How big a part does confindence play in your fishing?

On Sunday I fished a lake planning to use maggot and pelltet as bait, with meat or corn as a back up.

I caught plenty on the maggot but when I switch to pellet tthe baits dried up

On packing up I was talking to a venue regualr and he was catching plenty of fish on 4mm pellets

I did n't feed or fish long enough with pellets because I did not feed confindent the fish were taking them on the day - I should ahve stuck to the pellets longer

Might have been due to using maggots first off M'Lud. The other guy may have started with pellets and stuck with them as he was catching.
Confidence in a bait, method or venue is very important, especially when you blank after sessions of always catching.

Paul, if you were catching on maggot why did you change?
was it because you were not catching your target fish?........

Hi Peter

I feed a seperate line to the maggots for my pellets and hoped to catch bigger roach on the pellet

I'ts amazing how confidence affects a days fishing. Perhaps it's the fact you stick a method or a bait out just that bit longer, who knows? But if I fish "knowing" I'll catch I generally do. It's also amazing how you "know" when you're not going to catch.

i 100% agree with you M'lud, on my local lake i fished maggots and caught about 30 odd roach no bigger than a lb but the guy next to me was catching 15lb + carp on luncheon meat, he came over and we chatted and i gave him some worms and he swapped with me for some meat, i felt a bit rude not to try the meat so i did, i spent about an hour not catching and swapped back to maggots, i wasn't sure if this was because my swim was full of maggots and luncheon meat was new to the mix but if i don't feel confident in my kit or baits i don't seem to have a good day.

"How big a part does confidence play in your fishing?"

Hugely. However well-read, -prepared, -equipped and -skilled you are, having something bordering on undentable confidence (together with the flexibility of mind to adapt when preferred / well-rehearsed strategies are clearly eating it) makes you, at times, at least until you're beaten about the head and sent home by a Massive Blank, damned nigh invincible.

Reader's Guide: Though tongue in cheek, there's a kernel of truth in the above.


Moral: Don't let mere fish get you down!

peter crabtree said:

Paul, if you were catching on maggot why did you change?
was it because you were not catching your target fish?........

Click to expand...

Hi Peter, when you are catching fish on one bait, it is a very good time to try a new bait. So often anglers try a new bait when they are not catching fish on anything else and when the new bait fails as well, it is seen to be no good. It's hard I know, but when you are catching fish it really is the best time to try new baits and methods. However, if you have been feeding and have your fish pre-occupied on, say maggots, it is quite possible they will take nothing else anyway.

I think that confidence plays a huge part in fishing. But there are many times when I've fished 'well' and not caught. Short of stalking a fish its difficult to say what fish are taking our baits, most of us we don't actually see the fish that we catch.

As a youngster I fished maggots pretty much exclusively, and venturing onto my local canal last summer for the first time in twenty years I took maggots and had a fish a cast, nine different species biggest fish a 1,5lb skimmer. After a few similar results I took only hemp and a few tares. A bloke on the next peg was fishing maggots and catching regularly. It took an hour and a half to get a bite but when they came the fish that I caught were on average 4oz bigger than those being caught on maggots, switching to tares brought bigger fish - it almost became a comedy sketch.

There is a lake on my local club ticket - it is shallow but full of good quality fish. I've had great days on Maggots & Casters; Meat; Paste and Expander Pellets. But I've also blanked on all of those baits fished on proven methods, its a few miles from home so its a decision for me as what bait to take but I tend to stick with one and that's on end to it.

Its good to try something new but if you are going to do it if possible ask a few questions to the locals or in a tackle shop prepare you bait properly and stick with it.

My point is, if I'm catching on one bait / method I'll tend to stick with it, changing feeding patterns and rigs is something that I'm loathe to do, I know that my methods catch fish and I have every confidence in them but dangling a pellet over maggot feed for a 'bigger' fish or hurling a speculative 'feeder' out isn't going to happen it just breaks my concentration.

Mark

..........

My cousin from the posh side of the family says ' tricky Johnnies fish you know'. Bit like women, one day they want Diamonds the next day they want Gold. Puts a chap off his stroke in the crease you understand ! but they are lovely creatures though....... Oh and Women are too. { Don't want to get bowled out on this one}

My confidence just got a major boost, normally when i go fishing i always take maggots with me but today i went without and with some groundbait, corn and some hemp i had a good days fishing. It took a while to get going but once my swim started i was getting bites constantly ( i missed most of them i think this was due too hook size and corn size and the corn getting attacked by small roach)they seemed to love the frenzied garlic hemp and were jumping all around my float, so i think now i have a new found confidence in corn and other particle baits and won''t be relying on maggots so much in the future.

Confidence is very important, one reason being it keeps you focused on the strategy you are attempting to carry out. For instants if you decide to use a feeder at 40 yards and don’t get a bite after 1 hour, what do you do? Keep at it another hour, get out a float rod and have a go with that, start casting the feeder all over the swim trying to find the fish?
It takes confidence to keep faith with the original plan which may very likely pay rewards if you keep at it a bit longer. This confidence comes with getting the method to work on previous trips, or seeing someone else doing so. Also it takes confidence sometimes to set out without the maggots in order to try to get into the better fish and not settle for just knocking off tiddlers