Thread: Am I getting better or just lucky?

We went out on my b'day and caught over 145 fish in 5-6 hours (which didn't include the 2 doz fish that came off or cut the line). Sunfish (3 species), bass, pickerel, crappie, yellow and white perch kept us busy. Good thing my partner was skilled with a net or no way would I have boated this one:


As you can see behind me, the day was perfect: wind less than 10 mph, sunny to cloudy but mostly calm.

Sonar has improved in recent years and my Humminbird told me what areas to concentrate:
1. large flats adjacent to wetlands
2. flat drops and edges into deeper water (average depth fished:5' or shallower)
3. small humps I never knew existed in the 40 yrs. I've fished this lake
4. baitfish along with other fish per my sonar

While others were beating-the-banks fishing for bass, I wanted numbers and variety and you're not going to catch that many fish using large bass lures.
A light action rod and 8# test braid casting my small hybrid lures rigged on 1/24 oz. ballheads, found schools of crappie, perch and sunfish. It's always a blast when both of us hook fish at the same time and the only time I can say, 'mine's bigger than yours!'

You've seen many examples of my hybrids so I won't post shots of them as usual. I gave my partner a small tackle box (him also in his 70's) that included the proper jig hook sizes for the hybrid shape and size lures in the box. He was blown away by how well they worked and was convinced that braid was king as far as casting light lures, feeling light strikes as well as setting the hook at a long distance. (I put on a 2x casting distance leader over the top of his mono on three of his rods before we left the dock.)

The pads are growing nicely and they will be included next outing.

Nice. Good trip.