i feel more confident than i have in years. through my late teens i quit fishing for several years. i got fed up with fishing from the bank. i would go maybe once or twice a year. 3 or 4 years ago i got a boat and started fishing alot. i feel pretty confident in my ability to catch bass. but where i used to consider a pig and jig as my bread and butter bait, i have found myself the past few times i've fished one not feeling so hot about using it. i just can't picture it working. even though it has accounted for a huge number of my fish over the years. i have caught fish on them this year. worms are kind of going that direction too. i guess this year i really got alot of confidence in crankbaits and my confidence in spinnerbaits is growing. is this normal? i guess this year i'm stuck at this one lake i've been fishing. it's really mossy, so it's hard to jig and worm fish.

I see my nephiew do that.  He will get on a bait, it will get hot for him, and that is all he will want to throw, forgetting the things that have worked for him a few weeks ago.

I suppose I do it too to an extent and I suppose nearly everybody does.  I have tried to become a situational angler.  Find different things for different situations.

I can see why fishing a jig or worm in the weeds don't sound great, I don't throw them there.  Around weeds I throw (depending on water depth and depth of the weeds)  Jerkbaits, topwater, spinnerbait, senkos....  you get the idea...

So just keep in mind that every lure has its place and don't let your confidence get shifted in a lure because of where you are fishing.  Also- just because you or the people around you lack confidence in it doesn't mean its not a good bait.  I have probably the ugliest jerkbait  I have ever seen,  I catch with it....  I didn't have much confidence in it to start with but after a couple of fish I got some pretty quick.  

my confidence gets shaky when i am in a slump. i got skunked for about 8-10 straight trips this year until last weekend. i know that alot of different things contributed, taking young kids, having a time limit (6:30-dark), etc. but i was really down on my baits and ability. personally, i like to fish until i want to stop, not when the clock tells me that it is time to go.  working myself back to the top of my confidence after last weekend though. it takes time i guess.  

I don't get hung one bait or one style of fishing. If you fish a lake for awhile you can tell how it will fish by how its layed out and what kind of cover it has. I love a jig bite but on some lakes it just don't work out and I am having to dig for something that will work. For me I look at the cover and figure out what will work for that kind of cover or depth and I use the right tool for the job. Alot of it is gut feeling.

Confidence- Its the state of mind that says If I throw a bait enough it will catch fish. It's fishing with your gut feeling of what will work where and knowing that it will work. Its making yourself believe that you will catch fish no matter what. It's knowing that If you fish in the right places with the right lure fished the right way its only a matter of time before you get on them.

after a long slump though, you begin to question your decisions, all of them!  logically, you know you are making good decisions, but you don't believe in your own abilities.  hook a couple nice ones, however, and that changes.  success breeds success.

I went through the same feelings about a month ago.

I thought  my fishing sucked and couldn't get anything to hit.  A couple fo weekends of catching some finally started bringing back my confidence.  Now, I honestly feel I can go out and catch fish with confidence.  It's not "if" but "when".  Shake it off, el jewapo, it will come back!

i'm confident that i can catch fish, it just seems that as my confidense grows in one area, it shrinks in another. i caught a few on jigs the other day. it's coming back.

Confidence, (Faith), is like a "string of pearls"... Each pearl becomes a demarcation of what worked in the past. Confidence, (Faith), the same as what Chris called "gut feeling" comes together when you apply it with experience and knowledge.

When you become "shifty" (double- minded) you begin to drift away from that which you know to be true.

el jewapo, get un-stuck at the lake your fishing or you will be stuck in other areas...

Is your Confidence, (Faith), in your lure or yourself as an angler?

If I'm fishing by myself I always try to catch at least one fish. Being "skunked" ain't no fun, it is counter-productive...

One thing I do to build my confidence is to go buy a lure that I ordinarily wouldn't purchase and take it to the lake and use it until I catch fish.

Guaranteed! The fish aren't there sometimes, but I'll find them, one way or another. Take that Fishin' 8)

i don't ever get skunked there. but i really do have to start fishing new water. it's hard though. today i got one that was between 5 and 6 to the boat and he got off. i've never felt so confident that i would catch a wall mounter as i am there. i missed another big big fish earlier. i guess it was a bass, i barely saw it. there are alot of big bowfin in there so it might have been one of those.

i do need to fish another lake. all the good lakes are just so far to drive. i drive about 20 miles to this one. if anything, this lake has taught me not to count out top water in the middle of the day. that's good to know. the other lake that has really big bass is hard to fish without a depth finder. even the people that have them don't do that great. the lake record is 15 and some change. i heard a state record was shocked up out there, and 80% of the bass in the coves they shocked were over 8 lbs. i don't really believe that. i just can't catch bass there. nothing i've tried works on them. last time i was there i saw huge bass busting shad. for atleast 15 minutes. i tried 5 or 6 lures without anything. and it's not just me, i never see anyone catching much.

This year started out really tough for me too.  All the go-to baits weren't producing like they did last year.  This year I tried something different and all my bass caught so far except for one has been on hard baits like spinnerbaits and crankbaits.  All year last year I didn't catch a single fish on them and now I have them tied on all the time.  It was tough going from a search bait back to a senko, but there are always a time a place for a lure.  Don't give up on what has worked for you in the past.  It'll come back.