Improving Your Fishing Success

By Brett Wendel

Improving your fishing success by talking, listening, and writing

We all seek ways to improve our success on the water. But sometimes we all overlook the most basic ways to increase our catch rate. There is no overnight way to catch stripers consistently, in fact it is typically a long slow crawl; but there are ways to go from the tortoise to the hare. We have 60+ members of the club, some that rarely fish, some that get out occasionally, and others that have a terminal case of striper fever. No matter where you fall in those categories you can still benefit. The two things that I have found that help to increase an individuals success in catching stripers is first, developing a network of friends that share information (this has to be a two way street to make it successful). The second is to start a fishing log book. As members of the Lanier Striper Club, we have an invaluable resource to help achieve our goal to catch more stripers and to kill two birds with one stone.

Developing your network

We have a wealth of striper fishermen in the club who fish frequently. Many of them share information on a regular basis since they know who is getting out there on a regular basis. Often during club meetings you can often find them dining together and comparing notes. For some, this may seem like a fishing "clique", but you are actually seeing a network in action and everyone in that "clique" would like to have more members in it so that there have even more eyes on the water. We all tend to gravitate to the folks that we know and speak to on a regular basis during our meetings, but I would challenge everyone to meet and dine with someone they are not familiar with at the meetings (i.e. join another "clique.") Exchange phone numbers/email address, etc and stay in contact with those people. Don't be afraid to share your bad or good fishing trip information (that is what the "clique" is doing) Where you went, what you tried, time of day, weather condition, etc can be very valuable information, even if you were not successful. Personally, I tend to find that bad trip information is much more telling than good trip info. People tend to have looser lips when it comes to sharing where and how they caught nothing!!! This can help to eliminate unproductive waters or techniques. The main thing I would stress is to not be a wallflower, get out and meet people, even if it pushes you out of your comfort zone (as it does mine sometimes).

Start a fishing logbook

Whether it is just a notebook, an on-line program (many are free), or a purchased program, a logbook can be an extremely valuable tool for fishing. Without getting into any of the "programs" and staying with just a simple pen and paper logbook, start to document everything you see and do on the water. Include dates, times, weather conditions, weather patterns, water temperatures, techniques employed, fish caught, water depths, locations, boat traffic, bait used, productive areas, and unproductive areas, etc. You simply cannot assemble or document too much information. The other thing to document is the results of our LSC tournaments; where did the top finishers fish, what did they catch their fish on, how deep, etc. Every tournament and meeting should be a log book entry for the occasional angler and experienced one alike. This is free information that you can use for years to follow. I am always amazed by the lack of people taking notes at meetings. At the last meeting, I'll bet that there were less than 6 people taking notes. I don't care if you are new to fishing or a hard core striper addict; if you are not taking notes (and not in possession with a photographic memory), you are missing a great opportunity for logbook information. Also, our frequent guest speakers are another source of logbook entries. They are almost always speaking on topics either relevant to the current fishing season/conditions or the next one. Just the act of writing something down helps to trigger areas in the human brain that will help to ingrain that information.

After a year or two of keeping your logs, you can start to look back at the log entries from the previous year(s) and start to develop a strategy on what you should be looking for this time of the year. I generally look at the previous years' reports 30 days prior and 30 days after the current dates. It can take a couple of years before you will start to reap the rewards, but once you do you will wonder how or why it took you so long to start one.

I hope these recommendations help our members to catch more fish this season and for many more to come. Thanks for allowing me to share these recommendations with you. Please feel free to share your own thoughts as well by submitting future articles and newsletters of your own.