I had another amazing day yesterday. I did even better than last week boating 7 fish to a high of 5 Lb 3 oz. I had so much fun that I took the day off today to see if I could make it 3 in a row.

So certainly if you're getting good fish 2 trips in a row on the exact same pattern you should be able to reproduce it again since virtually all the conditions are the same, right? Not so much.

I didn't sleep well last night, physically tired from 2 early mornings in a row and just not on my game today. I think the fish took a break today as well. I ended up with only my second skunk of the season. I had 3 solid pickups, missed 2 because of a dull hook and buried the hook in the 3rd only to have my leader break. I had a handful of other short hits, something they haven't done the past two times out. Overall I had fewer hits for the day.

I ran into Rodef and JCrzy4Bass launching their canoe this morning. When they saw me out there they were excited that they would get to see some of what has worked for me so well and hoped to get in on it as well. When we parted they had similar results. I'm not sure if they did anything after that.

I'll chalk today up as one of those reminders of why this sport never gets dull and drives us to beat ourselves up to continue to get better. Or was that yesterday?...

Seems typical of that body of water for things to change up quickly.  Hopefully Jay and Ron had better luck. Were you fishing deep again?

Paul, nice seein' you out there buddy.  Looks like all of us were in the same boat today (not literally) lol.

Yup, tried many different baits today, fished primarily deeper water humps and points.  Tried a few different areas with no luck really.  Had one solid hookup but had my drag set too lightly and he came off after a very brief fight.  Felt like a good fish though.  Had a couple of other light pickups when I was working deeper structure but nothing to write home about.

Tried out my new glup sinking minnows, some boo yah jigs, zoom curly tailed worms, and that was pretty much it.

Sorry to hear about the leader breakin' on that one fish dude.  Did you have him tangled up did it just break off during the fight?  Thanks for the ideas you threw our way today bud.  See you next time out.

Paul, it was cool running into you since I had never met you before.  I didn't have any luck either, just one bite on a new Strike King Anaconda that a tournament buddy gave to me to try.  This was one of my first times fishing deep water 15-25 feet and it was a whole new experience.  I guess I have a lot to learn about fishing deep based on the fact that I got skunked.  This is only the third time I have been skunked this year.  Maybe one day we can hook up and actually fish together.

Hey guys,

Thats why we call it "fishing" and not "catching."

"What a difference a day makes," like the song says.

I see guys prefishing and doing great and then on tournament day they do awful.  I am one of those guys, too.

This is what makes bass fishing so challenging.

Our mistake is thinking that the pattern will hold for a few days when in reality the patterns change from hour to hour, day to day.

Last tournament on the Chick River the guy running the boat refused to leave one spot in a creek because he had caught some fish at this spot last year.  We stayed there for four hours.

I finally spotted a bass next to a tree since I was wearing my Polarized sunglasses and he was not. He did not see the fish nor believe me until the bass went after a minnow and made a splash.

After about 10 casts to the area he finally caught him.  Meanwhile, I was trapped in the back of the boat and could not throw to the area.

He caught two fish all day because he was not flexible and he thought that the pattern earlier in the week and last year were still valid.

The second fish he caught was in my "secret pad area" on a frog. Otherwise, he did not catch anything and I got only one fishing with a big handicap in the back of the boat.

But he sticks to his milk run no matter what and I have decided to skip fishing any tournaments with him in the future if I am drawn out as a nonboater.  They guy just fishes his pattern at a few locations and he will not change anything for the entire day.

Needless to say he is near the bottom of our Club's standings.  

Sam, thanks for the response, your assessment is right on as usual. I agree that patterns change and it's a bad assumption to think that you have them "wired". I've been fishing long enough to know that and while I can be a bit stubborn I'm usually good at improvising on the water and it's part of the reason that I rarely get skunked.

I think the disappointing thing to me is that I wasn't able to stick to the basics that have become instinctual for me over the many years of fishing. I could have changed lures more, tried different retrieves and tried more spots when the hits weren't coming but it was hard to make that call because even the day before there weren't a ton of hits. The bigger disappointment was the dull hook and frayed line. I am usually very diligent at checking and rechecking all functional parts of my tackle and neither of those should have happened. As I said, I had 3 solid pick-ups and with the average of the fish I've been getting, could have equated to 10 to 13 pounds of fish. I'm going to chalk those up to sleep deprivation and get back on my game next time out.

The good news is that even with the poor results I had a great time on the water.

If you've ever tried to hit a baseball pitched by a pro or semi-pro pitcher, played a round of golf with a PGA pro etc, you gain a whole new perspective on what a high level they are performing at. The same holds true for these guys that consistently produce on the BASS tour on lakes and rivers that they don't fish often, if ever. That is just a whole other level and it's days like yesterday that give me an appreciation for their talent. It also makes yesterday easier to swallow realizing that even they have bad days.

I can't wait to get out again!