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Posts: 252
| I have been about to go nuts. I have lost the last 5 fish that I have hooked.
I've been sharpening hooks on lures that I don't even use.
Haven't been able to figure out what the problem was.
Finally caught and released this fish in the river today.
Feels so good to finally land a fish again.
You guys ever have streaks where you just can't seem to land a fish??
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Posts: 1023
| Yes |
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Posts: 1023
Location: Lafayette, IN | Yup. Good job staying with it. Congratulations! |
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Posts: 1455
Location: Kronenwetter, WI | Law of averages...now you have your lost fish out of the way for awhile. |
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Posts: 252
| Cowboyhannah - 11/3/2013 8:02 PM
Law of averages...now you have your lost fish out of the way for awhile.
I sure hope so. I've lost an occassional fish here and there, but 5 in a row was getting ridiculous. |
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Location: Minnesota: where it's tough to be a sportsfan! | I'm in a streak now that I can't get a BITE!! |
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Posts: 580
| Yes, I've had some crazy bad streaks before. A few years ago, lost 11 of 12. Incredibly frustrating. Had a few others streaks of losing 5 or 6 out of 7 as well. You really start questioning everything during streaks like that...hooks, line, rod action, bait/lure. At times, I was even starting to question whether it might be better to have duller rather than sharpened hooks!
But then again, I've had plenty of good streaks of keeping fish pinned as well...fact is, you can't get 'em all and believe it or not, it does even out.
Edited by Matt DeVos 11/4/2013 1:35 PM
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Location: Contrarian Island | i think i had a streak this summer of at least 12 hits on topwater, maybe 15 that just didn't connect...some were merely blow ups or swats at the bait but some were on for a few headshakes and gone... can't recall that ever happening..... again, like you say you start to question everything... we had some bad luck on LOTW this summer too with only putting 16 of 38 that hit the bait in the bag.... year before we barly lost one.... nippers suck!
Edited by BNelson 11/4/2013 1:36 PM
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Posts: 123
| I have hooked and lost 20 fish this year. Yes 20 lost. I have been pretty upset some were huge fish. Some were mistakes, some were nothing I did wrong. Just the way the cookie crumbles I think. |
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Posts: 252
| That's what kept bothering me. I kept trying to think what I was doing wrong with each fish. I had one musky on a squirrely ernie lure and I know that i did everything right. But when I got her boatside, the lure just slipped out of her mouth like she had never been hooked. She wasn't even doing any head shakes. Oh well, at least the pressure is off for now.
The only good thing about my streak was that I had 5 bites in 5 trips. I keep telling myself that as long as I'm getting bites, eventually, one will stay on. |
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Posts: 122
| BNelson - 11/4/2013 1:34 PM
i think i had a streak this summer of at least 12 hits on topwater, maybe 15 that just didn't connect...some were merely blow ups or swats at the bait but some were on for a few headshakes and gone... can't recall that ever happening..... again, like you say you start to question everything... we had some bad luck on LOTW this summer too with only putting 16 of 38 that hit the bait in the bag.... year before we barly lost one.... nippers suck!
I'm curious when you were at LOTW this past season? I was there August 3-10 and had an incredible number of fish nip my bait and throw it after a few headshakes. |
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Location: Contrarian Island | july 27th for a week... we heard similiar reports from guys before and after us.. lots of nippers this year up there |
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Posts: 28
| We had the same thing up on LOTW this past summer. Caught 15 should of had closer to 30. 'Eyes sure weren't nipping though...that place is heaven. |
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Posts: 1828
| I had probably my lowest ever landed/hooked fish ratio. There was one streak of 8 hooked and lost in a row, and a couple other streaks of 2 - 4 in a row. I was going nuts in August thinking about how many fish I was losing. Through that month I was probably under 40% landed/hooked. The strangest thing was, I started sharpening my hooks this year more than ever before, and it seemed like I was losing more than ever before.
Still, I caught a lot more than past years. One realization helped me cope with the lost fish, and then one other realization helped me keep them pinned:
First, I realized that I was fishing "better" - getting WAY more strikes than usual. And with that, a lot of those strikes were really weak ones. That is, I think I was converting more lazy follows to strikes than in past years. Lots of nips, and "closed-mouth hits". Especially the boatside strikes. I honestly think I had fish just nipping the tail more than usual. Totally true or not, it helped me cope.
Then I broke a bad slump with a 4-fish day fishing alone. It was way easier to stay super focused when by myself. Also, the first one of the day smoked my bucktail hard enough that my response was a big, sharp hookset, and I realized that all year, my hooksets were pretty weak. Since then I have been way more diligent about being ready for a strike at all times, being very deliberate about all my boatside moves, and consciously setting the hook HARD like a guy should with a musky. So the second realization was that I wasn't ready for strikes. |
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Location: Aurora | Reminds me of something my dad used to say/sing when we'd come back to the cabin with a story about one that shook off.
"I lobster N never flounder..
But I kelp'd a picture of her in my walleye jest fer the halibut."
~ahem~ |
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