The top 10 fishing mistakes—and how to avoid them!

#8 IGNORE NEW IDEAS

If you were among the very first anglers to fish slow-death rigs for walleye, Ned rigs for bass, Bondy Baits for lake trout and double-bladed Cowgirls for muskies, you know how learning fresh new fishing tactics can really give you an edge. I count myself among the blessed to have been at the forefront of each of those trends, but nothing keeps producing forever, unfortunately—despite the unbelievable efforts of a select few anglers to keep those techniques under wraps, they soon became public knowledge.

So, when you read about a technique for the very first time in a reliable source—such as this very magazine—or hear about it from a trusted friend, you need to assess it immediately to see if it lives up to the hype. If it does, quickly perfect the technique and add it to your arsenal. Then milk it for all that it’s worth while you can; every innovation eventually becomes commonplace, and the fish get conditioned to it.

#9 DON’T EXPERIMENT

It takes an ingenious angler to devise a totally new technique to effectively catch fish. Take Dave Spaid, for example. He removed the spinner and beads from a crawler harness and replaced the hook with a bent Tru-Turn hook to make the nub of a worm corkscrew through the water. The walleye just couldn’t resist it. I remember chatting with Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Famer and walleye pro Gary Parsons about being schooled twice by Spaid and his then secret slow-death technique in the prestigious South Dakota Governor’s Cup.

Likewise, my buddies Doug Stange and Al Lindner were among the very first anglers to drop a white tube jig—intended for open-water bass fishing—down a hole in the ice for lake trout. When I first saw them work their tube-jig magic, I actually freaked out and fretted that the country’s laker populations would be in peril. It’s just that effective. The take away here? Never stop experimenting, because the best fishing techniques have yet to be invented.

#10 ONLY FISH WITH LIVE BAIT

I rarely use live bait, not because it’s unfair, but because you can almost always catch more and bigger walleye, bass, trout, muskies, northern pike, panfish and salmon with artificial presentations. That’s especially so when you’re searching for the fish of a lifetime, and doubly so when you’re ice fishing. Then why do so many anglers favour live bait? Ironically, it’s because it keeps them in the game, but just enough. Sure, you can usually catch some fish with live bait, but not the biggest or the most.

Don’t believe me? The next time you get on a good live-bait bite, say for smallmouth bass, tie on a Whopper Plopper, X-Rap, Ned rig or marabou jig instead and go at it. I’m betting that all your minnows, crawlers or leeches will wither up and die before you make the mistake of using them again.