I think that fishing a lake that you have fished many times but approaching it like you've never been there before has advantages.

21 hours ago, Susky River Rat said:

No. It’s impossible to learn the river because it’s ever changing.

...as it flows.

 

And a dreamer's just a vessel

That must follow where it goes...

Yes, I know the three ponds I fish the most very well and only get skunked in the winter when the kitchen's only open for a short time.

Mostly I fish in one part of a 38000 acre lake and know where most of the brush piles are and underwater features are. But don't know where the fish are.

I know enough to occasionally call my shot. But as soon as I really think I know something, I get severely humbled.

My home lake I grew up near in MA is about 250 acres and I learn something new every season. Plus, weedlines and vegetation are constantly shifting so you can never truly know everything. 

I've been fishing a lake since I was 13. I'm 76 in three weeks. It's safe to say; I'm well acquainted with it, but I don't know it.

On 12/8/2025 at 5:51 AM, Lottabass said:

I think that fishing a lake that you have fished many times but approaching it like you've never been there before has advantages.

 

To me it is a big deal when you can really do this!  It’s hard but you learn or ya don’t catch much.  I try to be “expectation-less” and often times figure things out much faster when I *listen* to the lake instead of imposing my narrative on what fish should be doing.  But I still find these days to be useful lessons and often times success is something I can replicate even a year later etc.  It pays to be spontaneous and present but it also pays to have experience and a good memory in bass fishing sometimes.

You can’t “explore” every time you fish a body of water or you would be largely disappointed.  Remember the 90-10 rule, 90 percent of the fish are in 10 percent of the water.  That’s why we have all these fancy electronics and maps to help us narrow down that 90 percent.  And it’s also why we habitually return to places we’ve caught fish in the past.  When I was guiding, I had to know, with a degree of certainty, where the fish would be in order to put clients on fish.  Depending on the client, I had a “milk run” of spots that had a history of producing.  I knew a guide who spent like 3 summers fishing the entire shore Line of the 13,000 acre lake I guided on.  I don’t know if it helped him or not.  When we go to St Clair, we have “areas” that we know fairly well and have been productive through the years.  Conditions change, fish change, and we need to change with them.  

I used to do the big bass lake thing with a boat and graph and run all over the lake. I got tired of it and started fishing smaller bodies of water. I admit I wasn't very good at that style of fishing. And the inconsiderate boaters and jet skiers irritated me to no end. My main big pond/small lake is 25-30 acres. A lot of the big lake rules work and a lot of them don't. Bass there are rarely "schooled up" unless they're very young and small. I think tiny ones run in packs for safety as baitfish do and they congregate where small prey will be found. I may catch a couple bigger bass close together, but it's usually one bass and move along. I could beat that spot to a froth and waste my time. The bigger the bass, they less likely there's another in the vicinity (there are always exceptions). But I know enough to hit a particular point or laydown or patch of lilies or outside weed edge to get that one decent bass that so often is there. There are bass fishing postcard spots on that lake that never have a bass. Then there are bare spots that for some reason do hold them.

Having a "knowing" is an absolute yet in this context it depends on how one defines knowing. I believe that would be in direct correlation with an individuals level of awareness. I know that I sometimes fall prey to getting a tunnel vision where I become so focused on my retrieve and line that I'll miss things that lean towards my periphery. I have to catch myself and "switch" to a "wide angle vision" that allows me to observe more things that I would normally miss.

 

Generally speaking most folks tend to rely on a name of something and then believe they know it. I disagree. That is only the start of knowing something. My point is that I believe that I or we need to look far closer to everything to begin to know anything. When we finally see something that has always been there but we never recognized it, that's where the magic really happens. 

I know the lakes to a degree.  I've fished a couple of smaller sized lakes since I was a little kid.  I can find the creek channels, flats, and the ends of the points, when the water level allows it.  Fallen trees, grass lines, and weed beds change from year to year, and that is usually where the bass hang out.