studying up for the tourney. We never checked deep in practice, but I distinctly remembered one area that stood out to me on the maps. Much like today's maps, different manufacturers/sources had different levels of detail, and a place might show up on one map, but not really on another. One area that had jumped out at me while studying during the off-limits period only showed on one of my maps, but I liked it the minute I saw it. It was a small horseshoe shaped bend in the main creek channel, and I hadn't forgot about it. I thought I should now go check it out since our shallow morning bite had died.

 

There was still a couple hours left to fish before having to weigh-in, so I motored over to where the map showed it should be and started graphing. It didn't take to long to find the area, and I dropped the trolling motor and started moving along what I thought was the outside bend, fishing as we went. About a half hour in, we hit a keeper, then lose one, then catch another.  The last one is about 3.5 pounds, and it ties up our Carolina rig in a big brushpile. We stick with it, hoping it will swim out or free itself, but that doesn't happen. My partner swears the fish is still on, but we're afraid to just break it off. We lightly tug and pull, and this actually goes on for close to 15 minutes. Somehow, the brushpile eventually gets loosened from its resting place, and I slowly start to pull it up inches at a time from about 12 feet of water.

 

The line holds...I can see a branch, and grab it, and start pulling. Lo and behold, I see the fish still attached, bait in mouth, with the C-rig leader all wrapped through the branches. We grab the fish, get it unhooked, and well the 3.5 pound fish. Amazing.

 

We keep fishing the area, looking around. I lose a big fish that stayed deep and moved off like a freight train, unable to even turn the fish. Then 5 minutes later, I hook and land a 5.5 pound fish from the same area. In the well it goes, and time has now run out. We head back to weigh-in, and after all is said and done, we are leading after the first day. 

 

Storms move through the area as a cold front passes overnight. Winds change directions and blow out of the north on Sunday morning. We start on our shallow areas again and blank. The front has definitely affected them. About two hours in, I decide to head back to the channel location from the afternoon before and live or die there. I hook and land one bass, over 6.5 pounds.

 

At weigh-in time, the front has hurt a lot of guys. Areas got blown out, north winds affected others, and we just have one fish. But a couple guys figured out a decent bite and have 4 or 5 fish today. Everyone weighs, as they hold us back to be the last one to weigh, making a big deal about it - the only ones that still have a chance to win...but they only have ONE fish. Then we pull that one fish out of the bag and you can hear the groans along with the "oohs" and "ahhs" from various competitors. That one big fish wins the event for us, and we get to drive home with a fully rigged Nitro bass boat in tow; 19 ft., 150 HP FI engine, custom color painted and matching trailer - the works.

 

It turns out, when the tourney director asked where we caught our fish, he kind of shakes his head in disbelief. One of the local crappie guides had told him of the area, and that was their "secret" spot, which they built up by planting brushpiles all around that channel bend for the crappie to hang around. What are the odds. We don't catch the big fish that last day, we don't win. We don't get that hung C-rig fish in, we don't win. We don't find or fish that spot, we don't win. Everything that had to happen, did. It was the weirdest mental thing I've been through in tourney fishing, and I fished tourneys heavily for close to 25 years. 

Kinda curious, how did you and your partner reconcile the boat and trailer?

[TnRiver46]

Pretty cool @Team9nine! Which part of KY lake did your tourney launch from ? 

[Team9nine]

6 hours ago, alonerankin2 said:

Kinda curious, how did you and your partner reconcile the boat and trailer?

We each had our own bass boats already. We also each received 1099s from the org at year end stating our halves on the value of the boat for tax purposes. So we agreed and put both our old boats up for sale at the same time early that next year. The first one to sell got the new boat, and bought out the other guys half based on the 1099. My partner sold first.

 

5 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Pretty cool @Team9nine! Which part of KY lake did your tourney launch from ? 

 

Blood R. area, just north of Kenlake State Park.

[Bankbeater]

I listen to my gut all the time.  Sometimes it is a little whisper that tells me to use a different color, and other times it yells at me in a panic to get off the water and go fish somewhere else.